Student Enrollment Report

[kevinw]

I've been messing around with the API and the reports for the last two hours and I still can't seem to find the report I need. Is there a Canvas report that simply shows the student enrollment for each course? Not the individual students listed, but simply a number which states the number of students per course. 

[kona]

 @kevinw , I get that information from outside of  Canvas, so I'm honestly not sure if there's a front-end (from the admin side) way to get it. I'm going to share this with the https://community.canvaslms.com/groups/canvas-developers?sr=search&searchId=06025b51-634d-4e95-a42b-...‌ group to see if they can help.

[kevinw]

How do you keep track of it  @kona ‌?

[kona]

I've worked with our Student Information System team so I have a report I can run (generated through our Argos database) for any semester  and it gives me the number of students in each of my online courses at the beginning of the semester, 10 day, midterm, and end of the semester. In addition, I ask our Internet Systems Specialist to run these types of numbers (broken down by online, hybrid, and enhanced course usage) about once a year so I can keep track of our overall usage of Canvas. I'm not honestly sure how he accesses the data, but I'm assuming it's (at least in part) through the back-end API of Canvas.

[kevinw]

That sounds really efficient. Working at a smaller institution we're trying to use what we have though, operating on a small budget presents some challenges. But I did do a little research on argos and it looks like a great tool. 

[akkaufmann · Accepted solution]

Hi  @kevinw ‌,

The course object can include the number of student enrollments in a course by adding the parameter include[]=total_students.

The full endpoint would be something like this:

GET /api/v1/courses/:id?include[]=total_students

OR

GET /api/v1/accounts/:account_id/courses/:id?include[]=total_students

The json that is returned will then include a 'total_students' value that will be the number of active enrollments in the course.

The full documentation is here: Courses - Canvas LMS REST API Documentation 

Alex

[kevinw]

Thank you  @akauff1756 ‌. This is exactly what I needed. It would be nice to be able to run everything on the account level and get back one report with all active courses in a term. But I think I can make this work for the time being. 

[sjsiena]

This doesn't work well for me because the enrollment report isn't accurate. When I sort by date added to see who is a new student, students who are listed on Canvas are NOT listed there.  For example, in one course I am teaching now I have two students who added in January but the Enrollment Status Report doesn't list anyone adding after Dec.

[profucsd]

How inefficient. On my university's previous software the file that listed all the students had numbers and I could immediately tell how many students were enrolled. I was also able to upload reading list and readings fast and easily as attachments, without learning the intricacies of new software.

I'm not impressed by Canvas so far.