How are Canvas Analytics operationally defined?

[cynic]

Hi!

I'm an instructor for a dummy course in which I'm running a pilot study on Canvas Analytics. I'd like to know how each of the analytical constructs operationalized. That is, what constitutes an "Activity" or "Participation," for example?

Does anyone have any expertise in the "Course Analytics" page?

Feel free to contact sirotin@uw.edu.

Thanks!

[mdonatelli]

Hi, It is my understanding that activity would be things like when a student views a page and participation is when a student submits a gradable assignment. However I too am trying to get clarity around "participation".

[dtcurrie]

The participation misses completion of work in outside systems, this is causing issues for us as a quick place to identify attendance. Even when the other system is linked and scores come automatically to the Canvas grade book, Canvas does not register this graded item as "participation". We use, for example, MyMathLab, MyOpenMath, Hawkes Learning, MindTap and SimBio as items linked to the Canvas course--for all except SimBio, the grades come over and there is deep integration.

Additionally, the way Canvas deals with groups, group work is not included in the main course analytics. Click into the group area and check there.

Is there a suggestion to vote up for getting Canvas to add the option to include these integrated items as participation?

[NicLSim]

It would be REALLY helpful to have the terms defined for all not just so that we, as instructors understand what we are looking at, but so that we can effectively make use of the data. Otherwise, the data is pretty useless if I can't tell a parent what "participation" means. Is that simply asking questions via email? Is that answering discussion questions? Is it any interaction within canvas where the student is actively producing some sort of unique submission linked to that individual? OR is it just logging into the course and opening up the tasks---links, assignments, pages, etc.?

At the very least please add definitions in the Canvas Guides!