💡 If you are teaching at the University of British Columbia, you may also be interested in the tool Threadz which provides visualizations and data from your Canvas discussion forums through a user interface in Canvas. You can learn more about the tool and how to request access in your course from the LTHub Instructor Guide. Threadz was developed by Eastern Washington University.

Canvas Discussion

Data

{course_id}-discussion.csv

This project pulls data via the Canvas API the discussions for the specified Canvas course(s) and exports the results as CSV. The columns exported are:

• 'topic_id',
• 'topic_title',
• 'topic_message',
• 'topic_author_id',
• 'topic_author_name',
• 'topic_created_at',
• 'topic_posted_at',
• 'post_author_id',
• 'post_author_name',
• 'post_id',
• 'post_parent_id',
• 'post_message',
• 'post_likes',
• 'post_timestamp'

Where a topic corresponds to a discussion_topic and post refers to all replies to the discussion_topic. If a discussion_topic has no posts then you will see the topic_ columns filled with no corresponding post_ data. A post may have a post_parent_id if it is part of a threaded response.

Summary Data

{course_id}-discussion-summary.csv

We have calculated summary metrics for each topic. The csv with the summary information includes the following columns:

• 'topic_id',
• 'topic_title',
• 'topic_author_id',
• 'topic_author_name',
• 'topic_created_at',
• 'topic_posted_at',
• 'number_of_posts': the total number of posts and replies in the topic
• 'median_posts_word_count': the median word count for all posts and replies to the topic
• 'average_time_to_post_hours': the average time to post or reply from the topic created_at date
• 'first_reply_timestamp': the timestamp of the first post
• 'average_time_to_post_from_first_reply_hours': the average time to post or reply from the first post (for cases where all discussions are released at once, this may be a more meaningful metric of time to reply)
• 'average_posts_per_author': the average posts per author (does not include enrollments with no posts)

Where a post is a response to a topic, and a reply is a reply to the post.

{course_id}-module-discussion-summary.csv

We have calculated summary metrics at the level of module where there are multiple discussion topics. This is optional (see .env creation above) The csv with the summary information includes the following columns:

• 'module_id',
• 'module_name',
• 'module_unlock_at': assuming the course uses an unlock_at date this will be used to calculate,
• 'number_of_posts': the total number of posts and replies in the module
• 'median_posts_word_count': the median word count for all posts and replies to the module topics
• 'average_time_to_post_hours': the average time to post or reply from the module_unlock_at date
• 'first_reply_timestamp': the timestamp of the first post
• 'average_time_to_post_from_first_reply_hours': the average time to post or reply from the first post (for cases where all discussions are released at once, this may be a more meaningful metric of time to reply)
• 'average_posts_per_author': the average posts per author (does not include enrollments with no posts)

Getting Started

These instructions will get you a copy of the project up and running on your local machine for use with your own API tokens and Canvas domains.

Prerequisites

1. Install Node 10 or greater.
2. Install Git.

Installation and execution of script

1. Clone this repo. git clone https://github.com/ubccapico/canvas-discussion.git

2. Then cd into the repo. cd canvas-discussion

3. Run the installation script. npm install (If you see babel-node: command not found, you've missed this step.)

4. Generate Canvas API token and copy it to clipboard

   • See Get Started with the Canvas API for more information.
   • ⚠️ Your Canvas API token is the equivalent to your username and password and must be treated as such (following any security guidelines of your home institution).

5. Create a .env file.

6. Add the following: CANVAS_API_TOKEN={YOUR API TOKEN}, CANVAS_API_DOMAIN={YOUR API DOMAIN}, COURSE_IDS={YOUR COURSE ID(s)}. > - At UBC the CANVAS_API_DOMAIN is https://ubc.instructure.com/api/v1

   • At another institution it might be something like https://{school}.instructure.com/api/v1

7. Add INCLUDE_MODULE_SUMMARY=true (or INCLUDE_MODULE_SUMMARY=false) to indicate whether you would like to include a summary grouped by module. If this is not in the .env it will default to false and no module summary will be created.

   Your .env file should look like

   CANVAS_API_TOKEN=22322...
   CANVAS_API_DOMAIN=https://ubc.instructure.com/api/v1
   COURSE_IDS=1111,1112
   INCLUDE_MODULE_SUMMARY=false
   

8. Run the script. npm start.

9. A {course_id}-discussion.csv and a {course_id}-discussion-summary.csv file should be generated with discussion data in the output folder for each provided course_id. If you have set INCLUDE_MODULE_SUMMARY to true then you will also see a file {course_id}-module-discussion-summary.csv.

Authors

• justin0022 - Justin Lee <justin.lee@ubc.ca>

License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.