Authors: Brittany Firestone, Kelley Lozicki, Dr. KC Testerman, Mark Sluzky, Chasina Worman and Jamie Jackson
Introduction:
Admin Analytics is a new feature that helps account admins see how Canvas is being used at their institution in order to inform decision-making. Some key features of Admin Analytics include highlighting the features that are being used in Canvas on your campus, how instructors are engaging with the platform, and what features students are using in their day-to-day interactions in Canvas. Admin Analytics will help to tell the story of how Canvas is being used on your campus in order to inform your goals further and measure the success of Canvas implementation and engagement.
Is Canvas being used?
Admin Analytics provides school leaders with key data about Canvas usage. Is your school Digital Day One ready? Have teachers published their courses? Are key elements of Canvas being utilized by faculty? Admin Analytics can provide transparency and clarity with a few clicks for school leaders. Dynamic tables and charts provide a systematic overview of Canvas usage at your school. This data can be download data as a CSV and used to plan out the next steps of Canvas adoption. Gaps in Canvas usage can be a sign that faculty may need support and ongoing training. We will share ways to maximize Canvas Admin Analytics to support with selecting PD topics that are actionable and relevant to your team.
Is there engagement in Canvas?
One of the most important considerations when assessing the effectiveness of any educational tool is its ability to engage students actively. Admin Analytics can guide administrators in evaluating whether Canvas serves as a passive information repository or a dynamic catalyst for student engagement in the learning process.
The "Feature Use in Courses with Activity" chart can be found in the "Courses" tab provides insight into how instructors are using Canvas. This allows administrators to discern whether Canvas serves solely as a static vault for educational materials or a thriving platform that encourages students to immerse themselves in the learning journey.
Clicking on specific chart graphics will allow further detail in how instructors are using specific tools. Tools such as Assignments, Quizzes, Discussions, and Collaborations are interactions that elicit student participation and engagement.
Where should I spend more time on PD to increase student engagement and increase teacher usage?
There may be underlying reasons that your staff are not using Canvas, and as a result, there isn’t engagement from students. This is where some inference into the analytics may be able to help guide your next steps.
Take a look at the example chart below. The chart shows “Interactions by Category.” If your PD goal is to make sure Canvas is being used and students are engaging, maybe this data will tell that story for you.
This is a quick surface-level pulse check. What is the first thing you notice in the graph above?
Yes, there are a lot of files being used as well as Classic Quizzes. As a leader, you could infer that teachers are using Canvas as a virtual filing cabinet for files and then quizzing students on the knowledge gleaned from the files. Is that the best use of Canvas? Does that encourage engagement and the use of Canvas to its fullest potential? Probably not.
Where can you focus your PD plan then using the information above? Check out what’s NOT being used. If you want to increase engagement, try using Collaborations, Discussions, New Quizzes, and Announcements. As a site-based leader, the bells are ringing for the next in-service to have lots of goodies about those and the application to engagement and pedagogy.
If you dig a little deeper by clicking on courses (at the root account) to see the chart below, you can use this to track changes over time. Once you implement the PD with a focus on engagement, you can see the usage change in this portion of Admin Analytics. If after you’ve completed the PD on New Quizzes or using Modules, as mentioned above as a best practice, you can see if there is a change in the utilization of those tools.
Finally, a quick win at the beginning of each term is to view the data in the chart below, where you can see courses that are not published or published.
Having many unpublished courses could be a red flag for a site-based leader, especially if the year/semester is about to start. A leader may want to dig into that information further (just by clicking on the chart to see EXACTLY who hasn’t published yet) and then reach out to those educators who haven’t published to avoid some headaches in the coming weeks.
Let Admin Analytics help you make sense of your data. Sometimes, we have lots of information but don't know what to do with it. We're drowning in data but short on useful insights. You need to figure out what the data tells you, but if you set clear goals and success measures in Canvas based on what you find with this new tool, it can be a game-changer.
Looking for Additional Canvas Data to Deepen Adoption?
The Instructure Learning Platform provides additional tools to drive Canvas usage and deepen adoption. Keep an eye out later this Fall for additional blogs in our Community space focused on data-analytics-driven tools, including Impact by Instructure.
