Pepperdine Canvas LMS Transition Plan
Overview
After careful consideration, a comprehensive learning management system (LMS) study, and a successful pilot program, the Provost and Deans of each of our schools have selected Canvas, by Instructure, as Pepperdine University's next LMS starting Fall 2025. Learn more about Pepperdine Canvas.
We believe that Pepperdine Canvas will serve our faculty and students well by fostering an academic ecosystem that enables impactful learning experiences. Review the resources on this page to understand the process of moving from one LMS to another, to find helpful documentation, and review answers to common questions. Students and staff may contact Tech Central for more information. Professors may contact Technology & Learning or their local campus support staff.
This transition only applies to classes using Courses/Sakai. It does not impact Digital Campus.
Sakai Access Ends
Community access to Courses/Sakai will end on June 1, 2026.
Pepperdine's LMS Journey
After almost 15 years, Pepperdine University is moving from Courses (powered by Sakai LMS) to Pepperdine Canvas. Sakai has served the University well; however, multiple factors influenced the University's decision to change LMS platforms, including market adoption, user-friendliness, expanded features, and others. Starting in 2023, the Technology & Learning team launched an LMS Study to evaluate the academic needs of our community. From there, the team evaluated the LMS marketplace, and the University chose Canvas to pilot in Summer and Fall 2024. Students and faculty provided positive feedback about Canvas, and the study's findings were shared with University faculty and academic leadership. The Provost's Office made its official decision in January 2025. Multiple town halls were held to support the change, along with major training and outreach efforts. The Fall 2025 term was the official launch of Pepperdine Canvas as Pepperdine's primary learning management system, and also the final term for classes on Sakai.
Benefits of Canvas
- Mobile app for students and instructors
- Intuitive and modern design
- Built-in support, including 24x7 live chat and phone
- Flexible academic ecosystem to support teaching and learning
- SpeedGrader for faculty
- Better document preview features
- Better notification options and reminders
- More frequent daily enrollment updates (6x a day!)
- and more...
LMS Town Halls
Three LMS Transition Town Hall sessions were held in Spring and Summer 2025 to share important details and features of the transition. Review the recordings (Pepperdine login required):
Pepperdine Canvas Training
Review a few of the training sessions held in Summer and Fall 2025 (Pepperdine login required):
- Introduction to Pepperdine Canvas (3 min, 34 sec. A fast preview of the new LMS.)
- 3 Essentials of Canvas (1 hr, 30 min. A great introduction to teaching with Pepperdine Canvas.)
- Canvas Assignments Basics for Faculty (1 hr, 31 min. Learn the core steps to create and evaluate assignments.)
- Canvas New Quizzes Basics for Faculty (1 hr, 32 min. Learn the fundamentals of creating, administering, and grading New Quizzes in Pepperdine Canvas.)
- Analytics, Grades, Files, Syllabus, and Attendance Tools (1 hr, 23 min. Review important features to set up and use your class site.)
LMS Migration Process
To assist our faculty, Technology & Learning (TechLearn) will migrate course content from Courses/Sakai to Pepperdine Canvas upon request.
Before Making the Request
Be mindful of the following before submitting a migration request:
- Only faculty, school administrators, or academic support staff may submit migration requests.
- Not all sites are eligible for migration.
- Not all content will transfer (Pepperdine login required). For example, only instructional content, not student grades or data, will migrate. Also, some Sakai tools lack parallels within Canvas.
- Only one definitive version of an instructor's course can be migrated (not all sections taught in the past).
- The requester should be the primary and/or sole instructor of the course (please confer with any co-instructors).
After the Request
The migration process can take 5-15 business days. Once migrated:
- The TechLearn team will notify the requester once the site is ready, provide next steps, and suggest a 1:1 consultation for a site review (with TechLearn or the school's support team).
- The Pepperdine Canvas site will contain "MIGRATED" in the title.
- Carefully review and edit the site before importing to a live class section.
- Review the Sakai vs. Canvas Tool Comparison (Pepperdine login required) to better understand what transferred and where.
- Copy and review the Post-Migration Checklist (Pepperdine login required).
Using a Migrated Site
Important Notices:
- Never enroll students in a migrated site. It is intended for copying to a live, official class; never for teaching purposes.
- In the Pages tool of the migrated Canvas site, instructors will find pages about incompatible or orphaned content (e.g., "Bad Links"). In the page content, there may also be "Bad Link" warnings. Review, edit, or update accordingly.
- Sakai exams or question pools will be converted to Canvas Classic Quizzes. Instructors will need to take steps to review each question and make Canvas Item Banks as needed.
- When ready, import the site content to your live class site.
Pepperdine University would like to acknowledge and thank Duke University for permission to use its Duke LMS Data Transfer Tool. We also wish to thank the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for permission to adapt its documentation on the tool comparisons between the Sakai LMS and Instructure Canvas.
LMS Transition FAQ
Select a topic below to learn more.
What About Project Sites?
Project Sites on Courses were used for many purposes, such as committees, file sharing, class design templates, or communication. They filled a gap before the University had other collaboration platforms, like Google Workspace.
Moving forward, the focus of Pepperdine Canvas will be academic coursework and training. Only project sites directly tied to academic coursework, i.e., supporting direct instruction and program completion, will be considered for migration to Pepperdine Canvas. Also, Pepperdine Canvas is dedicated to current Pepperdine faculty, students, and staff only; it does not support unmonitored guest accounts for external users.
Never fear! Committees, schools/departments, and individuals will leverage powerful tools like Google Shared Drives, Google Groups, and Google Sites for knowledge-sharing or collaboration activities. In some cases, school and academic program informational sites may want to consider whether a page or section on the school's Community website may be a good fit.
Migration Options
- Academic Coursework Program Sites: Community members with academic coursework program sites may submit migration requests starting in mid-Fall 2025, for transition before Summer 2026. Due to the volume and priority of class site migration, we cannot accept/process project site requests until the fall.
- Non-Coursework Project Sites: Community members with personal or collaborative project sites for non-academic coursework may begin downloading content from Courses immediately. They should request the appropriate Google Group (if necessary) and create a Google Shared Drive or Google Site for continuing their business, research, or personal interests. To bulk download content in Resources, site maintainers can consider using the Transfer Files (WebDAV) or Compress to Zip Archive features. Community members may also review the export and download links on the LMS Retention webpage.
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