Count assignments using Turnitin external tool

[sam_mcknight]

Most of our external tools are activated at the root account level. The question I have been asked is how many assignments use a particular external tool (in this case, Turnitin). So there is an assignment and the instructor has set the submission type to External Tool and chosen Turnitin from the list.

I've looked at the assignment_dim table and can see the submission_types column so I filter on the 'external_tool' value. But I cannot figure out how to identify which external tool the assignment uses.

Does anyone know how I can find out using Canvas Data how many assignments use a particular external tool?

[travis_cox]

Hey Deactivated user‌, in a brief chat recently in Melbourne you indicated this should be possible. We didn't dig into the details together, but it sounds like this is the same query?

[Jeff_F]

 @sam_mcknight ‌ - I am using Tableau and one way to derive a list is to apply a filter to limit the results to 'external_tool' from the submission_types field in the assignment_dim table.

[smccann · Accepted solution]

I was looking through this today and filtering for only external_tool submission types will return more results than just turnitin enabled assignments if your institution uses more than just one LTI as a source to submit to. In Canvas Data, we are missing a field titled external_tool_tag_attributes which would provide the URL for the external tool. If we were provided this, then you could filter off that URL if it contains "turnitin".

Since this is present currently only in the Canvas API, I have just created a feature request for the data team to add the external_tool_tag_attribute fields to Canvas Data.

TL;DR you can find turnitin enabled assignments through the API, but not through Canvas Data at this point 

[travis_cox]

Thank you Deactivated user‌ for the confirmation. This is what  @a1222679 ‌ and I had determined. Good to have it confirmed so we know we're not crazy, and looking forward to that being fixed so it's included in the Canvas Data. 

[Jeff_F]

Deactivated user‌ -  Would the current columns in the external_tool_activation_dim suffice?  We have these below and also the Tool Id.

[smccann]

Hi Jeff,

That will only show you that Turnitin is enabled for the course/account. You won't be able to specifically tell if an assignment is using that LTI, or another, since we do not currently export the LTI tool ID in the assignment_dim if it is an "external_tool" submission type.

You could try to infer from the body of the assignment description if it includes the word "Turnitin" that it is associated to the Turnitin LTI.

[fosterl]

Deactivated user‌, I'm looking for your feature request to add external_tool_tag_attributes to Canvas Data so I can vote on it, but no luck. Would you please link that here? Thanks!

[smccann]

Hi  @fosterl ‌, if you submit a ticket to canvasdatahelp!@instructure.com and reference to be added to our internal ticket DS-1937, then your service cloud ticket will be paired so that you will receive updates from our team as we move closer to implementing Canvas Data 2.0.

Most feature requests for Canvas Data are going to be internal living and not on the community since the "Ideas" place is limited to mainly core Canvas features. I've been trying to work with our community team to see if we can create an ideas sub-space within the Canvas Data community for feature ideas.

Any thoughts or insight into this are appreciated!

[fosterl]

Thank you Deactivated user‌! I've done that and look forward to hearing updates.