Gettng whether a student is currently taking any quizzes through the api

[KYLEYANCEY]

I'm trying to find a way through the API to figure out if a student is currently engaged in taking a quiz. Any quiz, not just a specific one. Is there a way to do that?

[themidiman]

@KYLEYANCEY 

Perhaps someone else has a better idea, but I think you could use https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/users.html#method.page_views.index and a specified date range for suspected user activity and look for the string of /quizzes/ in the .url or .asset_type properties in resulting group of PageViews (for classic quizzes). For New Quizzes it's an assignment because NQ is implemented with LTI, so you may have to know a bit more about which assignment titles are New Quizzes and look for those specific titles that constitute an assignment with the New Quiz as the assignment.

Just a suggestion.

[KYLEYANCEY]

Thanks for the suggestion. I don't think that would work, because there's no way to know if the student is viewing the quiz or taking it. We also wouldn't know when they finished.

I notice that the Quiz Submission API has a way to start and end a quiz. https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/quiz_submissions.html

Clearly, there's a status change going on there. I was just wondering how I could tap into it. Would I have to scan every quiz in the course individually to get that student's submissions and check their status? Or is there a faster way?

Also, as you pointed out, New Quizzes might be different. There might be no way to query their status.

[themidiman]

A PageView object has a "participation" boolean property. Maybe that would help narrow it down for you. This is the way that the Access Report page gathers its information. It reports the last time a resource was viewed and whether or not it had a student submission by way of 'participation' in that resource. 

[KYLEYANCEY]

That's interesting. Can it tell me that they are still working on it and haven't finished? Because the goal is to prevent the students from utilizing a resource while they are taking a quiz. Yes, I know lockdown exists, but we want to deactivate the resource when they are in even non-lockdown quizzes.

[themidiman]

Detecting whether a quiz is in session is a bit more involved I would have to say. I don't see an endpoint for pulling up a quiz session in the API docs. You could use the browser developer tools to have to look at what the browser is sending back when looking at a student's submission time. In other words what information does Canvas send back to the browser if you're in the moderate quiz page and you can see how long if any quiz taking sessions are active.

Seems like it would be easier to think about using module completion requirements and prerequisites to lock away resources that shouldn't be available during a quiz availability window...but if it's because the students shouldn't be able to use prior module items in a separate tab, I don't know how you would be able to take those prior items away from them in the quiz session automatically. You would have to schedule a manual 'unpublishing' of pages or other prior presented Canvas content they might want to pull up in a separate tab during a quiz availability window.

In short, I don't think there's an automated process for what you're asking. Someone else might have a different point of view.

[MarilouLandes · Accepted solution]

I believe the endpoint Get Quiz Submission (in the Quiz Submissions API) is what you're looking for... https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/quiz_submissions.html#method.quizzes/quiz_submissions_api.sub...

The workflow_state in the response will tell you the current state of the submission.

[KYLEYANCEY]

Yes, I believe this is the only way to do it in canvas. I'm looking at an alternative in our product also. Thanks everyone for your help.

[reynlds]

I recommend considering Canvas Live Events as well. Depending on your data target events are only a few seconds old and can show quiz start, individual item submission and complete submission during a window.