Yaaaayy!

Purely personal.

The latest version of courseware was completed in July, and I submitted it to the publisher. Supposedly they had a deadline of Dec 31 to check it over and send it out.

They wanted me to verify that it can work in the Canvas LMS. Canvas is now the most popular LMS, overtaking Blackboard and Moodle. I had already verified this two years ago, but the publisher believed for some reason that it didn’t work in Canvas, and insisted that I must verify again.

The whole area of e-learning is quickly turning into a closed circuit, totally proprietary and credentialized. Previous open testbeds and sandboxes have disappeared. Canvas requires an expensive “integration agreement” in order to test the product properly. In July I made the arrangements for such an agreement, and handed the info to the publisher, and then nothing happened until January. Like everyone else in the current situation, the publisher is overworked and understaffed, and this one project is low on their priority.

Since July I’ve been on tenterhooks, waiting to see what will happen, and overanxing as always. Did they totally abandon the whole project? Am I out? Will Canvas let the sandbox happen? Tune in next week! This undoubtedly added to my current ‘used up’ feeling, along with the overall exhaustion from surviving in the “virus” NAZI TORTURE CAMP.

Two weeks ago the publisher reached the project in their stack and started action again. We activated the expensive sandbox, agreeing that I’ll pay half of the cost. After getting the sandbox set up, there was (of course) more waiting and mysterious permissions, but FINALLY we got the whole thing running yesterday so I can start testing and verifying.

Just now I uploaded the first lesson and verified that it works perfectly and registers grades in the gradebook. I knew that everything worked perfectly two years ago, but wasn’t sure if Canvas had changed versions, which might have accounted for the publisher’s belief that it doesn’t work now. Nope, no change. I followed the instructions I wrote two years ago, and everything runs properly as it did two years ago.

SUCCESS.

= = = = =

A few days later I finished checking all the lessons. All work perfectly, and in the process I found and fixed a couple of old typos. Double success.