Course Analytics in Canvas

Course Analytics

 

Course Analytics

Course Analytics dashboards collect and visualize data regarding student activity and grades.

Note: Data updates approximately every 8 hours. For real-time information, such as exact assignment submission timestamps, check the specific assignment or Gradebook entry.

 

Accessing Course Analytics

You can access analytics in two ways within your course:

1. Course Navigation: Select Course Analytics from the left-hand menu.

2. Home Page: Click the Course Analytics button in the sidebar on the right side of the screen.

 

Understanding the Analytics Tabs

The dashboard is divided into four primary tabs: Course Grade, Weekly Online Activity, Students, and Reports.

 

Course Grade

This tab displays the average grade for the course and a visualization of every graded activity.

The Course Grade page in Course Analytics provides information about students’ grades in a course and for each individual graded activity. The page displays the average grade for the course, and there is a detailed visualization graphing the average grade for each graded activity in the course. Icons along the bottom of the visualization signify which are Quizzes, Discussions, and Assignments. Hovering over one of the points in the visualization will yield the activity's name.

 

Selecting one of these activities, or dots, causes a sidebar to expand with further information about the grades for that particular assignment. This includes the average grade, lowest score, highest score, numbers of missing and late activities, and a column chart showing the distribution of student grades for that activity.

 

In the search bar above the visualization, instructors have the ability to select specific sections or students. Adding a student allows for their grades to be plotted along with the course averages. 

There are additional functions available to the right of the search bar. The "Message Students Who" button, represented with an icon of an envelope, connects to a conditional messaging feature. From the Course Grade page, this messaging feature can be used to contact students within a certain score range, who have missing assignments, or who have late assignments. 

The download button, represented with an icon of a downward pointing arrow, allows instructors to download a .csv file of student data which includes their name, Canvas user ID, overall course grade, percent of assignments submitted on time, time of past page viewing, time of last activity participation, last time they logged out, email, and SIS ID. 

 

Weekly Online Activity

The Weekly Online Activity page in Course Analytics shows students' engagement via page views and participations. The visualization graphs average weekly page views and participations per student and engagement with/completion of graded activities, spanning the course's active weeks. Instructors can drag the graph to view different weeks. 

 

Below the visualization, instructors can view a table detailing each course resource, including student interactions, views, total page views, and participations.

 

Hovering over a data point in the visualization displays the weekly data. For average page views, it shows both the average per student and the total page views. For average participations, it shows both the average per student and the total participations.

 

Clicking a point on the graph expands a sidebar with weekly data on page views and participation. This includes total numbers, counts of students who did and did not view/participate, and two tabs: "Students" shows a roster with individual page views and participations, and "Resources" displays a table of student interactions/views for each course resource.

 

In the search bar above the visualization, instructors have the ability to select specific sections or students. Adding a student allows for their page views and participations to be plotted along with the course averages.

To the right of the search bar, the Message Students Who (envelope icon) button enables conditional messaging from the Weekly Online Activity page, letting you contact students based on whether they viewed or participated in a specific resource.

The download (downward arrow icon) button provides two .csv files: the chart file, which contains weekly data on the number of students, average page views/participations per student, total page views, and total participations; and the resources file, a copy of the resources table.

 

Students

The Course Analytics Students page lists each student's name, grade, on-time submission rate, last participation and page view dates, and total page views and participations. Searching for a specific student temporarily filters the table to show only that student's data.

There are additional functions available to the right of the search bar. The Message Students Who button, represented with an icon of an envelope, connects to a conditional messaging feature. From the Course Grade page, this messaging feature can be used to contact students within a certain score range, who have missing assignments, or who have late assignments. 

The download button, represented with an icon of a downward pointing arrow, allows instructors to download a .csv file of the full table of student data.

 

Reports

The Reports page in Course Analytics provides instructors with the ability to download five different reports. The reports are “Missing Assignments,” “Late Assignments,” “Excused Assignments,” “Class Roster,” and “Course Activity.” Read on to learn more about the information provided by each report. 

 

The Missing Assignments report produces a list of assignments that have not been submitted yet. This list, in table form, includes the following fields: Student Name, Student ID, Course Name, Course ID, Section Name (if applicable), Assignment Name, Points Possible, Due Date for the assignment, and Unlocked Date for the assignment. This report can be filtered by assignment, student name, or section name.

 

The Late Assignments report produces a list of assignments that have been submitted late. This list, in table form, includes the following fields: Student Name, Student ID, Course Name, Course ID, Section Name, Assignment Name, Points Possible, Due Date for the assignment, Unlocked Date for the assignment, Submitted Date for the assignment, Graded Date for the assignment, and Posted Date for the assignment’s grade. This report can be filtered by Assignment, Student name, or Section name.

 

The Excused Assignments report produces a list of assignments that are excused by the instructor. This list, in table form, includes the following fields: Student Name, Student ID, Course Name, Course ID, Section Name, Assignment Name, Points Possible, Due Date for the assignment, and Unlocked Date for the assignment. This report can be filtered by assignment, student name, or section name.

 

The Class Roster report produces a list of students enrolled in the course or section with student contact information such as email, SIS ID, etc. This report can be filtered by section name.

 

The Course Activity report provides a list of daily user interactions in course resources, where each report entry captures a summary of user views and participation. This list, in table form, includes the following fields: Student Id, Student Name, Sortable Name, Student SIS ID, Section Id, Section Name, Course Id, Course Name, Content Type, Content Name, Times Viewed (how many page views the student has in the course), Times Participated (how many participations the student has in the course), Start Date, First Viewed (when the student first viewed the course) ,and Last Viewed (the most recent time the student has viewed the course). This report can be filtered by date, student name, or section name. The date filter only accommodates for 30 days in the past.