Canvas vs LearningZen

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Our analysts compared Canvas vs LearningZen based on data from our 400+ point analysis of LMS Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Product Basics

Canvas helps you create and deliver engaging courses to your students and track their progress in real time. It allows you to post course materials, assignments, quizzes and grades. Students can access these resources, submit their work and communicate with other team members.

You can host discussions through discussion boards and chat rooms, provide personalized feedback using SpeedGrader and track student progress with built-in analytics. Canvas integrates with third-party apps like Zoom, Webex and GoToMeeting, and offers three mobile apps, one each for teachers, students and parents.

User reviews about Canvas praise its smooth interface, real-time collaboration tools and course creation capabilities. Since pricing details aren't mentioned online, you can contact the vendor directly for more information.

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LearningZen is a robust Learning Management System (LMS) designed to streamline the training process for businesses, particularly those in industries like healthcare, retail, and hospitality. It excels in creating, managing, and delivering online training courses with ease. The platform is particularly beneficial for organizations seeking to enhance employee skills and ensure compliance with industry standards. One of its standout features is the intuitive course builder, which allows users to develop engaging content without technical expertise. Additionally, LearningZen offers insightful analytics to track learner progress and performance. Users appreciate its user-friendly interface and the ability to customize training paths. While specific pricing details are not publicly available, LearningZen typically offers flexible pricing models that cater to different organizational needs. For precise pricing information, it is advisable to contact SelectHub for a tailored quote. Overall, LearningZen is praised for its efficiency and adaptability in meeting diverse training requirements.
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Product Insights

