How to collect aggregated student data

[awinneg]

Hello! I am an instructor, and my organization is building a number of courses in Canvas in preparation for a public launch later this month. These are adult continuing education courses that are free to the public and have a national audience, so we anticipate having hundreds of students register.

As part of our grant deliverables for this project, we need to collect and analyze data on our students. We are looking for ways to review aggregated student data so we can answer questions like, "How many students registered for the course?" and "How many of those newly registered students have completed at least one module of the course?" Right now, I understand how to view individual student data (for instance, using the "New Analytics" feature or "View Progress" in the Modules section) to see each student's progress within a course. However, since we may have over a hundred new students registering each month, I'd like to be able to view aggregated student data in Canvas so that I don't have to review one student's information at a time.

Has anyone else run into this issue, and do you have any good solutions? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[dbrace · Accepted solution]

Hello @awinneg,

Welcome to the Canvas Community!

Is your organization using Canvas Free for Teachers, a self-hosted instance of Canvas, or hosted instance of Canvas? The answer to that will help with some specifics for how to do what you are looking to do and also determine whether it is or is not possible (because Canvas FFT has limited functionality).

At a high-level, there is a lot of data available in Canvas but most of it requires the customer to extract/manipulate raw data on their own instead of using default reports that are built into the Canvas LMS or to use the API for real-time data and the exact steps vary depending on what data you want.

It is relatively easy to do something like generate a report for your "How many students registered for the course?" question but how will vary.  For example, there is a report available within each Canvas (sub)account.

How do I view reports for an account? - Instructure Community - 109

Canvas Default Account Reports - Instructure Community - 387054

However, something like ""How many of those newly registered students have completed at least one module of the course?"' would require either using Canvas Data (https://developerdocs.instructure.com/services/dap/dataset/dataset-namespaces/dataset-canvas) or the API (check out the question at  module progress for all students via api call - Instructure Community - 568203  as an example).

While not a complete answer, I hope you found this helpful and a way to get started.  Maybe someone else can provide you with more guidance.

-Doug