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Canvas Spotlight

Use Course Analytics

Last updated on October 9, 2025

As an instructor, you may wonder how students are engaging with your course content. If students are missing assignments or showing signs of disengagement, how can you identify them and reach out effectively? Canvas provides Course Analytics, previously called New Analytics, a powerful tool that allows you to monitor student progress and connect with those who may need additional support. In previous versions of Course Analytics, the feature required enabling in the course settings. Now, Course Analytics is enabled and available in the course navigation menu by default. 

Course Analytics can help you ensure that students know what steps to take to improve and what resources are available to assist them. This feature is also useful for evaluating your course design. If a particular resource or activity consistently shows low engagement, it may be a sign that the material is not adding value, that students do not understand its purpose, or that the presentation could be improved. In this way, Course Analytics can help you make informed adjustments by highlighting areas of your course that may benefit from updates or clarification.

Note: New Analytics is now called Course Analytics in Canvas. This Spotlight has been adapted to reflect the current version, Course Analytics.

Best Practices

How should I use Course Analytics?

  • Use Course 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 Course Analytics to evaluate how students are engaging with your course materials and improve your course design. Content with low engagement, for instance, could be refreshed or redesigned to increase engagement. 
  • Run reports in Course 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.

How should I not use Course Analytics?

  • Course Analytics should not be used to make high stakes decisions. These include decisions about grading, taking disciplinary action, or other student evaluations. Instead, use Course Analytics as a tool to help identify struggling students or serve as a data point in the story of course or individual student performance. 
  • Don’t treat Course Analytics as a substitute for direct communication. Analytics can flag possible issues, but the next step should always be reaching out to students for clarification or support.
  • Course Analytics cannot be used to change grades or course data. Changing a course grade should always be done using the Canvas Gradebook. Data is automatically aggregated in Course Analytics based on course participation and cannot be directly changed by an instructor.

Let’s walk through it together

Click to view in fullscreen

Directions

  1. Log in to your Canvas Account.
  2. Select the Course you’d like to work in.
  3. Click Course Analytics on the course navigation menu to the left.
  4. Click a Tab at the top to determine what type of data you will view.
    • Course Grade: View average course grade data. The data shows the average grades (y-axis) for various assignments (x-axis) in the course.
    • Weekly Online Activity Tab: View average participation data. The data shows the page views and participation data (y-axis) per week (x-axis).
    • Students: View grade and participation data for each individual student.
    • Reports: View assignment status, class roster, and course activity data for each individual student.

Course Grade Tab

  1. Click the Course Grade tab at the top of the page. 
  2. Filter the Data by student or section.
  • Click the Drop-Down Menu underneath the three tabs.
  • Type or select a Student, Section, or Assignment to display analytics for.
  1. Click the Checkboxes next to the Assignments, Discussions, and Quizzes icons to filter by assignment type.
  2. Click the Email Icon to message students who fit certain grading criteria.
  • Click a Tab at the top of the pop-up box.
    • Score Range: Message students whose grade falls within a certain range. Enter the range of grades then proceed with the instructions below.
    • Missing: Message students with missing assignments.
    • Late: Message students with late assignments.
  • Click the [# of students] next to the pencil icon to edit the list of students you are messaging.
    • Note: If only one student is selected, you will send the message to just that one student.
  • Type a Title in the Subject Box.
  • Type additional information in the Message Box.
  • Click Send.
  1. Click the Download CSV button to download the data.
  2. Click the Chart Options Menu.
  • Choose Data Table to view current grades and other data for each individual student.
  • Choose Display Shapes to differentiate data sets by shape instead of by color.

Weekly Online Activity Tab

  1. Click the Weekly Activity tab along the top of the page.
    • This graph contains two line graphs breaking down page views and student participation by week.
    • Filtering by student/section, Message Student Who, and Download CSV features remain the same as in the Course grade Tab.
  2. 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.
  3. Click a Data Point on either graph to see a full breakdown by student of their number of page views or participation.
  4. Click on a Student to see further information on their Course Grades, Weekly Online Activity, and Communications.

Students Tab

  1. Click the Students tab along the top of the page.
    • Filtering by student/section, Message Student Who, and Download CSV features remain the same as in the Course grade Tab.
    • Note: Data cannot be manipulated or edited in the Students tab.
  2. The table contains the following data:
    • Student name
    • Grade
    • Percentage of on-time assignments
    • Date of Last Participation
    • Date of Last Page View
    • Total Page Views
    • Total Participations

Reports 

  1. Click the Reports tab along the top of the page.
    • This page contains reports for Late Assignments, Missing Assignments, Excused Assignments, Class Roster, and Class Activity.
  2. Click Run Report to the right of one of the categories.
  3. Click + Filter to select specific areas of interest for the report.
    • Filter a Missing, Late, or Excused Assignments report by filtering by assignment, student, or section. Select the Assignment, student(s), or section(s) you would like to run a report on.
    • 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.
  4. 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.

Attendance

  1. Click the Attendance tab along the top of the page
  2. Click Class Days to specify which days the table will show data for. 
  3. Click Filter to filter by criteria.
    • Criteria not met will show absent students. 
    • Criteria met will show present students. 

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