Migrate off Canvas in two weeks — without losing a single grade.
Native .imscc import. Preserved roster, grade history, and quiz banks. White-glove engineering support — no separate migration SOW, no per-course fees. One Tier-1 university migrated 42,000 students from two legacy systems in a single weekend.
Canvas vs Cognaxa, at a glance.
Honest, narrow comparison — only the differences customers actually weigh during evaluation. See the full matrix →
| Capability | Canvas | Cognaxa |
|---|---|---|
| Tenant isolation | Application-layer WHERE clauses | PostgreSQL Row-Level Security at the query planner |
| AI proctoring | Third-party iframe (Honorlock, Respondus, etc.) | Native subsystem — one SLA, one on-call |
| Server-synced exam timer | Partial — client-influenced clock | Authoritative server-side timer |
| AI essay grading + confidence | Partial — via paid add-ons | GA — confidence bands + human review queue |
| Trailing-12-month uptime (public) | 99.9% (status page) | 99.98% (all production tenants) |
| Direct engineer escalation | No — tiered support | Yes — engineer-to-customer on Enterprise |
Two weeks, three phases, one weekend cutover.
Typical professional-tier timeline. Multi-campus enterprise migrations land in 4–8 weeks; the phase shape stays the same.
- Export Canvas .imscc archives for in-scope courses
- Pull current roster from your SIS (or Canvas-direct CSV)
- Identify 1–3 pilot courses for parallel run
- Genfinish engineer joins kickoff; we confirm SSO posture, exam volume, and FERPA scope
- Bulk import Canvas .imscc into a staging tenant
- Roster + grade history mapped, dry-runs against historical attempts
- Visual fidelity QA on every module and assessment
- Faculty pilot group runs one full assessment in staging
- Faculty 90-minute training session (per-role runbooks shipped)
- Production cutover — most institutions run Canvas + Cognaxa in parallel for one course cycle
- Monitoring on shared on-call for the first finals window
- Written post-cutover report: incident log, gradebook reconciliation, faculty feedback digest
What we migrate — and what we verify.
Course content
Modules, pages, assignments, quizzes, files. Canvas .imscc preserves structure; we verify rendering on every page.
Rosters + enrollments
Sections, groups, observers, TAs. Mapped 1:1 to Cognaxa roles with no manual cleanup needed.
Grade history
Cumulative GPA history and per-attempt scores preserved. Auditable diff before cutover.
Quiz banks
Question banks imported with metadata. Question randomization and pool logic re-applied automatically.
Files + media
Course files migrated via signed URLs. Media references rewritten to Cognaxa storage.
External tool links
LTI 1.3 outbound is on the Enterprise roadmap (Q3 2026). Until GA, common integrations are bridged via the REST API.
Migrating from a different LMS? See the Blackboard playbook or Moodle playbook — same playbook, different export formats.
Migration FAQ.
How long does a Canvas migration actually take?
Two to four weeks for a typical Professional deployment. Multi-campus enterprise migrations with SSO + SCIM + custom integrations land in the four-to-eight-week range. Most customers run Canvas and Cognaxa in parallel for one course cycle before flipping the switch.
Will my Canvas course look the same on Cognaxa?
Yes — the .imscc import preserves module structure, page content, assignment specifications, and quiz logic. We do a side-by-side visual fidelity QA before cutover. Expect cosmetic differences (theme, fonts) but no structural surprises.
What about LTI tools and external integrations?
LTI 1.3 Advantage is on the Enterprise roadmap (Q3 2026). Until then, common integrations (proctoring, video, plagiarism, communication) are bridged via the REST API or replaced with Cognaxa-native equivalents — most notably native AI proctoring, which removes one entire vendor relationship.
Can we run Canvas and Cognaxa side-by-side during cutover?
Yes. The recommended cutover pattern is one course cycle (semester or quarter) of parallel running. Roster and grade sync stays one-way during this window so Canvas remains your system of record until you call cutover complete.
What does the migration cost?
White-glove migration is included with all Professional and Enterprise plans — no separate migration SOW, no per-course fees. Contact sales to learn more.
Bring your Canvas .imscc to the demo.
A 45-minute working session with a Genfinish engineer. We'll import a real course on screen, walk through the gradebook reconciliation, and scope your specific cutover window — including faculty training and parallel-running plans.