Canvas Get Page Content

WIP! Questions? Ask Alison - alison.myers@sauder.ubc.ca

Summary

This script will extract Canvas page html, and module / item information associated with a given page (if any) for an entire Canvas course. The predicted read time of each page is also provided, using the readtime project.

Input

Input is entered as terminal arguments: {COURSE_ID} {WPM}

• Canvas course id
• Optional: words per minute for the read time calculaton

Output

{COURSE_ID}_pageinfo _{WPM}.csv

i.e) 1000_pageinfo_200.csv (course id: 1000, wpm: 200)

Column	Description	Note
page_id	The Canvas Page ID	Not the same as module_item_id
page_html_url	The full url to the given page
page_url	The page url extension	In Canvas, this is designated by the title of the page (will change if page title changes)
page_published	Boolean - whether the page is published
page_title	The page title
page_readtime	The estimated readtime of the page (rounded to minute, minimum 1 minute)	Calculation from readtime with either default or given Words per Minute
page_readtime_secs	The estimated readtime of the page in seconds	Calculation from readtime with either default or given Words per Minute
page_body	The html of the page
item_id	If the page is a Canvas item, the item id, otherwise empty	A Canvas item (module item) is a page that is part of a module
item_title	If the page is a Canvas item, the title, otherwise empty	Should be the same as the page_title
item_url	If the page is a Canvas item, the url, otherwise empty	The item_url uses the item_id in the url
item_position	The position of the page within a module
module_id	The module id of the associated module	Must be a Canvas item to have a module id
module_published	Boolean - whether the module is published
module_position	The position of the module (relative to other modules)

In Canvas a "page" can be associated with a module, when this is the case there are additional associations with the page - it is now also a module item and has module information.

Getting Started

First Time

1. Ensure you have conda installed (Python 3.9 version)
2. Clone {canvas-get-page-content} repository
3. Import environment (once): $ conda env create -f environment.yml
4. Create .env file and include:

Note - anything in {SQUIGLY BRACES} means you must use your own values

API_TOKEN = {MY API TOKEN}
API_INSTANCE = {MY INSTANCE}

Example instance = 'https://ubc.instructure.com'

Every Time

1. Run:

   1. navigate to your directory $ cd {YOUR_PATH}/canvas-get-page-content
   2. activate the environment (see step 3 on first run) $ conda activate canvas-get-page-content
   3. run the script and follow prompts in terminal $ python src/get_page_content.py {COURSE_ID} {WPM - optional}

   When you run the script, you need to enter the course id as an input, and you can enter a new words per minute (standard is set at 265) if desired.

   • i.e) if my course id is 99999, and I want to use a words per minute of 200
     • $ python src/get_page_content.py 99999 200
   • i.e) if my course id is 900, but I want to use the default words per minute
     • $ python src/get_page_content.py 900

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✨ Acknowledgements ✨

I want to thank and acknowledge the contributors to readtime, which this project uses to calculate page read time!