Is new analytics designed to capture every access to a page a student sees?

[mary_anderson]

Apparently some of my students are clicking on pages or assignment links and the new analytics is not capturing it when I look at each student's access record.  Is the analytics supposed to capture data on access no matter how they get there say via Modules, link from another page etc?  At this point it seems to be hit and miss.  The analytics is not very useful in its current design.  It really needs details such as date/time access even how long page was on screen.  Should also include a way to look at data for a page and see a list of students who have accessed it instead of having to go student by student.  Since other LMS have that option I know it can be done. 

Any feedback or tips to find this info somewhere would be helpful.

[erinhmcmillan]

Hi, Mary,

New Analytics is in its infancy and much can still be developed. However, it's meant to be an improvement over the existing analytics. Our New Analytics engineer actually just posted a blog that explains what is being captured between the two, which you may find interesting: On Data Differences Between Analytics and New Analytics 

I'd also recommend submitting a feature idea regarding any ideas you have for the future of New Analytics. Our team values your feedback! Ideas can be posted in the Ideas‌ space. You can also view existing Analytics feature ideas.

Thanks!

Erin

[mary_anderson]

I admit the blog got a bit over my head as I don't know what the GET means. But at least I know right now it is not accurate enough for me to make some of my observations on what a student is doing when I check progress.  If I could find out what the GET statements refers to it might help.  Is that used when it gathers from a module link or somewhere else. 

[erinhmcmillan]

Hi, Mary,

GET is API terminology—GET represents the data that is being retrieved. I noticed that James Jones also replied to your comment that you left in the blog. For instance, the first line shows the API is going through a path—first it goes to the courses page and looks for the specific course ID, then it goes to the assignments page, and looks for a specific assignment ID. And that's where that path ends. Most of these paths focus on general areas of Canvas (pages, quizzes, assignments, discussions, announcements, collaborations, etc). Most of the analytics are going to show if a student viewed content. 

If you're trying to see if a student viewed an assignment from the modules page, for instance, analytics would have to show the student opening the modules page, followed by the assignment being opened. So yes, to answer your question, it should be showing views of content regardless of how they get there.

We know data is important, and New Analytics is just the first step our teams are using to dive into data and give you the specific information you're looking for. In fact, our teams continue to make data a priority and more updates about data should be coming over the next few months.

If ever you're concerned that you can't figure out if a student viewed a page or not, feel free to reach out to our Canvas support team and they'd be happy to help confirm the logs for you!

Erin

[mary_anderson]

Thank you for your help.    I may reach out to you find out how I might see more detailed logs if that is an option for a user. For now, I'll just be careful when looking at logs for patterns more than an individual page when referring to students 'attendance'.