OTL and Bruin Learn

Bruin Learn is the branded name for UCLA’s learning management system (LMS). An LMS is essentially a course-specific website that provides robust functionality such as discussion boards, document access, and automatically-graded quizzes. Bruin Learn is based on Instructure’s Canvas platform, and is part of the university’s overall effort to standardize information technology, including those tools used for instruction. With Bruin Learn, UCLA aligns with the other UC campuses, the Cal State University system, and CA community colleges in using Canvas, and this consolidation around a common platform for all state public higher education will enable students to more easily take courses intersegmentally.


In the fall of 2021 UCLA changed its learning management system platform from Moodle to Instructure’s Canvas product. Prof. Jan Reiff, OTL’s founding leader, championed the campus review and selection of Canvas. Jan asked many OTL staff to lead and assist in crucial areas of the Bruin Learn project, including:

  • Participating on numerous committees, subcommittees, workgroups, and in the campus community;
  • Leading and providing academic and instructional support, media design and production;
  • Managing software acquisition, licensing, and integration.

Along the way, our team helped campus appropriately repurpose extensive infrastructures, deploy resources, engineer web-enabled processes, promote standards-compliant services, and repurpose team building communities. To speak with us about instructional design in Bruin Learn, please reach out to us at contact@online.ucla.edu or submit the form using the button below. Both the email and the form are sent to the same location, so use either method and we will get back to you as soon as we can!

Help with Bruin Learn

For general help on using Bruin Learn’s tools and technologies, OTL recommends starting with Bruin Learn Support. The staff there can help with technical and operational issues, such as gaining access to your course, ironing out enrollment or TA issues, understanding Canvas and the MyUCLA gradebook, and other general purpose help with the platform.

While OTL’s staff can answer many of these questions, our focus is on helping faculty and departments leverage the full pedagogical benefits of the platform. Bringing an academic perspective, the OTL instructional designers can help with developing and/or redesigning programs and courses.

Moving forward. the campus will continue to leverage OTL’s deep knowledge of Canvas and our instructional design experiences and skills.

Resources for Faculty

Help with CCLE Migration

CCLE has been removed for general use. As a reminder, courses from Spring 2019 to Summer 2022 have been migrated to Bruin Learn (reference the migrated courses page for more information). Additionally, course content and student data is being stored in the K16 Archive Solution. The archive will only store content and not formatting. The Bruin Learn CoE in IT Services supports requests to retrieve course and student data. If needed, instructors should make this request via this form or email .

The Bruin Learn team put together these resources to help you manage your CCLE migrated course content: Migrated Course Overview