Canvas vs. Skyward Student Management System

If you have a school you can let teachers easily create new deadlines which [automatically] get shown in the calendar. Teachers can also [temporarily] hide deadlines [until] they've given the explanation about the tasks. [Besides] that the teacher can also choose what should be uploaded, should it be a link, file, pdf, link,...

Skyward SMS is well suited as a Student Management System for anyone who wants to drive their organization based on data. The capabilities of using the fields available as well as adding our own custom forms make data collection extremely easy. Reporting abilities take that data and allow us to make sense of what has been collected

Incentivized

• Learning management - Even as the educational landscape rapidly shifts due to current events, Canvas is a great LMS for providing a consistent learning environment for students.
• Mobile accessibility - Students can access their courses on Canvas from a variety of devices, including their smartphones.
• Rich content - Instructors have the ability to create dynamic and engaging content for their courses.

Incentivized

• Skyward does well with managing the students' information. It was easy to find a student's schedule, grades, behavior record, or family information because it was all separated out.
• Another strength is the system’s way of requesting time off. All of the steps are laid out in a organized manner, and you can check the status of the request with one click.
• Skyward also pairs well with other applications. Whenever I need a substitute for a class, Skyward links me to Aesop (the absence software) and allows me to put in the request. When I’m done, Skyward updates automatically with that information.

Incentivized

• Their integration with Big Blue Button was a bust for distance learning. Would be great to see them collaborate with Zoom or Google Meets.
• Their "feature request" process is slow and cumbersome at times because it relies on user "up votes" to get ideas addressed by the developers.
• They seem to have a lot of turn-over with their staff. We get a new Customer Success Manager far more frequently than with other vendors.

Incentivized

• Skyward's reporting can get confusing so it would be nice if it was cleaner and possibly came with some common reports other schools use too.
• Skyward's GUI is out of date and needs a refresher.
• Skyward can have compatibility issues after an update.

Incentivized

Several factors contribute to my "10" rating. First, our university just made an enormous switch to Canvas, after we were with Blackboard for almost a decade. So garnering buy-in was critical, and not something we took lightly. After nearly 18 months (start to finish) of training faculty, educating stakeholders, and migrating courses, I am not looking to make a change again anytime soon. But I am happy with the result and the product overall and that is also demonstrated in my rating.

It is the system I am most comfortable with, so having to learn a new system outweighs any problems I have with Skyward.

Incentivized

The functions in Canvas are well integrated and consistent across the application, and mostly intuitive. Overall navigation and setup is streamlined through integrated features and navigation. The feedback we've gotten from our program participants is that it is easy to learn to use. It also integrates well with third party software like Google Docs and Blackboard Collaborate web conferencing software

Incentivized

It takes some time to get used to navigating the features and layers, but once you know your way around it, it's pretty good.

Incentivized

I do not personally use Canvas support since we have a central office that helps us. However, our central office always has the answers we need and are always able to solve our issues - so I would assume that get great support from the Canvas team on their end. They also offer great training, which uses materials directly from Canvas

Incentivized

Overall great job, issues were taken care of. People in support do care.

Incentivized

The training sessions were broken down into several days as well as different levels depending upon the knowledge of the user

Incentivized

The online tutorials and videos are very clear and addressed the issues/questions that I had about using the system.

Incentivized

Once you purchase and sign the contract there is nothing to install or hardware to buy. You can almost immediately start using it and have courses up and going within weeks. We signed in December and had pilot courses online ready to go for the start of school in January

Incentivized

Yes, I was part of the implementation team.

Incentivized

Canvas is in the experience way better than Google Classroom. Canvas has a
more robust agenda system that also allows adding in new personal
deadlines. [Assignments] can be submitted past [the] deadline (if allowed),
this isn't allowed by Google [Classroom], If you're too late you can't
submit anything anymore. In Classroom [assignments], presentations/theory, and [announcements] are all put in 1 feed instead which gets confusing way
faster.

Incentivized

Skyward is used differently at our school than GoGuardian. GoGuardian is used to monitor student use of technology during school hours, and Skyward is used to track student data such as attendance, uniform, tardy arrivals, grades, and behavior. Overall, Skyward's interface is more user-friendly than GoGuardian. GoGuardian requires even more clicking around to find what you are looking for

Incentivized

• Teachers have consolidated their content onto one platform which has decreased reliance of students on so much support staff assistance to access content.
• Canvas has helped make technology transitions more seamless for the school community.
• Once teachers have set up their page, Canvas really takes care of it all- they have much more time to focus on content creation and synthesis rather than the actual learning management system.

Incentivized

• I believe that we have had a great Return on our Investment as we have been using this software at a district-wide level for several years now and it keeps being an effective management software system for our students and families.

Incentivized