[ARCHIVED] Filtering for Course Q&A Discussion Forums in Canvas Data

[a1222679]

I’ve been trying to separate the ‘Course Q&A Discussion Forum’ discussions from the others by using DISCUSSION_TOPIC_TITLE in the DISCUSSION_TOPIC_DIM.  This works in the majority of cases but sometimes an instructor will modify the discussion title (e.g. ‘Maths-101 Q&A’ or ‘Course Q & A Discussion Forum’) and these don’t get picked up.

I’m not sure there is a solution to this beyond locking the title so it can’t be changed (not possible).  In the absence of that, does anyone know of a way to get all of these discussions?

Best,

Daniel

[smccann]

Hi Daniel,

If they modify the title, do they normally always retain the Q&A? You can do a LIKE %Q&A% query against the title. We do have a Blueprint course feature that can allow you to lock those titles and sync the content to all the appropriate courses. Here is an overview of that.

[a1222679 · Accepted solution]

Hi Sydney,

I'm using a LIKE %Q&A% query and that will get the majority of them.  Sometimes instructors will change it to Q & A by putting spaces in, so these get missed.  I also scoop up unwanted discussions like 'Assignment 1 Q&A'.  It seems the only way to perfect this would be to lock the titles using the Blueprint course feature.