Using canvas API to access files and modules as a student

Question

Hi,

I am a student working on a project that hopes to integrate Canva's API to make some tool for progress tracking in all courses. The problem I am running into at the moment is with viewing files and modules as a student. When I send a request I get the 401 code back which means I am not authorized. I was wondering why this would be the case as on my course websites I am able to see files and modules. My initial guess is that the response of that request would list all the files both published and unpublished and I am assuming that its the same for modules.

My question is; using the API is there a way I can get a list of published files and modules?

Let me be more specific. I am using Postman to query the API and yes I have gotten my bearer token and I am authorizing API access using the bearer token. In terms of API requests that I have gotten to work, I have gotten a list of all my courses using the GET api/v1/courses endpoint, my enrollments by using the GET api/v1/users/:user_id/enrollments and my user info with the endpoint that you specified earlier.

The issue comes from when I try to perform a GET api/v1/courses/:course_id/files or a GET /api/v1/courses/:course_id/modules. The resulting message is as follows:

{"status": "unauthorized","errors": [{"message": "user not authorized to perform that action"}]} For additional context, I replace :course_id with a course ID from the following table i queried for enrollments (see the attached image). Please let me know for any additional questions.Thank you!

Image 2024-03-12 at 11.58 AM.png

alexolowo · Answer

@James

I appreciate the help! Any question is welcome.

I believe that they are because if we look at the image i attached previously, they all have enrollment state as 'active' and role as 'StudentEnrollment'. Is it possible for the api/v1/users/:user_id/enrollments endpoint to return that list if the student is not enrolled in those courses? I can verify that the Course ID i am using to access the files is the same as the one returned from the /api/v1/courses endpoint

As a followup, I noticed that in your demo URL's, the course ID is only 3 digits 'XXX'. is that the format of a course ID? because the table i attached earlier has a 6 digit course ID format.

Thanks

alexolowo · Answer

Hello @James ,

Apologies. Let me be more specific. I am using Postman to query the API and yes I have gotten my bearer token and I am authorizing API access using the bearer token. In terms of API requests that I have gotten to work, I have gotten a list of all my courses using the GET api/v1/courses endpoint, my enrollments by using the GET api/v1/users/:user_id/enrollments and my user info with the endpoint that you specified earlier.

The issue comes from when I try to perform a GET api/v1/courses/:course_id/files or a GET /api/v1/courses/:course_id/modules. The resulting message is as follows:

{"status": "unauthorized","errors": [{"message": "user not authorized to perform that action"}]} For additional context, I replace :course_id with a course ID from the following table i queried for enrollments (see the attached image). Please let me know for any additional questions.

James · Answer

@alexolowo

You don't tell us what you've tried, so it's difficult to provide specific guidance.

Have you generated an access token and included it in the header so that Canvas knows who you are? All REST API requests require authentication and authorization.

Have you gotten any API request to work? Or is this the first one you're trying? Start with something simple that requires no special codes such as GET /api/v1/users/self. Until you can get that working, you shouldn't expect anything else to work.

Are you sure that you have the right IDs in the List files endpoint? If you typed the course ID incorrect, then you would be unauthorized to view the files for that course because it's not your course.

You should not expect to see a list of unpublished files as a student. If you do not have access to the file in Canvas, you should not expect to be able to access it through the API.