How to calculate students “Total Activity” time spent in a course with Canvas Data?

jago_brown
Community Member

Dear Instructure Data team,

Academics & administrators can see “Total Activity” for each student displayed on a courses “People” page here:

260631_pastedImage_1.png

  1. I’m assuming the above does not include the activity from Mobile Apps is this correct?
  2. How is the above calculated by Instructure?
  3. What would the SQL query be against Canvas Data ? (assuming you had all the CanvasData files/tables in a relational database)
  4. If you were using tableau.com, what would the setup and visualisation look like? (comparing the time difference between web & mobileApps would be interesting)

Answers to the questions above would help answer these questions being asked at my college:

“What is the average engagement time spent and number of visits per user per module...We would ideally want this information in a very condensed form e.g. 5.6 hours per user and 65 visits per user”

I can see similar questions have been asked before and maybe I have missed the answer?

https://community.canvaslms.com/message/75612-what-does-total-activity-actually-mean

https://community.canvaslms.com/message/52681-time-spent-in-modules

https://community.canvaslms.com/message/4448

https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-6061-obtaining-and-using-access-report-data-for-an-entire-c...

https://community.canvaslms.com/message/81966-logging-in-and-out-affecting-total-activity-time

Are there any public standards for the calculation of users time usage in web applications?

e.g. are there IMS Global specifications being followed to calculate this "Total activity"

Kind regards

Jago