How common are automation scripts?

[Skot]

My University has been with Canvas for about 3 years now.  Prior to that we used Blackboard, WebCT 6, and WebCT 4.  No automation in previous LMS's except to load users, courses, and put those users into courses.

I'm asking you, my peers, how many use automation scripts, what programming language, and what type of scripts do you use?

All of our scripts are in Powershell.  We have the usual scripts:

Script that loads our courses

Script that loads our users

Script that loads those users into those courses

Script that does the Diff'ing (to remove users that drop courses)

The ones I'm more curious about are the others.  We use:

Script that sets the nickname of courses to be the course ID so faculty can tell the difference between many sections of the same course.

Script that publishes all courses.  This solved a issue we were having with some faculty forgetting to publish their courses when the semester started.

Our newest script adds a module and a quiz called "Syllabus Quiz".  This quiz has one question and one answer.  The student selects "I agree" letting them know they are considered as participating in the course by agreeing.  This helps with students dropping the course a week or more into the semester and then wanting a full refund. 

This script also published the quiz and module as well as put it at the top of the module page.

Thanks

~Skot

[aaron_bahmer]

I dunno about common, but it is what we do at Eastern Wyoming College because we didn't want to shell out the $$$ for the SIS/ERP providor's solution to integrate.

I have implemented database triggers that populate special tables for my use. I then have timed PS scripts that run hourly against that data to do the kinds of things you mention: create users, create courses/sections, enroll users, disenroll users, etc.

~ Aaron