Situation
The Arctic University of Norway (UiT) has a uniquely remote yet nationwide presence. Students and staff are spread across multiple campuses, small towns, and distant regions, making for a dispersed student population. This broad reach, while impressive, makes it difficult to deliver a consistent quality of online teaching to students far and wide.
Insights
UiT has long recognised that flexible and digital modes of teaching and learning are essential to providing a consistently high-quality learning experience for all students, regardless of geography.
In its 2022–2030 strategy, UiT explicitly commits to “strengthen flexible learning to ensure that young and adult students in small and large places acquire the knowledge, competence and skills the future will need.”
The teams at UiT quickly recognised, however, that their teaching teams didn’t have the tools nor the training, to deliver a consistent quality of blended and remote learning to students.
Solution
UiT adopted Canvas as its LMS and integrated Canvas’s technology partner CidiLabs.
Prior to Canvas, faculty lacked support in online pedagogy, often replicating face-to-face methods rather than redesigning with digital experiences in mind. Now, Learning Technologists work with faculty to redesign courses in Canvas. They also introduced modular templates and design patterns (via CidiLabs DesignPLUS) to help instructors focus on pedagogy rather than layout or formatting.
What’s more, multimedia content such as video and audio was previously a production burden for staff, rather than a learning tool. Now, teaching staff are empowered with guidance, infrastructure, and co-development for creating video and audio in Canvas.
Outcomes
Since implementation, Canvas LMS is seen as an online hub where students participate in activities, collaborate, and engage with teachers, regardless of where they are. And by guiding teachers to plan their courses with a clear structure in Canvas, all students now experience courses that are more organised and purposeful.
Every course now has a familiar look and flow: clear modules, consistent layouts, and logical navigation, which means students no longer scramble to find materials - they can focus on learning.
Fast forward to today, and UiT offers many flexible, fully remote, and blended courses through Canvas, and every student can be guaranteed a consistently high quality of learning, no matter where they are.
When courses are built with the same structure, students know what to expect. No matter which subject they’re taking, they get a consistent, high-quality learning experience. Canvas helps us to deliver this consistency, taking unnecessary cognitive load off of students and teachers
Nathalie Blomstereng
Learning Advisor, UiT
What’s powerful is the consistency. Whether a student is in Tromsø, Alta, or studying online, they’re getting the same level of structure and interaction. That makes learning fairer and more engaging for everyone.
Andrea Watkins Pérez
Learning Advisor, UiT