Under Canvas

Canvas Catches, and Maybe Passes, Blackboard (Inside Higher Ed)
     Blackboard dominated the U.S. learning management system market for 20 years, but new data show its cloud-based competitor edging past it.

By Lindsay McKenzie
July 10, 2018

   Canvas has unseated Blackboard Learn as the leading LMS [Learning Management System] at U.S. colleges and universities, according to new data from MindWires Consulting.
     In a blog post on Monday, Michael Feldstein, partner at MindWires Consulting and co-publisher of the e-Literate blog, wrote that Canvas now has 1,218 installations at U.S. institutions, compared with Blackboard’s 1,216. Although the two-figure difference may seem insignificant -- and Blackboard and some of its allies say the data don't accurately reflect the two companies' relative reach -- most analysts agree that Canvas's ascent, largely at Blackboard's expense, is noteworthy.
     “This is a stunning development for a company that seemed to have established an unbreakable market dominance a decade ago,” wrote Feldstein.
     At its peak in 2006, Blackboard controlled approximately 70 percent of the U.S. and Canadian market, with its nearest competitors “far, far behind,” said Feldstein. But slowly Canvas, and others such as Moodle and D2L’s Brightspace, have closed the gap.
Blackboard and Canvas now each control 28 percent of the U.S. higher ed LMS market, followed by 23 percent for Moodle and 12 percent for Brightspace, according to MindWires Consulting's data partner, LISTedTECH.

     The rise of Canvas to near market dominance is one that “nobody would have predicted,” said Feldstein.
     The Canvas LMS is offered by Instructure, a company that was established in 2008 -- several years later than Moodle (2002), D2L (1999) and Blackboard (1997).
     Yet Canvas’s “cloud-based offering, updated user interface, reputation for outstanding customer service and brash, in-your-face branding” have helped it to surpass these more established systems, said Feldstein…. (continue)