Run report on number of posts submitted per student to discussion activity?

[lynchj12]

Hello Canvas Universe,

I'm looking for a way that I can easily check who has submitted the full number of posts required for a discussion activity. For example, an initial post and reply to someone else (2 posts total) is required. I would love to be able to download a report that lets me know who hasn't submitted the reply yet so that I could send them a reminder.

I know I can manually check each student's submissions via speedgrader, but is there a way to do this more easily and on a larger scale?

Hoping for a solution,

Jena

[Chris_Hofer]

Hello there, @lynchj12 ...

You might want to take a look at a Canvancements - Canvas Enhancements created by @James Jones called How to Count Student Discussion Posts.  James gives a full explanation of how his script works and how you can obtain this information in your own course...along with a short video tutorial.  If you have any questions about how this works, James should be able able to answer those questions for you.  Hope this will help a bit!

[cstrikwerda · Accepted solution]

Hello @lynchj12 
I understand we are looking at student submissions inside a discussion, and want to be able to download a report showing how many times each student has posted a reply to the discussion thread, or see this in the Canvas interface somewhere on a large scale. 

The best way in Canvas to see that information would be to go into via the API

https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/discussion_topics.html#method.discussion_topics_api.entries

So in the browser it would be viewed https://instance.instructure.com/api/v1/courses/course_id/discussion_topics/:topic_id/entries

From the API we can look and see each response by filtering by a "user_id": which will show how many times a user has responded by how many different response entries show in the API.

It looks like viewing this in the Canvas interface in a way without searching is not a feature in Canvas right now unfortunately.

I would have to recommend to @Chris_Hofer mentioning this custom solution with those references as well as those look promising. 

As always, our Product and Engineering team want to hear from you if there is anything that would make your experience with Canvas better. Feel free to submit your suggestions to our Ideas Page here: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Idea-Conversations/idb-p/ideas

How Idea Conversations work in our Community:
https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Community/How-do-idea-conversations-work-in-the-Instructure-Commu...

[lynchj12]

@cstrikwerda, Thanks for the reply! I have a feeling that your solution is quite good, and I'm not sure my tech skills are quite up to it.

As an instructor, do I have access to the API? I am not an Admin for my institution. Perhaps I could pass on your information to our Canvas Admins for help.

With appreciation,

Jena

[Chris_Hofer]

@lynchj12 ...

I would encourage you to take a look at the link I referenced in my earlier response from James Jones.  He does a wonderful job of explaining how you can use a Google Spreadsheet to get the information you are looking for.  He also has a short video tutorial that walks you through how to get much of his process set up in your own Google Spreadsheet.  Give it a shot, and if you have questions about it, you can post those to his blog post so that he can address any questions you may have.  Hope this helps.

[AnnetteDietz]

The API thing looks promising but I'm scared to break something in my course (when I google Canvas APIs I see various warnings about them). Is there a way to copy discussion posts into a test shell to practice on? I'm so frustrated that I can't just easily export this data without a steep learning curve.

[cstrikwerda]

Hello @AnnetteDietz 

As a Teacher you should have the ability to view inside the API. Although it might look like a wall of text if you don't have a JSON formatter extension installed in your browser. I would first try installing a JSON extension to view the API in a readable format. A good one can be found here: 
Once you have that formatter extension, try going into your discussion.

In the URL, after instructure.com- append the /api/v1 and then add /entries at the end.
It should look like:
https://instance.instructure.com/api/v1/courses/course_id/discussion_topics/:topic_id/entries

This will allow you to view the discussion entries in the API. 
https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/discussion_topics.html#method.discussion_topics_api.entries

Hope this helps!