Canvas API store arbitrary integer value alongside Enrollment

[quantumblink]

Hello,

I am developing a custom iOS Canvas client. A feature requested by some of my supporters is a "GPA calculator" feature similar to the Better Canvas extension. Given that Canvas does not retrieve course credit information (likely because it is tied to SIS integration), is there a way to associate a field with an Enrollment or Course with a user provided "credit"?

Worst case scenario is that I just store it locally.

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi @quantumblink,

On the technical side, I believe you'd want to use the Users custom data - Canvas LMS REST API Documentation to store and retrieve the data.

On the process side though, I have a lot of concerns about functionality like this as a Canvas admin myself.  I think you'll need to be super clear with your customer(s) about what the calculator will do, and probably even clearer to students that what your calculator shows may not be their real GPA.  You probably already know this, but there are a ton of variables that could come into calculating a GPA (is the Canvas grade official, do all courses count towards the GPA, and grade schemes standardized, just to name a few off the top of my head).  For your customer(s), it could actually be that nothing special applies and this would be doble, but I find the edge cases are often something that aren't thought about initially until complaints some in about inaccuracies and then the methodology gets scrutinized and becomes much more complicated.  In my opinion, better to get everything specified clearly upfront to make sure the work is feasible before putting too much effort in.

I hope thew info helps!

-Chris

[quantumblink]

Thanks for the API endpoint lookup!
I appreciate the discussion around the specific functionality of the calculator. I think to get around some of the edge cases you mentioned, I could provide a way to exclude certain courses from the calculation. And of course present the calculation itself as non official and only for informing during the course of a semester. I know that my institution has slightly different rules on what letter grades count for what weight, and I know that others likely have different policies as well.