  • Ensures Continuous Learning: Experience minimal disruptions with a 99.9% uptime. Say goodbye to unexpected crashes and keep your educational ecosystem reliable and accessible at all times.
  • Enriches Learning with Unlimited File Size: Upload as much audio, visuals and video content as you need to courses. File size is not limited, so you can provide comprehensive and engaging materials without worrying about storage constraints.
  • Strengthens Collaboration: If you’re looking to create collaborative learning experiences for your team, Canvas is the perfect LMS for you. Based on our analysis, it provides a variety of collaboration tools fully out of the box, such as discussion boards, content sharing, group chat, two-way messaging, and notes and annotations.
  • Ensures Consistency in Evaluations: Create centralized repositories of questions at account levels. For instance, you can create sub-account question banks to store assessments like basic grammar rules across various courses. This ensures consistency in evaluations across different classes, making it easier to access and administer assessments. 
  • Offers a Flexible Pedagogy: Enable instructors to design classes around their preferred learning methods. That could mean standards-based grading, traditional grading, flipped learning, project-based learning and more.
  • Streamlines Corporate Training: Use Bridge LMS, Canvas’ corporate training solution, to meet your employee training needs. Create and track training programs, use built-in performance tools, integrate with HR systems and more.
  • Award-Winning LMS: Canvas ranks among our top 10 LMS software, alongside LMS giants like LearnUpon, Absorb LMS and Moodle. In the SelectHub Awards 2024 for the LMS category, it won best-in-class honors for assessments, collaboration, compliance, user management, gamification, and integrations and extensibility.
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  • Easy To Use: Register for an instructor-led training program with an intuitive interface that suits both authors and students. Guide writers step by step in content creation through the comprehensive course building tool. Manage employee performance easily and send them messages quickly. 
  • Customizable: Customize the learning experience for employees by monitoring daily performance and tailoring course content based on employee’s areas of weakness. Provide personalized tests, assessments, curriculum, trainer-led customized guidance, and certificates on course completion to address each employee individually. 
  • Ensure Collaboration: Empower employees to communicate better through an internal messaging system and dialogue boards. Create collaborative easy-to-understand online courses in the form of inactive quizzes and videos with an incorporated course-builder. Also, integrate various content from third-party sources (i.e., SCORM, AICC, xAPI). 
  • Mobile-Friendly: Enable learners to access content easily anytime from anywhere from a mobile-friendly dashboard. Make sure employees never miss any updates related to training. 
  • Offers Scalable Pricing: Its tiered pricing accommodates organizations of all sizes, providing room for smaller businesses to upgrade as they grow. 
  • Generate New Revenue: Make extra income by selling tutorials and customized lessons to other organizations online via e-commerce. 
  • Leverage Proactive Support: The vendor prioritizes customer success and offers all kinds of launch assistance for every event with the help of professionals who physically attend events to assist company workers with product and event launches. Support can also help companies migrate all pre-existing training materials into a single location and accelerate the content assembly process, publishing content as quickly as possible. 
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  • Course Creation: Create new courses using built-in interactive tools. Add specific details like name, course code, due date, language, grading scheme, modules and sections, description and more.
    • Announcements: Share key course information with everyone. Remind students of dates and tasks, point them to valuable resources, celebrate achievements and highlight events. You can include text, multimedia and files.
    • Grades: Show grades as points, percentages and complete/incomplete. Filter and arrange Gradebook entries, automatically apply grades for missing/late work, and hide grades until you're ready to release them.
    • People: Depending on permissions, add students, teachers, assistants and observers. Create student groups for group assignments, discussions and file sharing.
    • Pages: Create interactive content like weekly updates, collaborative wikis or resource lists. Include text, multimedia and links, and allow students to contribute to specific pages.
    • Files: Easily insert files into modules, assignments, discussions or pages. Share files with students or lock them until ready for download.
    • Quizzes: Use the New Quizzes engine for diverse question types. If unavailable, use Classic Quizzes to achieve your objectives.
    • Modules: Organize content by weeks and units. Add files, discussions, assignments, quizzes and more. Set prerequisites or lock modules until specific dates.
    • New Analytics: Use the New Analytics tool to monitor who has viewed content and participated in assignments and identify students needing extra support.
  • Dashboard: View published/unpublished courses, access the calendar and upcoming events, start new courses, view grades, enable notifications and more.
  • Assignments: Include quizzes, graded discussions and various online submissions (files, images, text, URLs media). Assign to everyone or set different due dates for specific groups. Organize assignments into groups, weigh them by percentage, and enable Peer Review for student feedback.
  • Gradebook: Easily input and distribute grades using various methods, such as points, percentages, pass/fail, GPA scale and letter grades.
    • Use SpeedGrader to assign grades and provide feedback efficiently.
    • Automatically create columns in the Gradebook for assignments, discussions, quizzes, surveys and attendance tracking.
    • View grades by grading periods, sort by due dates or student names, and apply specific filters for streamlined management.
    • Download and grade assignments offline and calculate totals.
    • Monitor grades across all courses, notify students of graded assignments and manage grade history.
    • Customize grading curves, message students based on assignment status, leave private comments and excuse assignments when necessary.
  • Rubrics: Set custom or outcome-based assessment criteria to communicate quality expectations. Use rubrics to align learning outcomes, assess submissions in SpeedGrader and support non-scoring assessments for comprehensive grading.
  • Canvas Catalog: Integrate with Canvas Catalog to streamline course offerings.
    • Easily bundle multiple courses into programs and enable registration for community education and professional development.
    • Create branded sub-catalog listings for specific departments or organizations.
    • Customize page templates for FAQs, contact info and individual course landing pages.
    • Set up personalized certificates and automate their distribution.
    • Allow students to track their progress with customized dashboards.
