STORIES, CONNECTION, LEARNING

iBiology Courses Update

How to access our course content in light of Canvas Free-for-Teacher being discontinued by Instructure

Dear Learners & Educators,

We’re saddened by the unexpected news that Canvas Free-for-Teacher, the Learning Management System (LMS) that hosted our courses, has been discontinued by Instructure. We are hopeful that we may be able to make the courses available through Canvas again in the future if a new platform becomes available.

In the meantime, individual learners and students can continue to access the course content through each course’s eBook and YouTube playlist. Educators who have access to Canvas through their institutions are welcome to upload the free Canvas cartridge and provide the course directly to their students. The Canvas cartridge, along with additional instructional materials and resources, can be found in the Educator Resources section of each course. Login or sign up for a free account to access.

We apologize for any inconvenience this change may cause and appreciate your understanding. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or need assistance accessing the course materials.

by Alexandra Schnoes, PhD

At iBiology Courses, we embarked on a journey to create KinesinLMS, a lightweight and developer-friendly Learning Management System (LMS) for hosting research online courses. Born out of necessity, KinesinLMS fills a gap in the e-learning landscape, offering a straightforward solution for small teams with limited development resources. Our goal was to build an LMS that’s not only simple to use but also highly extensible, allowing for the creation of novel, domain-specific features within the platform.

The name KinesinLMS pays homage to the small yet powerful molecular motor protein discovered by Dr. Ron Vale and colleagues. Dr. Vale, the founder of iBiology and iBiology Courses, and a member of the Science Communication Lab’s Board of Directors, inspired us with his groundbreaking work. Just like its namesake, KinesinLMS is designed to be compact and efficient, yet capable of driving significant educational initiatives forward.

We’re excited to announce that we’ve submitted a paper about KinesinLMS to the Journal of Open Source Education, detailing its development and features. The software is now available on GitHub, and we’re eager to connect with software developers, coders, and educators interested in using or contributing to the project. If you’re part of a team looking for a simple, open-source, Django-based LMS that you can manage and extend yourself, we’d love to hear from you at [email protected] or on the KinesinLMS discussions page.

iBiology Courses Update: Canvas Free-for-Teacher Discontinued
iBiology Courses Update: Canvas Free-for-Teacher Discontinued

How to access our course content in light of Canvas Free-for-Teacher being discontinued by Instructure

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This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences under Grant No. 2122350 and 1 R25 GM139147. Any opinion, finding, conclusion, or recommendation expressed in these videos are solely those of the speakers and do not necessarily represent the views of the Science Communication Lab/iBiology, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, or other Science Communication Lab funders.

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