See which students have viewed a particular page or activity and when

[Beth_Young]

I would like to see who has viewed any particular page or activity and when it was viewed.

I can find some of this information by going to every student and looking through their page views, but I want to be able to quickly see who has/hasn't seen a particular page or activity, i.e., if I post an information page, I'd like to be able to access a report about view of that page. That way I can easily remind those who are overlooking something important.

Also, the time of most recent access per student is not enough. I often need to know when a student first accessed the information. i.e., after the assignment was due? 15 mins before the assignment was due?

Comments from Instructure

Please refer to Canvas Release: New Course and User Analytics.

Note from the Community Team: We're including the link to https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/4495-view-access-by-file-or-item-not-user here so we can keep these related ideas associated with each other.

[maguire]

 @Beth_Young  

Have you tried using the GET /api/v1/users/:user_id/page_views API. This shows the date and time of the access (the field is "created-at"), what type of access it was (GET/POST/... - shown by the field "http_method"), the exact page ("url"), and even the "interaction-seconds" (the approximate time the user spent on the page in seconds). Additionally, there is other information - see "A PageView object looks like" on https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/users.html.

An example program using this is shown in my earlier posting and at Page view statistics: Chip sandbox . It would be possible to adapt this program to do this query for every user in a course. [I have not checked to see what permissions are needed to do this, but an administrator can do it. Your data privacy office or others will probably have to review what of this information a teacher in a course should be able to see. Part of the reason that the data may be sensitive is that it includes the IP address that the user used when accessing Canvas.]

I had some students use this in the past to look at the "user_agent" and IP address to guess whether the student was using a mobile device or a desktop computer at the university or at home. Each student was only given access to their own data, but by pooling the data from several students (after filtering out what they wanted) they were able to find some interesting patterns.

[Stef_retired]

As you've noted,  @Beth_Young , this is a step—and more are coming as we continue to iterate New Analytics. This feature comparison document should help: https://community.canvaslms.com/groups/analytics-beta/blog/2019/12/16/new-vs-old-analytics 

[mary_anderson]

I see the date this was posted and can't believe it still hasn't been implemented.  I have to monitor what pages my students click on as part of participation and apparently the current analytics is not accurate.  It seems to not be recording all page clicks. Also I need a more detailed activity log too of dates/times of latest access at least.

[brippberger]

I'd like to add that since Canvas can't upload large videos, much of my course content needs to be linked via external URL. There is no way to see that students are watching it, since they can click out of Canvas to watch it in the original webpage.

The best way that (I thought) I'd found was to look at the Access Report. If someone clicked an external URL, then clicked on another page 1 minute later, I at least had a notion that this person was probably not actually watching the video. I could keep an eye out for that behavior. Except, of course, that the Access Report, despite the name, is not in fact an accurate report of access. (Honestly, why would you even include this feature if it isn't going to be accurate? This kind of thinking blows my mind.)

So if we actually get a decent analytic to track student's page views, it would be helpful to know the time difference between clicking an external URL and clicking the next item in Canvas. 

Or get the ability to upload video lectures directly into Canvas. That would also work. 

[brippberger]

This was first raised in 2015????

I told my admin team when I requested their weekly help tracking my student's activity (which should be MY JOB) through page views that I had zero hope that Canvas would fix this. 

I'm not at all happy that you lived down to my expectations.

It shouldn't take a vote to change something so fundamental and easy to fix. I wasn't even aware voting was a thing I had to do until I read through the comments. What a joke. 

[dr_b_at_lavc]

It's five years after the initial post about faculty needing to be able to track our students' engagement of pages and still no functionality? Great. Just great.

[prossercox]

I would love to see how many students had accessed my instructor's notes.

[TechGuyDan]

I was about to post this suggestion, and found this rather old thread.  Is this still being considered?  I strongly believe this should be added as a feature.  Many of my reasons for this feature have already been listed by others here.  Knowing who is actually watching recordings or reading announcements is a great insight into which students are actually looking through the content instructors publish.  In addition, if we could pivot between what pages a single student has viewed, and back to viewed by all students would be helpful.  I really hope this can be added!

[jpocock]

I think what is needed in this area for me, as an admin, is the ability to see the timestamps when a quiz is autosaved and when a quiz, especially a timed quiz has been submitted with a simple easy view. This would make things much easier to explain when there are issues with a submission/non-submission in a timed environment. 

[ChristinaMonaco]

When viewing a student's individual access report (from People then Student name, then Access Report), it shows Times Viewed, Times Participated and Last Viewed. I want to be able to click on the content page and see ALL of the times the student viewed the page, not just the last time. 

New Analytics to Weekly Online Activity will allow me to click on each week and see all the times assignments were viewed and participated in for that week, but also does not delineate exactly when the student was on a page. 

The reason for wanting to see all the exact dates and times is to be able to verify information when students  say they have logged in and had problems submitting work before a deadline. I prefer to have evidence supporting decisions to approve or deny requests for extensions. Seeing a full access report is helpful. 

[MichelleBell]

I am just wondering why this feature has not been implemented yet. I have been a user for three years, and it is frustrating not to be able to accurately track student activity. Not only is it necessary for troubleshooting students' claims surrounding missing work, but it is an essential part of assessing students needs and scaffolding to them.

Obviously, the software tracks when pages are accessed, how many times, and tracks this by student. Now I just need access to an ongoing log of those data points, by student. The software is registering the clicks. Can they please be recorded somewhere and stored for course administrator access? 

[ProductPanda]

Comments from Instructure

As part of the new Ideas & Themes process, all ideas in Idea Conversations were reviewed by the Product Team. Any Idea that was associated with an identified theme was moved to the new Idea & Themes space. Any Idea that was not part of the move is being marked as Archived. This will preserve the history of the conversations while also letting Community members know that Instructure will not explore the request at this time.