TracyHarelson
Community Member

New Analytics: Time in Course Instead of Page Views?

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Is it possible to update the reporting to show time in course instead of page views? This is a need for many schools for state attendance reporting.

 

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chriscas
Community Coach
Community Coach

Hi @TracyHarelson,

I think that would need to be a feature request, though the feature request process is currently being redesigned and will hopefully reopen next month.

From my perspective as a higher-ed Canvas admin, the estimated time in course (on the people page), is wildly inaccurate in most cases and I'd almost prefer that it not even be shown at all.  I do understand there may be some requirements for this, though I think those requirements are usually drafted more for in-person and don't consider online education as much.  All a student has to do is leave a page on their computer open for a few hours, then come back and do some more things in Canvas, and the time will make it seem like they were doing fork for 3-4 hours when it may have been only 10 minutes.  I wish there was. abetter way to measure that stat to be more accurate, but I think that task is next to impossible...  Maybe the student was watching a video embedded on a page for 2 hours, or maybe they were playing minecraft on their phone.  Who knows!?  This is a one of the huge challenges for online education, in my opinion.

-Chris

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chriscas
Community Coach
Community Coach

Hi @TracyHarelson,

I think that would need to be a feature request, though the feature request process is currently being redesigned and will hopefully reopen next month.

From my perspective as a higher-ed Canvas admin, the estimated time in course (on the people page), is wildly inaccurate in most cases and I'd almost prefer that it not even be shown at all.  I do understand there may be some requirements for this, though I think those requirements are usually drafted more for in-person and don't consider online education as much.  All a student has to do is leave a page on their computer open for a few hours, then come back and do some more things in Canvas, and the time will make it seem like they were doing fork for 3-4 hours when it may have been only 10 minutes.  I wish there was. abetter way to measure that stat to be more accurate, but I think that task is next to impossible...  Maybe the student was watching a video embedded on a page for 2 hours, or maybe they were playing minecraft on their phone.  Who knows!?  This is a one of the huge challenges for online education, in my opinion.

-Chris

Thank you Chris! I agree that this task to measure students time in a course is an absolute challenge from K-12 and higher ed. I appreciate your response and feedback.