Our new central learning environment has officially launched to students for 2025/26 and your contributions have played a vital role in ensuring a smooth start to the semester.

While we recognise that colleagues have dedicated considerable time and effort into the move to Canvas, we are pleased that many of you have already been sharing positive feedback on your experiences.

The new template will provide a more consistent experience for students – an improvement frequently highlighted in student feedback, and as a Faculty, we are proud to offer our most flexible and inclusive digital learning environment to date.

As we approach the final stages, please take note of the key actions required and the support available to you.

Publish your courses

If you have not yet published your courses, please take the time to follow the guidance to ensure that students are able to view their course content. Once a course is published, you can continue to improve and add to course content.

The publication process is very quick and must be completed by the teaching staff on the unit so that unit coordinators are not overwhelmed with enquiries from students about access to Canvas content.

Add links to lecture recordings in your Canvas course

We have been asked about arrangements for lecture capture and how students will access lecture recordings from Canvas.

Lecture recording arrangements for staff remain unchanged in Canvas. Your lectures will be recorded and uploaded to the video portal, as was the case with Blackboard.

In order for students to access lecture recordings, you will need to add a link to the video portal in your Canvas course. To maintain consistency across the Faculty, you should add the video.manchester.ac.uk/lectures link to the Course Information module of the course. For guidance on how to do this, please see the ‘how-to’ instructions. You can find this guidance and much more on the Canvas Go! Site.

Ongoing support and training

We will continue to offer a range of support throughout Semester 1 on the Faculty’s Adopting Canvas SharePoint site, including training materials and expert advice from our eLearning team.

Please remember that Blackboard will switch off on Friday, 17 October, so it is essential that all necessary information has been downloaded prior to this date. Please continue to remind your students to download any assessments, feedback or key materials they may need in advance of this deadline.

If you have any questions or need assistance, please do not hesitate to contact the eLearning team.