How do I see when a teacher uploaded a video?

[KentKersey1]

As an admin, I need to see the exact time/date a teacher uploaded a video into a module. How do I do that?

[James · Accepted solution]

@KentKersey1 

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "uploaded" into to a "module".

Do you want to know when the video was uploaded or when a link to the video was added to the module? I'm going to try to answer the second question.

You would need to use the Modules API to determine when a module item was uploaded. I'll explain this as it's a one-off that you need to investigate because of some student complaint. If you need to do it in bulk as part of tracking, then it complicates things. I'll give a browser-only solution.

1. Start by finding the Module Item ID. In a browser, find the module item for the video, click on the three dots to the right of the item and then hover over the edit button. If you look at the link, it should end in /modules/items/ and then a number. That number is the module ID you need. If you cannot see the link in your browser, you can right-click and choose copy link address. Then paste it somewhere to get the ID from the end.
2. From your main Canvas instance (the dashboard URL), add /graphiql to the end of the location and hit enter. This will bring up the graphiQL interface.
3. In the middle section, paste the code below and then change the id from 108474245 to your actual number.
4. Click the Play button at the top and the output will show up on the right side.

query moduleItemDates {
  moduleItem(id: "108474245") {
    createdAt
    updatedAt
  }
}

Here's what the output looks like for my module 108474245 (again, use your number).

{
  "data": {
    "moduleItem": {
      "createdAt": "2024-05-07T08:56:38-05:00",
      "updatedAt": "2024-08-05T11:16:49-05:00"
    }
  }
}

What it tells me is that the module item was originally created on May 7, 2024, at 8:56 am CDT. That's when I copied the course content from a previous course.

It was last updated on August 5, 2024, at 11:16 am CDT. That particular link was a file and that's when I updated the file (replaced it with a new version). If the module item was a content page, then updating the page does not change the module item updatedAt, it would change the updatedAt for the page.

The createdAt date is the earliest the item could have been there.

The updatedAt date may be the same as the createdAt date, meaning that it has not been modified since it was originally created. The updated date is changed if the position of the module item is changed. The updated date is changed if the item is published / unpublished. 

In other words, the updatedAt date reflects the date/time when the item was last changed in any way. That makes it perhaps unsuitable for what you need if the instructor does a lot of playing around with things. The createdAt shows the first time and the updatedAt shows the last time, but there is no way to get a record of the changes that might have happened in between with this approach. If you're lucky, the two dates are the same or the updatedAt is before the time you're concerned about.

The other approach is to lookup the teacher from the Admin > People page and then scroll down to their page accesses. You may need to filter by date and then try different dates between the createdAt and updatedAt to find when the content was changed. The pages may not show everything that happens, but if you're lucky it will.

Trying to recreate when something happened is always difficult. If it's going to be an issue moving forward, you can use Canvas Live Events to have Canvas notify you whenever someone does activity you want to monitor / track. For Modules, you can get an event notification whenever someone creates a module, updates a module, creates a module item, or updates a module item.

[KentKersey1]

Thank you so much James. This is incredibly helpful.

(I’m wondering if I missed some basic training for Admins somewhere . . . )

Thanks again!

[James]

@KentKersey1 

I doubt this would have been covered in basic, intermediate, or advanced admin training. While I have admin rights, I pick this up more from the developer side.