Monitor Student Progress with New Analytics

Last updated on November 18, 2022

Use New Analytics to monitor student progress and evaluate your online course content

As an instructor, you may find yourself wondering if students are engaging with course content and keeping on top of their coursework. Fortunately, Canvas provides New Analytics, an excellent tool that helps you see how your students are progressing. You can also use New Analytics to reach out to students who are not engaging or falling behind in your course. With this tool, you can make sure that students who may need extra attention or help know how to improve and what resources are available to them.

Beyond helping students, New Analytics can also gauge whether your content is working or if it might be time to swap out or refresh a module, assignment, activity, or assessment. If you notice a piece of supplemental material is rarely being accessed, it may suggest it isn’t a particularly valuable resource for students or students may need better priming to understand its value. You could also check on the formatting or layout of the material. Essentially, you can use the information provided in the tool to help you audit the content of your course.

Of course, this is only the tip of the iceberg. There are many more features and use cases for New Analytics, so we encourage you to use and explore this tool! For additional help, please visit our virtual/physical drop in hours.

Best Practices

• Use New Analytics to identify struggling students and contact them with tailored feedback. Intervening early with struggling students can have a more meaningful impact on preventing withdrawals and failing grades.
• Use New Analytics to evaluate how students are engaging with your course materials and improve your course design. Content with low engagement could be improved by adding more information or better priming and context within the module.
• Run reports in New Analytics to tailor data to exactly what interests you. You can use reports to see data on many different subjects and apply filters to weed out extraneous detail.

Let’s walk through it together

Directions

Ensure New Analytics is Enabled in the Course Navigation Menu

If you do not see New Analytics in the left-hand course navigation menu, you will need to enable it for this course. Your Sandbox course shells will come with New Analytics already enabled. If you already see New Analytics, you can skip these instructions.

1. Click Settings in the left-hand course navigation menu.
2. Click the Navigation tab along the top of the page.
3. Scroll down the page to the second set of items and find New Analytics.
4. Click the More Options (3 Dots) icon to the right of New Analytics.
5. Click Enable.
6. Scroll down to the bottom of the page.
7. Click Save.
   • New Analytics should now appear in the left-hand course navigation menu. You may need to refresh your web browser for this change to take effect.

Track Student Activity

1. Click New Analytics in the left-hand navigation menu.
2. Click the Weekly Activity tab along the top of the page.
   • You will see two line graphs breaking down page views and student participation by week.
3. Hover your cursor over a Data Point on either graph to see Average and Total Page Views/Participations for the week beginning on that day on the graph.
4. Click a Data Point on either graph to see a full breakdown by student of their number of page views or participations.
5. Click on a Student to see further information on their Course Grades, Weekly Online Activity, and Communications.

Run Reports in New Analytics

1. Click New Analytics in the left-hand course navigation menu.
2. Click the Reports tab along the top of the page.
   • You will now see options for Late Assignments, Missing Assignments, Excused Assignments, Class Roster, and Class Activity.
3. Click Run Report to the right of one of the categories.
4. Click + Filter to select specific areas of interest for the report.
   • For instance, you can filter a Class Activity Report by date to see all the activity on one day or by student to see all of a student’s activity throughout the entire course.
5. Click Run Report in the bottom right-hand corner of the pop-up menu to download the report.
   • The report will automatically download to your computer. Open it in your downloads folder to view its contents. It is a .csv file that can be opened in spreadsheet programs.