Brown University's primary LMS, Canvas, is only available for use with provisioned academic courses which students register for through CAB/Banner. There are several tools provided through Brown University that can be used for non-traditional use cases. Below are a list of options available to Brown University community members.
NOTE: The following tools are not managed by DLD - please use the linked resources for more information.
Brown Sites is a WordPress based site available to faculty and staff who would like to create a professional website for academic purposes.
To learn more, visit Sites.Brown.Edu Website.
Common Brown Sites Uses:
- Individual faculty and staff pages
- Conferences
- Workshops
- Lab and research studies
- Organizations and partnerships housed at Brown
Brown faculty and staff have access to a variety of Google products ideal for educational purposes. The following tools can be leveraged for your program and provides you the flexibility to invite users outside of Brown.
- Google Classroom - a streamlined, easy-to-use tool that allows users to create classes, distribute assignments, grade and send feedback.
- Google Sites - an application where faculty, staff or students can design interactive websites to share information about their course.
- Google Drive - a personal cloud storage service which allows users to store and share folders, files, and collaborative documents (Google Docs, Google Sheets, etc...)
To learn more, visit the Google Workspace Learning Center.
Common Google Classroom Uses:
- Non-credit courses
- Workshops
- Discussion groups
- Writing collaborations/draft submissions
Common Google Site Uses:
- Orientations
- Program Information Websites
- Resource / Content sharing
- Workshops
- Group/Organization Websites
Common Google Drive Uses:
- Content sharing
- Collaborative content creation
- Document review
Adobe Express is a suite of products by Adobe that are free to Brown users which aims to lower the barrier for anyone wanting to achieve inspirational digital designs. Express products are web-browser based, but can also be used via mobile apps, and projects are saved and published in the cloud.
To learn more, visit this resource provided by the Brown Creative Arts and Technology Spaces.
Common Adobe Express Uses:
- Faculty / Student portfolios
- Student projects / Group projects
Workday Learning is Brown University's new learning management system used for compliance training and professional development.
To learn more about adding your program to Workday, submit a Workday ticket here or email [email protected].
Common Workday Uses:
- Compliance Training
- Self-paced Training
- Self-enrolled Training
Brown University Library supports the pilot program, Digital Scholarship at Brown, which provides faculty and staff access to flexible web and server space separate from Brown's standard IT infrastructure. To learn more and to see if your use case is eligible, please visit the Digital Scholarship at Brown's Guidelines for Use website.
Common Digital Scholarship Uses: **
- Research blogs
- Complex web sites
** Digital Scholarship at Brown sites must support the user’s teaching, learning, or research activities at Brown
Other Options
Instructure, the vendor for Canvas, offers a "free to individuals" version of Canvas that is not managed by Brown University. Creating a free Canvas account and site gives the instructor full control of their space - including enrollment management and allowing participants outside of Brown University.
NOTE: This is a free tool that is not Brown affiliated or supported. Users will need to create a Canvas account specific to the free version.
To create a free account, please visit the Canvas Free-for-Teacher login page. For help creating an account and logging in, please visit the Logging into a Free-for-Teacher account help article.
Common Free-for-Teacher Uses:
- Personal portfolio
- Cross-university workshop spaces
- Sharing copies of course materials with instructors at other institutions
- Keeping copies of courses for personal use