CMS Evaluation 2016 Faculty Experience

The MiraCosta CMS Evaluation Faculty Experience concluded at 7:00 am on Thursday, March 31, 2016. Refer to the CMS Evaluation 2016 page for more information.

Welcome to the MiraCosta CMS Evaluation Faculty Experience

If you have arrived at this page but want more background on MiraCosta’s course management system evaluation process, please click here.

You are invited to review Canvas, Blackboard, and Moodle, and provide feedback on how well these systems are suited to meet MiraCosta’s strategic learning needs for the next five years. This page will help you follow these steps:

  1. Access Blackboard, Canvas, and Moodle
  2. Explore sample courses already built in each CMS, and try out instructor tools
  3. (Optional) As a student, explore the CMSs/sample courses
  4. Provide feedback in our survey before 7:00 am, Thursday, March 31

Note – if you prefer to explore the systems in a lab environment with assistance, come to OC 1201 on Friday, March 18, between 12 and 3 pm.

Access each CMS

Click each link below to open Blackboard, Canvas, and Moodle. You may explore them one at a time, or open them all in separate browser tabs to compare them side-by-side. Don’t log in with your usual username/password – rather, use one of the evaluation accounts. These are 25 shared evaluation accounts set up with instructor-level access to pre-created courses.

Log in with an evaluation account:

  • username: teacher1 (or teacher2, teacher3, teacher4, … up to teacher25)
  • password: (same for all 25 evaluation accounts)
Blackboard https://blackboard.miracosta.edu
Canvas https://miracosta.instructure.com
Moodle http://miracosta.mrooms.net

After you log into one system, you will not need to re-enter the username/password for the other systems.

These 25 evaluation accounts are shared, so changes made by someone logged in with the same username you use will be visible to you (and vice versa). Therefore, accounts such as teacher23 might be more “pristine” than teacher1.

Explore CMSs as an Instructor

Several courses are already developed in each CMS. You may modify these if you like, or just explore them from the instructor-level perspective.

Each system is set up with copies of a Film 101 class from Billy Gunn and a Student Orientation to Online Learning from Jim Julius.

In addition, Canvas includes copies of an English 100 class which Curry Mitchell is currently teaching as an OEI pilot class, and two faculty development classes from @One: Introduction to Online Teaching and Learning, and Introduction to Teaching Online with Canvas.

Instructor help resources for these systems: Blackboard  |  Canvas  |  Moodle

Explore CMSs as a Student (optional)

You may switch from instructor to student view within the CMSs by following the directions for each system:

  • Blackboard
  • Canvas
  • Moodle: Find the Administration block on the left side of the screen, click Switch role to… and select Student View

Alternatively, you may log out of the sample instructor account and back in as a student in any of the systems, using:

  • username: student
  • password:

Provide Feedback

After you have reviewed the CMSs, click here to take the Faculty Survey and provide your input. The survey will close at 7:00 am on Thursday, March 31.

Bonus: If you’ve made it this far, THANK YOU!