Canvas Tools for Early Student Engagement

Canvas Tools for Early Student Engagement

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Early student interaction and feedback is critical to student success, and Canvas has tools that can provide metrics on that interaction within the LMS. For in-person students, this could mean having them check the Syllabus for course expectations and Calendar for semester due dates. In an online course, early and ongoing engagement is vital to building meaningful learning experiences and students’ success. Check out the interactive “Blazing New Trails for Online Engagement” for examples in the online environment.

Below are some of the Canvas tools available to you to view student engagement in Canvas.

Course Analytics

Course Analytics provides the following visuals about your course(s) and students:

  • Average Course Grades for all of your assignments
  • Weekly Online Activity to see page views and participation
  • Students to see their current course grade, their percentage of on-time submissions, participations, and page views
  • Reports that display missing assignments, late assignments, excused assignments, a class roster, and course activity
  • Online Attendance which automatically tracks specific interactions of your students

The easiest way to access Couse Analytics is by going to your Home page of a Canvas course and then clicking on the 📊 Course Analytics button on the right side of your screen.

  • Alternatively, the Course Analytics course navigation menu can be enabled on the left side of your screen by going to your course Settings >> Navigation tab. Then, drag the Course Analytics button from the bottom (inactive) list to the top (active) list. See Configuring Course Navigation for more information.
Course Grade
Weekly Online Activity
Students
Reports
Online Attendance

A screenshot of the Canvas 'Online Attendance' report. The page shows a table listing students and their engagement for the week. Columns include 'Students,' 'Days Not Met,' and the days of the week. A green checkmark indicates a student met the engagement criteria for a day, while a red 'X' indicates they did not. Red circles highlight two 'X' marks for 'Alfred Student,' who has '4' Days Not Met.

The Online Attendance report helps instructors identify students who may be disengaged or falling behind based on customizable engagement criteria. Criteria include:

  • Course Access: student views a page in a course
  • Posts: student posts a new comment to an announcement or a discussion
  • Assignments: student submits an assignment
  • Collaborations: student loads a collaboration to view/edit document
  • Conferences: student joins a web conference
  • Pages: student creates a page
  • Quizzes: student starts taking or submits a classic quiz or submits a classic quiz

If a student meets the requirements of any selected criteria, he/she will be marked as present for that day in the Online Attendance report.

Additional Resources

View Course Analytics in a Course

How do I view Course Analytics in a course as an instructor?

00:07: How do I view new analytics in a course as an instructor? 00:11: In global navigation, click the courses link. 00:15: Then click the name of the course. 00:18: To open new analytics. Click the new analytics Link in course, navigation. 00:24: Or click the new analytics button in the course homepage. 00:28: If the course has been concluded, the analytics page includes a concluded 00:32: label. 00:33: Click the course grade table. 00:36: You can view the overall average course grade. 00:39: Grades on assignments, discussions and quizzes. 00:43: Are compared the average course grades to sections, students or assignments. 00:49: To view the students weekly online Activity. 00:51: Click the weekly online activity table. 00:56: Data is displayed as a chart with two rows average page views. 01:01: And average participation the following actions will generate participations. 01:06: Announcements posts. A new comment to an announcement assignments. 01:11: Submits an assignment collaborations loads, 01:15: a collaboration to view or edit a document conferences. 01:19: Joins a Web Conference discussions posts. 01:23: A new comment to a discussion Pages, creates a page quizzes, 01:28: submits a quiz quizzes, starts taking a quiz. 01:33: Data for the week. That is currently in progress as indicated by a dotted line. 01:39: To download a CSV of the weekly online activity data, click the 01:43: download button. 01:45: To view weekly online activity in a table, click the options icon. 01:51: And select the data table option. 01:54: The data table shows. The weak start date. 01:57: Number of page views. 01:59: And number of participations. 02:02: To view analytics for all students, in your course, click the students tab. 02:07: To view analytics for one student, in your course, click the name of the student. 02:13: To locate a student, you can sort the table by student name. 02:18: Or any other column header? The analytics table is paginated, so 02:22: you can view more students if you continue to scroll to the bottom of the page. 02:27: To view and run reports in your course, click the reports tab. 02:32: To view reports settings, click the settings button, 02:36: Missing assignments. This report will produce a list of assignments that have 02:40: not been submitted yet. 02:42: Late assignments. This report will produce a list of assignments that have 02:46: been submitted late. 02:49: Excused assignments. This report will produce a list of assignments that 02:53: are excused. 02:55: Class roster. This report will produce a list of students enrolled 02:59: in the course with student contact information such as email, sis 03:03: ID, Etc. Report data is up to 40 hours 03:07: delayed. 03:09: Course activity, this report provides a list of daily user interactions. 03:13: In course, resources, where each report entry captures a summary of user 03:18: views and participations. Report data are up to 40 hours, delayed 03:22: account time. Zone is applied to facilitate daily views, and participation 03:26: aggregates. Calendar filter only accommodates for 14 days 03:30: in the past. 03:33: To run a report, click the Run report button. 03:36: If enabled by your institution, you can also view an online attendance report 03:40: that indicates if students have met online, attendance criteria for designated 03:44: Class Days. Online attendance criteria is managed by your 03:48: Institution. 03:50: This guide covered how to view new analytics in a course as an instructor.

View Average Course Grade Analytics
Compare the Course Average Chart Graph
Send a Message to All Students Based on Specific Course Criteria
Send a Message to Individual Students
View Weekly Online Activity Analytics
View and Download Reports