view access by file or item, not user

[mcdowela]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

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I've searched on this topic repeatedly, so if it's been addressed, sorry. I would like to be able to run analytics on a specific file or assignment to see which students have accessed it. I know how to look at each student's record, but that's extremely cumbersome.  For example, I uploaded a PDF of model (anonymous) essays from the class and want to know how many students have looked at these before submitting their next essay. It would be helpful to run a report on that item.  I really dislike having to go student by student to see who has done what vs. being able to run a report on individual files or individual modules, etc.

Thanks, Andrea

General Comments

Comments from Instructure

Please refer to Canvas Release: New Course and User Analytics.

Note from the Community Team: We're including the link to https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/1221-see-which-students-have-viewed-a-particular-page-or-activ... here so we can keep these related ideas associated with one another.

[alessio_medda]

our previous system implemented this feature very well. I do not see why it would be so complicated and it should be a default. It would be extremely useful to have a report by file or page with number of views by user 

[venitk]

This would be very helpful. The flip side of this would be the idea to restrict access to files by person. 

https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/14272-restrict-file-to-some-students 

[Stef_retired]

Comments from Instructure

With the release of New Analytics, instructors can access views for course resources. Please refer to the View Resources Tab section of How do I view weekly online activity analytics in a data table in New Analytics? 

Note: 

• The Resource tab will show you views for an assignment/file/quiz/etc. but the numbers are not clickable.
• if you choose a week from the Weekly Online Activity graph, you can see analytics on a resource and can see the list of students if you click on the number next to Viewed, Didn’t View, Participated, Didn’t Participate. Switching to the Data Table view also reveals clickable Page Views and Participation fields.

[sringsmuth]

I'm sharing an idea that has come up several times this semester, with frustrated instructors around campus echoing the same thoughts as what I'm sharing here. In Brightspace/D2L, our former LMS, instructors could access discussion board statistics with a few clicks. It would show a chart of every student in class, how many times they posted, how many times they replied, even how many posts they read. The chart was sortable, and clicking the header of any column would instantly sort by that criteria. It was an incredibly simple way to get student participation data, especially in a large class.

Canvas has nothing in this regard. The closest it has to offer is going through student analytics, one by one, and looking at discussion data on a per-student basis. Imagine doing this for a large class of 20, 50, or 100 students. It's a nearly impossible task. I know instructors can use Speedgrader to see all the posts a student has made on a graded discussion, but this is still much slower than the old method in Brightspace. It also does not work whatsoever if an instructor has a single grade for multiple discussions. (i.e. a Week Four discussion grade where students can choose to reply to any of three given prompts.)

I'm attaching two images to illustrate what I'm talking about. The first is a screenshot from Brightspace showing the type of data we used to have. The second is a tally sheet that one of our instructors sent us, along with an email that he sent explaining his frustrations.

I want to be clear on this: I like Canvas a lot, both as an administrator and as a faculty member. But the absence of a way to easily get usable data for things like discussions is mind-boggling. I don't know what it would take for this to be added, but it sure would be useful.

Here is the instructor's email:

I have a very active discussion board for my online sections of [Course 1] and [Course 2].  I think it adds significant value to the class.  The way I assess the students (they get a grade for discussion board participation) is based on the number of times they post.  In D2L, this was a breeze.  D2L provided nice statistics, not only regarding the number of times each student posts, but whether the post was starting a thread, was in response to a thread, etc.  Canvas has none of that capability.  I chatted with them several times looking for a way to replicate the functionality that D2L provided me.  Nothing.

As a result, as you can see below, I had to resort to physically counting the number of times each student posted (this literally took hours, as you can imagine).  I’m not complaining—just thought it would be helpful for you to know this. 

[kerstin_jarosc1]

Is this idea still in consideration? ... it's been years.

[mimiller1]

Canvas is great. It is much more robust than other options I have used, but all of those other programs gave me the ability to produce a report that tracked student participation by assignment/discussion - rather than checking on every student page. I'm surprised that Canvas doesn't offer something similar, and that this request hasn't yet be implemented. I would especially love to know the average minutes watched of the videos I am posting. So, here to hoping that you can add global reporting to Canvas!

[dlyons]

Apologies there hasn't been a comment on this Feature Idea in a while!

I just wanted to say that this functionality is available via the New Analytics Course Activity report (and has been for a little while now but this idea was never updated! 😅)  A teacher can run that report and then sort by resource to see all the students that accessed that resource.