Description

rcanvas is a bouquet of functions to query your institution's instance of the Canvas LMS.

Installation

rcanvas is not on CRAN, but can be installed via:

devtools::install_github("daranzolin/rcanvas")
library(rcanvas)

Setup

Some prep work is required before use. You must first stash two items in your .Renviron file: (1) your third-party access token, available through your Canvas LMS account settings; and (2) your institution's particular domain. (e.g. "https://<your_domain>.instructure.com/") Name your token CANVAS_API_TOKEN, and your domain CANVAS_DOMAIN. For help on setting up your .Renviron (and all things R) see Jenny Bryan's Stat545 page.

The process for getting your Canvas API token:

Canvas -> Account -> Settings -> Approved Integrations -> Add new token

We provide two helper functions to make this process easier.

set_canvas_token("YOUR_TOKEN_HERE")
set_canvas_domain("https://canvas.yourdomain.edu")

Functions

The following functions are implemented:

• add_enrollments: Enroll users into a course (or multiple courses)
• add_group_users: Add users to designated groups
• add_groups: Create groups
• comment_submission: comment on submitted content
• create_course_folder: create a folder within a course
• create_course_assignment: create an assignment within a course
• get_announcements: Get announcements for a course
• get_course_analytics_data: Get course analytics data for a course
• get_course_gradebook: Get the gradebook for a course
• get_course_items: Get various course items, e.g. files, modules, pages, quizzes, etc.
• get_course_list: List the courses you have permission to view
• get_course_user_groups: Get users in a course and their group
• get_discussion_id: Get the id for a specified discussion
• get_discussions_context: Get the context for a specified discussion
• get_group_categories: Get the categories for a specified group
• get_group_category: Get a single group category
• get_group_users: Get users which belong to a group
• get_groups_context: Get the list of active groups in the given context that are visible to the user
• get_groups_self: Get the groups which the current user (you) belongs to
• get_submission_single: Get a single submission
• get_submissions: Get submissions for a given course and assignment
• get_user_items: Get various user items, e.g. missing submissions, page_views, details, etc.
• grade_submission: Grade a submission
• search_courses: Search all public courses
• update_discussion_id: Update a discussion by ID
• upload_course_file: Upload a file to a course

Usage

### Get all courses:
get_course_list()
get_course_list(include = c("teachers", "total_students"))

### Get course analytics data:
get_course_analytics_data(course_id = 20, type = "activity")

### Get course items:
get_course_items(course_id = 20, item = "users", include = "email")

### Get user items
get_user_items(user_id = 365, item = "details")
get_user_items(365, "missing_submissions")

### Get a course gradebook
get_course_gradebook(course_id = 20)

### Get submissions
get_submissions(course_id = 27, type = "assignments", type_id = 2248)
get_submissions(27, "quizzes", 168)

### Comment and grade submnissions
comment_submission(course_id = 27, assignment_id = 2248, 
                   user_id = 4227, comm = "Test comment!")
grade_submission(course_id = 27, assignment_id = 2248, 
                   user_id = 4227, grade = 95)

### Get announcements and discussions
get_announcements(course_id = 27) 
get_announcements(course_id = 27, start_date = "2017-02-01") 
get_discussions_context(4371405, object_type = "courses")

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Future Work

• Additional functions
• More precise querying
• More tests
• Vignette