Canvas Implementation: Graduate Intern Team
A key aspect of the Canvas Implementation was the Faculties decision to bolster the resources of the eLearning team with a small but enthusiastic and dedicated group of Graduate Interns. Their contribution proved invaluable during a time-sensitive and large-scale transition.
The interns played a central role in auditing every course unit within the Faculty. They systematically reviewed modules to check compliance against the Canvas template and alignment with the Faculty NSS Action Plan. Alongside this quality assurance work, they also identified and flagged examples of good practice—particularly where course design and staff communication helped foster a sense of community and created a supportive learning environment for students.
As recent graduates, the interns brought a unique and highly relevant perspective. Their lived experience as students allowed them to “sense check” decisions around template design, structure, and usability, ensuring that developments remained student-centred and practical.
Beyond Canvas unit reviews, the interns led on the redesign and development of key student-facing digital spaces, including the Student Hub SharePoint site and Departmental Common Room areas. Working in partnership with School TLSE teams, they helped streamline content by removing outdated materials, reducing duplication, and establishing a clearer “single point of truth” for guidance, policies, and forms. Their work focused on improving usability and ensuring content remained current, accessible, and aligned with student needs.
The team also provided hands-on support in rebuilding complex Canvas spaces, particularly for large, full-year and lab-based courses. With many academic staff managing multiple units under tight timelines, this support was critical in ensuring courses were ready for teaching.
In addition, the interns contributed to the Faculty training programme by developing online help resources, supporting training sessions, and assisting with departmental bootcamps.
Overall, the Graduate Interns made a significant impact—bringing energy, insight, and adaptability to the project. Their work not only strengthened the implementation process but ensured that student voice remained at the heart of every decision.
The Digital Learning graduate Intern team have been a crucial part of the Canvas Implementation within FSE. Their recent experience as students has provided invaluable insights into our decision making processes throughout the Canvas project. Having them review every course unit space across the faculty has provided us with so much useful information as to how we can further improve our online teaching spaces, it’s also given us the confidence that we are delivering a consistent structure of information across all course units, the lack of consistency was the single largest piece of feedback we received from Students about the previous VLE platform.
Dan Jagger FSE eLearning manager
