ASTANA – KAZGUU is the first Kazakh university to introduce Canvas, an LMS (learning management system) that makes the educational process flexible, secure and scalable. It can be adapted to users’ needs and releases teachers and students from paperwork.
Photo credit: kazguu.kz.
“After the business trip of the university’s President Talgat Narikbayev to a foreign university in order to exchange experiences, we got acquainted with a system that allows us to implement an online educational environment for students and teachers. Canvas platform is the product of American developers and the company has about 4,000 partners worldwide,” said distance learning department head Sarman Tuleubayev.
“After a long study and analysis, we came to the conclusion that this platform has a number of competitive advantages and satisfies the needs of a modern university, which aims to provide high-quality and modern education,” he added.
Designed to manage educational activities and develop and distribute online materials, Canvas is in line with KAZGUU’s decision to reduce paperwork. Students and faculty no longer need to deal with hard copies or books, as all teaching materials can be downloaded to the system, thereby simplifying and structuring a lecturer’s work.
The platform also offers speed grading, which allows the faculty member to set criteria according to estimates and recommends a particular grade for a student. The function involves the principles of artificial intelligence, according to the university press service.
Canvas is used by more than 3,000 universities, educational institutions and millions of individuals throughout the world, including Brown, Harvard, Northwestern and Yale universities; Columbia Business School, University of California – Berkeley, University of Chicago – Booth School of Business and University of Pennsylvania.
The system has a mobile app that allows users to download tasks to their smartphones. Most importantly, students can create a virtual online environment, allowing them to share knowledge and information within the platform.
Canvas conforms with the Digital Kazakhstan programme, which President Nursultan Nazarbayev presented in September 2017 when he highlighted the importance of highly qualified personnel training. It demonstrates the need to revise educational policy and KAZGUU is implementing the new technology under the programme, according to the university administration.
