Distribute Individual Files to Students Privately?

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wayne_smith
Community Explorer

Colleagues,

I'd like to distribute some personalized information to each student at the end of the semester.  Right now, it's just a customized analysis of each student's performance.  This year, I'd like to add a blockcert (e.g., Learning Machines) too, probably a JSON file with some metadata.

Is there a relatively easy way via Canvas to distribute *individual, unique* files to a student?  Each file needs to be private and confidential to each student.  My responses and comments to assignments are unique and private (such as in SpeedGrader), but the rest of Canvas is generally set up to distribute the same files to all students (and publicly).

I've used non-Canvas SMTP in the past, but frankly, that's a legacy approach and increasingly difficult (or occasionally unreliable) due to anti-SPAM interventions on both the part of the student and/or SMTP provider.  I could use a simple private-key method and use that unique key as the password to a .pdf file, but that doesn't seem like the solution either (for various reasons).

I'm generally comfortable with the Canvas API, so I can use that approach too.

Has anyone else done this, or have any ideas?

Best,

Wayne

1 Solution

Eleanor,

My solution is just to write a small script in R that accesses the current Canvas data in r, combines it with the student's email address, and send each individual student's .pdf individuals (with short breaks so as to not set off any SPAM tripwires).

Canvas' efforts appear to be in other directions.

Best,

Wayne

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