    • Generate reports on course progress, registrations, revenue and enrollment trends.
    • Offer hassle-free self-registration and self-paced courses with automated enrollment, payments and certificate distribution.
    • Build, manage and customize courses and programs.
  • SpeedGrader: Quickly grade student submissions in one place with SpeedGrader. Use a simple point scale or detailed rubrics to assign grades, and accept various document formats and URLs to mark up assignments directly for feedback. Sort submissions by student, hide names for anonymous grading and track your progress. Easily view submission details, handle resubmissions and manage moderated assignments.
  • Intelligent Insights: Enhance teaching and learning effectiveness with Intelligent Insights, a premium analytics solution tailored for admins.
    • Use AI and analytics to gather actionable data.
    • Leverage conversational AI for quick ad hoc data requests and pre-built analytics for tracking goals such as course effectiveness and student success.
    • Customize insights to pinpoint best practices, optimize LTI usage and address learning needs.
    • Build custom dashboards and automate SQL queries to streamline data management and improve learner support.
    • Identify courses that need improvement, notify instructors promptly and foster continuous improvement across teams.
  • Roll Call Attendance: Manage attendance in courses using the Attendance (Roll Call) tool, an external LTI app suitable for both online and face-to-face classes. Enabled at the account level, users can access it across all courses within your Canvas account.
  • Discussions: Communicate about course topics anytime. Create graded or casual discussions for idea exchange and problem-solving. Use threaded discussions for detailed topics and focused discussions for short exchanges.
  • Assessments: Administer assessments in the form of assignments, quizzes and discussions.
  • Assignments
    • Allow students to submit assignments online through text entry, file uploads, media recordings, external tools, URLs or Canvas pages.
    • Assign to individual students, groups or sections.
    • Include a due date for Not Graded assignments, without providing points or grades.
  • Discussions
    • Grade student responses to discussion topics.
    • Assign to individual students, groups or sections.
  • Quizzes
    • Conduct surveys or assess student comprehension of course content through quizzes.
    • Assign to individual students or sections, but not to groups.
  • Collaboration: Teachers can communicate with individual students, groups or the entire class through messaging, audio notes, video and more. Students can work together via chat groups, video and other messaging tools.
  • Mobile App: Provide equal access to curriculum and instruction with native mobile apps for students, teachers and parents on iOS and Android devices.
  • Canvas Student: Enables students to access courses anytime, anywhere. They can:
    • View grades and course content.
    • Submit assignments.
    • Keep track of coursework with a to-do list and calendar.
    • Send and receive messages.
    • Post to discussions, take quizzes and watch videos.
    • Receive notifications for new grades and course updates.
  • Canvas Teacher: Helps teachers manage their courses anywhere, both in and out of the classroom. This app offers quick access to three main tasks:
    • Browse submissions and give feedback to students with the enhanced mobile SpeedGrader.
    • Send announcements and messages (like "Message Students Who..."), and join course discussions quickly.
    • Change due dates, publish assignments and correct misspellings directly from your phone.
  • Canvas Parent: Allows parents to see their child's educational details easily at a glance. They can:
    • View assignment descriptions and due dates
    • Set reminders for assignments
    • View assignment and course grades
    • View course announcements
  • Outcomes: Set and track learning goals. Focus on skills and activities, not just grades. Assess progress using the Learning Mastery Gradebook. Import existing outcomes and align them with course rubrics.
  • SIS Imports: Upload and integrate data from SIS using CSV files or through the Canvas API. Manage users, accounts, courses, enrollments, logins and more. Use IMS Enterprise Specification XML zip files or Banner Grade Exchange Results XML for automated imports.
  • Canvas Studio: Create, deliver and organize video content in various formats within your media library using Canvas Studio.
    • Upload videos directly from devices or integrate them from YouTube into courses.
    • Monitor student engagement by tracking views, duration and interactions.
    • Connect with platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Hangouts.
    • Engage students with interactive video quizzes, real-time feedback and integrated Gradebook.
    • Provide personalized feedback using SpeedGrader and customize learning paths with MasteryPaths.
    • Encourage student participation through video creation and peer feedback.
    • Integrate instruction, assessment and additional learning opportunities directly into the video experience.
  • Conferences: Integrate with BigBlueButton to host lectures, office hours and group meetings. Broadcast audio/video, share slides, and demonstrate applications and resources.
  • ePortfolios: Create ePortfolios to display and discuss your students’ submissions and experiences. Allow them to collect and document educational projects, assignments and more. Keep ePortfolios private or share them with peers, instructors and future employers.
  • Video Assessments: Create engaging video quizzes where students answer questions as they watch. Give instant feedback and automatically submit grades to the Gradebook. Review videos and provide comments. Use SpeedGrader to apply rubrics and offer quick, personalized feedback.
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  • Student Dashboard: Enable students to start learning as soon as possible, with an intuitive, mobile-friendly e-learning interface in the form of a customizable dashboard, with an integrated help center. Register for instructor-led courses, send messages and track progress with ease on what needs to be started, finished or reviewed. 
  • Collaboration: Enhances communication between learners and educators via built-in forums, discussion boards and an internal messaging system. 
  • Reporting: Monitor overall employee performance. Track exact areas of learner's weaknesses through reports in order to help strengthen them moving forward. 
  • Course Builder: Create online course content with its integrated, easy-to-use course builder and instructional designers. Collaborate directly with employees on various aspects of content authoring to develop appealing multimedia content. 
    • Media Formats: Supports various media types, like Microsoft Office Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, Excel spreadsheets and more; audio and video files both owned and borrowed; and SCORM-compatible materials from products like Adobe Captivate, Articulate, Storyline, etc. 
  • Exams and Assessments: Streamline students’ learning experiences with regular tests, assessments and quizzes that demonstrate knowledge and provide certification for learners. Provide instructor-led feedback for additional insight. 
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Product Ranking

