When the University of Massachusetts Amherst made the monumental decision to move to a single learning management system—Canvas—it wasn’t just an IT project. It was, at its core, an instructional design challenge. And that’s exactly where I came in.
I led the instructional design portion of the transition. While IT focused on integrations and infrastructure, our team focused on what mattered most to instructors and students: the learning experience. After all, LMS platforms host courses—and courses are designed experiences. Our responsibility was to ensure those experiences were not only preserved in the move but enhanced.
At the outset, I organized internal training sessions for our instructional designers and educational technology staff—keeping them informed and confident. These were offered in both synchronous and asynchronous formats to mirror the flexibility we’d later provide to instructors across campus. I also spearheaded the development of workshops and Canvas training courses, facilitating many myself, with a constant feedback loop in place for refinement.
Alongside these efforts, I collaborated closely with K16, the vendor providing concierge migration services. Together, we mapped out a strategy that would minimize disruption for faculty while maximizing efficiency in moving thousands of courses from Moodle and Blackboard into Canvas. It wasn’t just about logistics—it was about trust. Faculty needed to believe that their content, their years of work, would make it across the bridge intact. My job was to ensure that confidence.
Early conversations between the instructional design team and IT were critical. These were not always easy meetings—there were different priorities, languages, and success metrics at play—but we found common ground in our shared mission: make this transition smooth, functional, and transformative.
Our collaboration was particularly essential as we worked with K16 to set service expectations. Migration sounds simple in theory, but when dealing with nuanced course designs, archived materials, third-party tools, and accessibility standards, complexity multiplies. We knew we had to iron out policies and procedures early on, even while acknowledging that agility would be key.
Having lived through a similar transition at Texas State University, I drew on that experience to create faculty personas—each representing different user behaviors and support needs. Some instructors would be early adopters and Canvas champions. Others would be overwhelmed, needing a high degree of hands-on assistance. Many fell somewhere in between.
These personas were more than theoretical—they helped shape our support strategies, from how we framed our communications to the structure of our workshops. They ensured that we didn’t just roll out Canvas, we rolled it out thoughtfully.
One of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of this project was the project management work. While there was a larger PM overseeing the cross-campus transition, I served as the day-to-day project lead for our instructional design and training team. That meant tracking timelines, unblocking staff, resolving conflicts, and making sure that migration, training, communications, and support all moved forward in sync.
It also meant interfacing across departments—IT, academic leadership, accessibility offices, and vendor teams—to ensure that no decision was made in isolation. That kind of cross-functional work is messy, but it’s where real progress happens.
This transition wasn’t just about technology—it was about culture, communication, and instructional transformation. I’m proud to have had a seat at the table, and even prouder of the table we helped build. By grounding this work in the realities of faculty needs and the principles of good instructional design, we created a transition that centered learning, not just logistics.
