New Quizzes: Checking for coordinated quiz taking

[EricCowgill]

Would it be possible to provide instructors with a search function that would allow them to determine which students started taking a quiz at similar times?  The query would be: "Show me the names and start & end times for all users who started this quiz within +/- 5 minutes of each other." 

I know Canvas logs the start & stop times for individual users, so the data needed for this query is being captured. The question here is to provide a tool to search those records to see if sets of students in a class are consistently starting quizzes at the same time. This question is relevant for asynchronous quizzes, where students have an open window (e.g., 24 hours) within which to do a quiz and then a set time (e.g., 50 min.) to complete the quiz once they start.  Under such conditions I could envision a scenario where a cohort of students band together to take the quizzes synchronously with one another, using a parallel chat (e.g., Discord, phone texting, etc.) to work through a quiz as a group, sharing answers with one another as they go.  Such activity could be easily identified by searching for groups of students who consistently take quizzes at the same time.

[SusanNiemeyer]

Rather than look at time stamps, I'd suggest looking at the similarity of answers. It is very easy for students to take screenshots and share answers with their online classmates. Once they catch on to your checking the time stamps, the copiers could just delay taking the quiz. What's much more telling is the pattern of correct answers / mistakes. (Been there, done that.)

[Stef_retired]

@EricCowgill  Thanks for sharing this idea. Consider adding your comment and rating to  New Quizzes: Calculating wrong answer correlation ... as well. 

[ProductPanda]

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