#10

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LMS Software

#34

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Analyst Rating Summary

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Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

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AI-based Capabilities Assessments Collaboration Compliance Content And Course Management ECommerce Learning Delivery Mobile Capabilities Platform Capabilities Reporting And Dashboard User Management And Gamification 0 82 100 83 91 92 75 87 74 97 99 0 25 50 75 100
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User Sentiment Summary

Excellent User Sentiment 5849 reviews
Excellent User Sentiment 4 reviews
91%
of users recommend this product

Canvas has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 91% when considering 5849 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

96%
of users recommend this product

LearningZen has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 96% when considering 4 user reviews from 1 recognized software review sites.

5.0 (11)
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4.4 (1482)
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4.8 (4)
4.6 (3998)
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4.5 (77)
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4.5 (281)
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Awards

Canvas stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award

LearningZen stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

User-Friendly Interface: According to 60% of users who mentioned this pro, Canvas offers an intuitive and navigable interface, and is easy to use for both instructors and students.
Mobile Accessibility: The Canvas mobile app, praised by 72% of users, offers a responsive design and on-the-go access on various devices.
Best-In-Class Integration Capabilities: 55% of users said Canvas integrates well with a wide range of third-party tools and services, and helps create a customized learning environment.
Effective Communication and Collaboration Features: 45% of users appreciate Canvas’ communication tools, specifically discussion boards, announcements and email.
Personalized Course Design: Canvas offers flexible course designs, allowing instructors to create personalized learning experiences for their students, said 40% of users.
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Intuitive Platform: LearningZen is recognized for its user-friendly design, making it simple for administrators to set up and manage training courses, and for employees to navigate and engage with learning materials.
Customizable Training: The platform's course builder and monitoring tools empower businesses to create tailored training solutions that align with their specific requirements and objectives.
Cost and Time Efficiency: LearningZen eliminates the need for traditional training logistics, such as travel and physical accommodations, leading to significant cost savings and reduced time away from work.
Consistent Training: The platform enables businesses, especially those with multiple locations or franchises, to deliver standardized training content, ensuring consistency in knowledge and skills development across the board.
Strong Customer Support: LearningZen is commended for its responsive and helpful customer support team, providing users with assistance and guidance when needed.
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Technical Glitches and Bugs: Nearly 40% of users report experiencing technical issues, such as system crashes, data loss and bugs.
Steep Learning Curve for Complex Features: According to 30% of users, while the overall interface is user-friendly, more advanced features have a steep learning curve.
Rigid Due Date Policies: Some users mentioned that Canvas's rigid due date rules can be challenging for students who submit work late due to technical issues or other reasons.
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Limited Customization: While LearningZen offers free templates, businesses with unique branding or course design requirements might find the customization options restrictive.
Potential Feature Limitations: As a cost-effective solution, LearningZen may lack some advanced features found in higher-priced LMS platforms, potentially limiting certain training functionalities.
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Canvas is an eLearning solution used for online, in-person and hybrid learning in a variety of educational settings. Users praise its smooth interface, mobile accessibility and integration capabilities, while also highlighting some technical and usability challenges that may require attention.Users found the system easy to use and navigate, and were happy with its vast suite of features, especially the grading, assignments and assessment tools. Most reported that it’s budget-friendly and had positive experiences with customer service.On the downside, users said they encountered bugs and glitches in the program. They requested a more flexible due date policy and more ease of use in advanced features.All things considered, Canvas is a versatile LMS that provides a modern platform and industry-specific features to make learning more engaging and personalized. It may require some initial investment in training and customization, but it delivers a positive overall experience for both instructors and students.

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Is LearningZen truly a state of learning tranquility, or does it leave users feeling like they're stuck in a digital detention? User reviews from the past year suggest that LearningZen is a breath of fresh air in the often-complicated world of Learning Management Systems (LMS). Users consistently praise its intuitive design and user-friendly interface, highlighting how easy it is to create and manage training programs without needing a PhD in computer science. This ease of use is a major differentiating factor, as many other LMS platforms are often bogged down with clunky interfaces and a steep learning curve. Imagine being able to launch a new training program within hours instead of weeks – that's the kind of efficiency LearningZen offers. While LearningZen excels in its simplicity and ease of use, some users have pointed out limitations in certain features. For instance, the platform might not have the same level of advanced customization or integrations as some of its competitors. However, these limitations appear to be minor compared to the overall positive experience reported by most users. LearningZen seems to be a classic case of "doing a few things very well" rather than trying to be everything to everyone. In conclusion, LearningZen is best suited for businesses, particularly franchises, looking to streamline their training processes without getting lost in a maze of complex features. Its intuitive design, coupled with its focus on core LMS functionalities, makes it an ideal choice for organizations that prioritize ease of use and efficiency. If you're searching for a user-friendly LMS that can help you get your training programs up and running quickly, LearningZen is definitely worth considering.

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