Anonymous Posts

[monkjoe77]

I set up an anonymous discussion board for my students to discuss the Electoral College during this election week. With how polarized the election is, I wanted to make students couldn't see their peer's responses, but I didn't realize I also wouldn't be able to see who wrote what.

Is there any way to find out who wrote which post other than having students go in and copy and paste their responses into a different assignment?

Thanks for your time!

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi @monkjoe77,

I believe as things stand right now, if you select the anonymous discussion option, there really isn't a great end-user way to identify who made the posts.  I think this is very likely a deliberate decision to enforce the anonymity, as there could be issues with calling something anonymous only to have students learn their posts were identifiable.  With that being said, I do believe someone has said in the past that Canvas Data 2 *might* have identifying info available, but that's something you'd need to work with a Canvas admin to have setup and access for you, and that may be something your school/institution won't have resourced to actually do (especially for just a one-off scenario like this.

I think for now having the students copy/paste their posts to an assignment or something would be the better solution.

I hope this info helps!

-Chris

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi @monkjoe77,

I believe as things stand right now, if you select the anonymous discussion option, there really isn't a great end-user way to identify who made the posts.  I think this is very likely a deliberate decision to enforce the anonymity, as there could be issues with calling something anonymous only to have students learn their posts were identifiable.  With that being said, I do believe someone has said in the past that Canvas Data 2 *might* have identifying info available, but that's something you'd need to work with a Canvas admin to have setup and access for you, and that may be something your school/institution won't have resourced to actually do (especially for just a one-off scenario like this.

I think for now having the students copy/paste their posts to an assignment or something would be the better solution.

I hope this info helps!

-Chris

[dbrace · Accepted solution]

Hi @monkjoe77,

While not seeing what someone specifically said/typed/posted, it is possible to see that someone did from their "Access Report" because there will be participation activity.

How do I view the course access report for an indi... - Instructure Community - 754

- Doug