How the NU Canvas Dashboard Can Help You

The NU Canvas Dashboard was developed by Northwestern IT Teaching & Learning Technologies to help instructors better understand and visualize how their students are interacting with their course materials.

If you’ve ever wondered: Are my students actually downloading the readings or assignment files that I’ve put a lot of effort into creating? Or, in which class session should I schedule my midterm to avoid conflicts with my students’ other coursework? Then the NU Canvas Dashboard can help! The dashboard provides a quick overview of which files your students have downloaded in your course, when your students are submitting assignments in your course, and when your students are experiencing a large number of assignments due in their other classes.

How Do I Use the NU Canvas Dashboard?

After the dashboard is installed in your Canvas course (see “How do I Get It” below), you’ll see two tabs along the top of the app in Canvas, one for Files and one for Submissions. The Files Dashboard shows you who is downloading which files in your course. The Submissions Dashboard allows you to see when your students are submitting to your course’s assignments, along with when they have a heavy workload in their other classes.

Here’s how to use each of the dashboards:

The Files Dashboard

1. Time range selector: Allows you to change the time range by choosing one of the options in the time-range selection drop-down.
2. Search box: Allows you to compare specific files or see if students actually downloaded the file they need for an upcoming homework assignment. You can search for a specific file in the search bar, or even search for multiple files and compare them.
3. Overview numbers: Provides at-a-glance information for the given time range or given selection about how many unique downloads have occurred, how many unique files have been downloaded, and how many unique users have downloaded anything in your course.
4. Files bar chart: By default, shows the top 20 files downloaded by your students. The graph will update if you change the time range or search for specific files.
5. Show details: Allows you to see a comprehensive list of all your students’ interactions with files in your course and lets you export a spreadsheet.
6. Unique downloads per user: Shows which people in your class have downloaded the most files via a pie chart. People are listed by their NetIDs.
7. Daily downloads over time: Shows when students have been downloading files in your course via a graph.

NOTE: The data coming from Canvas only tells us if a students has downloaded the file to their computer, device, or browser. It does not tell us if a student previews the document in Canvas.

The Submissions Dashboard

1. Time range selector: Allows you to change the time range by choosing one of the options in the time-range selection drop-down.
2. Search box: Allows you to compare specific assignments and/or quizzes. You can search for a specific assignment or quiz, or multiple assignments or quizzes, in the search bar.
3. Quiz and Assignment Submissions Over Time: Allows you to see the times when your students are submitting to their assignments and quizzes in your course.
4. Quiz and Assignment Submissions Over Time by Day of Week: Allows you to see the days of the week when students are submitting to to their assignments and quizzes in your course.
5. All Quiz and Assignment Due Dates Over Time Across Courses: Allows you to see the times when your assignments are due compared to all the other assignments that your students have from their other courses.
6. All Quiz and Assignment Due Dates by Week Day Across Courses: Allows you to see the days of the week when your assignments are due compared to all the other assignments that your students have from their other courses.

NOTE: The dashboards are created dynamically based off Canvas data that updates daily. Fetching the data and stitching it together into the visualization can take up to a few minutes depending on how big your class is, how many data points it needs to look through, etc.

How Do I Get the NU Canvas Dashboard in My Course?

The NU Canvas Dashboard is currently in a pilot phase, and Teaching & Learning Technologies is looking for testers for the Winter 2021 quarter and Spring 2021 semester terms. If you’d like to try the NU Canvas Dashboard in your course(s), email canvas@northwestern.edu and let us know which of your courses you’d like it installed in.

Note: The NU Canvas Dashboard is only visible to teachers and TAs and will not be seen by students.