Determining if ungraded survey is anonymous via API?

[dgrobani]

Hi,

I'm trying to determine via the API whether a quiz of type ungraded survey has been made anonymous via the "Keep Submissions Anonymous" checkbox. I've scrutinized Quizzes - Canvas LMS REST API Documentation , searched Canvas LMS REST API Documentation, and examined an anonymous ungraded survey returned through the API, but I haven't been able to identify any attribute that indicates whether it's anonymous.

I'd be grateful for any ideas. Thanks!

[James · Accepted solution]

dgrobani, good to meet you at InstructureCon.

I did some testing. I created an anonymous ungraded quiz and then fetched it with the Quizzes API. I then made it non-anonymous and fetched it again. I used diff to make sure my eyes weren't playing tricks and the only thing that changed was the version number. You're not imagining things when you say it isn't there.

That said, I don't think there really is an anonymous ungraded survey. Anyone with permission to edit the quiz settings can go in after the students have taken it and change it from anonymous to not and then see who gave what answers. They could also go back and change it to anonymous after spying on who submitted it. 

There has been some discussion and some feature requests about that.

• https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/8657-improve-anonymous-surveys-to-make-them-fully-anonymous 
• https://community.canvaslms.com/message/61165-a-truly-anonymous-quiz 

I checked into the quiz submission API as well, thinking that perhaps it included whether or not it was anonymous when it was taken, but requesting the user for a quiz submission returns the real user, even if the anonymous setting is checked.

While this information isn't returned via the API, it is available through Canvas Data using the quiz_dim table and the anonymous_submissions field. However, that's still subject to the issue that they are not truly anonymous and what they are when the Canvas Data is exported may not be what they were when the students took them or if the instructor looked at the results.

Quizzes have historically been one area where the API is insufficient and mostly not being developed outside of anything that might be needed for Quizzes.Netxt. Most of the data is included in the HTML of the page rather than through the API. For example, as far as I know, the only way to get responses out of the API directly (assuming the quiz statistics reports aren't what you're after) is by looking at the quiz events. So it doesn't surprise me that the anonymous setting isn't included.

[dgrobani]

 @James , I enjoyed meeting you at InstCon, too.

Many thanks for your thorough reply. Great minds and all that--after posting my question I did the same test you did, diffing the results, then scrutinized all the other quiz-related API documentation, and at that point concluded I was out of luck.

IDs on my team had asked me for statistics on the use of anonymous ungraded surveys, but as it turns out, the stats I've pulled on ungraded surveys indicate they've been so seldom used that whether or not they're anonymous is now beside the point.

An extra thanks for the info about the lack of true anonymity--I'll pass that on to our IDs,  who I'm sure will find it helpful.