Canvas provides instructors with a couple of options for tracking or reviewing student performance and activity within courses. There are basic user access and interaction reports that show student activity in courses. For more in-depth data, Course Analytics provides an aggregated view across a course that highlights broader trends while also allowing instructors to drill down to see which students have viewed pages and resources, participated in assignments, and easily contact those who haven't.

Note: The level of basic course logging in which every action a user took in a course was recorded (formerly available in eClass) is not available in Canvas. Instructors who have queries about student access beyond what is available in Course Analytics can contact eClass support for escalation of any queries to the vendor.

Basic Access Information

Basic per-user reports can be accessed through the People page in courses by clicking on a student's name and then again on their name in the modal that opens on the right-hand edge of the screen:

The report links are then near the top right:

Important note: the 'Last activity' column on the People page is not an accurate metric and should not be trusted, especially for any academic honesty investigations.

Interactions Report: This lists interactions between an instructor and a particular student. These are accessed in the same way as the Student Access Report.

Student Access Report: This shows a summary of student participation in a course.

Course Analytics

Canvas Course Analytics has five different analytics tabs:

• A. Course Grade - track overall grades by quiz or assignment
• B. Weekly Online Activity - track page views and participation in online activities
• C. Students - sortable statistics of various individual student activities
• D. Reports - generate CSV reports on Missing, Late and Excused Assignments, the Class Roster, and Course Activity
• E. Online Attendance - attendance as a count of page accesses

You can access Course Analytics in two ways. You can click the link at the top right of your course home page:

Or click on the Course Analytics link in the course left nav menu. If the link is unavailable, add it to the left course navigation tabs by clicking Settings, then the Navigation tab. Drag the Course Analytics tab up to the visible tabs area. Note: that even though there is no closed eye icon/ beside Course Analytics, it will not be visible to your students.

Each analytics tab has its own set of controls:

Filters: Except for Reports, each tab can filter up to three items simultaneously to view the performance of individual students, whole course sections, all enrolled participants in a course, and by assignment or quiz.

Mail: Under the Course Grade, Weekly Online Activity, and Students tabs, students can be sent emails based on criteria such as grade performance, missing assignments or quizzes, participation, and other factors.

Report Downloads: Instructors can download data reports as zipped CSV datasets from the Course Grade, Weekly Online Activity, and Students tabs.

Note: Allow up to half an hour for course changes to be reflected in reports.

A. Course Grade

The Course Grade tab can show both the overall performance of your class and the specific performance details for individual students. It can be displayed as a data table or chart. In the chart view, the grade items on the x-axis are displayed as icons. Their values can be seen by hovering over them with your mouse:

The mail option filters recipients according to the selected criteria by score range and whether the assignment is missing or late. You can include a subject line and a message text:

Data can be downloaded in a CSV file containing the column headings, Full name, Sortable name, Canvas user ID, Overall course grade, Assignment on time percent, Last page view time, Last participation time, Last logged out, Email, and SIS ID:

B. Weekly Online Activity

The Weekly Online Activity tab can give you a broader overview of engagement with your course content. It displays a chart and data table summarizing the number of students accessing a resource, the number of views a course page received, and the participation score on each page. The chart can be toggled to a compact data table.

The mail option filters by students who either Viewed, Didn't View, Participated, or Didn't Participate. It can be further filtered by specific course resources and can include a subject line and body text:

Data can be downloaded in two zipped CSV files. The file chart.csv contains the column headings, Week Start, Filter, Students, Avg Page Views, Average Participations, Page views, and Participations:

The file resource.csv provides a higher-level overview of student engagement with course content and contains the column headings Resource, Students, Page views, Participations:

C. Students

The Students tab opens to a data table with a list of all students enrolled in the course and can be sorted by Student, Grade, % On Time, Last Participation, Last Page View, Page views, and Participations.

The mail interface is the same as for Course Grades, with the option to filter by students who either Viewed, Didn't View, Participated, or Didn't Participate.

The file students.csv provides an overview of student engagement with your course content and its relationship to performance. It lists data under the column headings Full name, Sortable name, Canvas user ID, Overall course grade, Assignment on time percent, Last page view time, Last participation time, Last logged out, Page views, Participations, Email, SIS ID:

D. Reports

The Reports tab allows you to generate five separate reports as CSV files with near real-time data for Missing Assignments, Late Assignments, Excused Assignments, Class Roster, and Course Activity.

Each report link comes with an information bubble that, when clicked, shows column headings for the data reported:

Reports are automatically downloaded to your local computer.

As above, allow up to half an hour for course changes to be reflected in reports. Additionally, the course activity report data only goes back 14 days; data beyond that point can be requested through eClass Support.

E. Online Attendance

The Online Attendance tab generates a simple "attendance" table that shows course page access filtered by week, day, and criteria.

Note: Attendance criteria may be selected in the settings gear icon at the top right of the page and may include

• Course Access (default): Student views a page in the course
• Posts: Student posts a new comment to an announcement or a discussion
• Assignments: Student submits an assignment
• Conferences: Student joins a Big Blue Button conference
• Pages: Student creates a page
• Quizzes: Student starts taking a Classic Quiz or submits a Classic Quiz