CD2 Course Level Participation

Question

Hi all! I'm trying to identify a path forward for my institution to leverage the Canvas Data 2 API to obtain data around course level participation. From what I've gathered, it seems to have been possible in v1 of the API but I'm not immediately seeing anything analogous in CD2. I do see the canvas_logs.web_logs table but I think that would only include activity for the last 30 days. Can anyone point me to any resources or the relevant table that would contain this data in the CD2 framework? Many thanks!

James · Answer

@BrianJoy

I have never seen participation data -- other than total activity time and last activity time under enrollments -- in Canvas Data or Canvas Data 2. It changes too frequently.

One thing to realize is that not all data is available in all places. Canvas has the REST API, GraphQL, Canvas Data 2, and Canvas Live Events. Items may be found in anywhere from zero to all four of those places.

Also realize that Canvas Data 2 is not a replacement for the API version 1. Canvas Data 2 is a replacement for Canvas Data [1]. You don't really use the Canvas Data 2 API to make requests the way you do with the REST API. You use it to download the data, put it into a database, and then query it.

Trying to determine things from the web_logs table is fraught with problems. It's massive and likely doesn't contain the things you want in a way that's easy to consume (if at all). Outside the analytics API, the best source I've found for this type of information is Canvas Live Events. That has a lot of overhead associated with it and it doesn't guarantee that you'll get the notification.

Canvas is coming out with a new Analytics Hub on July 9. That's the first day of InstructureCon, so it will likely be unveiled there. I haven't seen anything to suggest it's coming to Canvas Data 2, though.