Transition to Canvas Learning Management System

Background

On December 22, 2025, NCCCS President Jeff Cox announced a system-wide contract award to Instructure (Canvas) for a unified learning management system (LMS). This transition provides alignment with the Department of Public Instruction and the University of North Carolina institutions already using the Canvas LMS.  

Objectives of this transition are: 

• Enhancement of the student experience with consistent and familiar LMS platform understanding. 
• Cost efficiency in contract and service negotiations. 
• Enhanced professional development training that is sharable and consistent across the NCCC System. 
• Increased content and course collaboration among NCCCS, DPI, and UNC education sectors. 
• Compliance with Senate Bill 133 / SL 2025-62 (2025-2026 Session) - North Carolina General Assembly signed by the Governor, 7/3/26. This Law requires:  
  • Solicitation for one LMS for NCCCS.  
  • The contract award is due on 12/31/25.  
  • Transition to the awarded LMS by 12/31/27.  
  • NCCCS may be exempt from the DIT procurement process. 

Transition Timeline

Transitions to Canvas will begin in January 2026 and conclude by 12/31/27.  

• 1/7/26 Communication by Dr. Brian Merritt, Senior Vice President, and Chief Academic Officer, to college presidents regarding the implementation process. 
• 1/8/26 Letter and Cohort Selection survey distributed to college presidents. 
  • Cohort One: 3/2/26 – 5/12/26
  • Cohort Two: 4/1/26 – 8/3/26 
  • Cohort Three: 3/1/27 – 5/12/27  
  • Cohort Four: 4/1/27 – 8/3/27  
• 1/20/26 Cohort Survey responses due. 
• 1/27/26 Announcement to Presidents of college cohort assignments.

Timeline Cohorts 1 and 2

What this Schedule Means for your Community College 

The current NCCCS LMS contracts for Blackboard Learn and Open LMS (Moodle) will continue during the two-year implementation phase to provide continuity of service and support for colleges. 

The Anthology Help Desk provided for all NCCCS college LMS users will continue to provide support across all LMS solutions. 

What Colleges Can Do to Prepare for Migration 

• Communication: Inform all faculty and staff of the implementation project and the cohort assignment for your college. 
• Contract management: Communicate to instructors and students that the current LMS will be in place during the implementation phase. 
• Third-party Integrations: Identify all integrated services and platforms used in your current LMS and notify all third-party vendors of your college’s timeline transition to Canvas. Discuss the necessary steps to integrate the resources into Canvas and provide training as needed. 
• Course Cleanup: Before you migrate to a new clean environment, identify the master courses you want to keep and archive or clean out the rest of your course collection. 
• Storage: Develop a plan for storage of your current legacy courses. Options include purchase of glacial storage with your current LMS vendor or use of an AWS-LMS subaccount of your master AWS account.
• Get a jump on training: Introduce faculty and staff to Canvas Free-for-Teacher. This environment allows instructors to work on a Canvas course and become familiar with this LMS solution. 
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