Learner Engagement Analytics Dashboard (LEAD) - Overview [UW-Madison]

Before accessing LEAD, you must enable VPN. Please see How to Install, Connect, Uninstall, and Disconnect WiscVPN Palo Alto GlobalProtect to learn how to access VPN.

LEAD is currently available for instructors teaching for-credit courses who are enrolled in Canvas as a principal instructor, auxiliary instructor, or supervisory instructor.

Instructors can access LEAD at go.wisc.edu/lead. Follow the instructions on the screen to log in. 

Once inside LEAD you will have access to a home page and three visualization pages. 

• Page Views by Date and Hour 
• Grades by Page Views 
• Page Views by Activity Type

For easy access to other learning analytics resources, add the Learning Analytics for Instructors Widget to your MyUW page.

LEAD uses data from Canvas, Kaltura Mediaspace, and the Unizin Engage eText. (Note: For the Fall 2022 Semester, Unizin engage data will not be available in LEAD)

This data includes:

• Roster information
• Grade information
• Click-stream (log) data

The data is displayed in different forms in the three visualizations and can be filtered. Before clicking on the visualization pages, please review the Official Data Definitions for the Learner Engagement Analytics Dashboard at the end of this document. Those definitions explain what LEAD is and describe and define what data you can see in the visualizations.

There are six filters that you can apply to your LEAD visualizations:

• Select Term: LEAD has multiple semesters worth of data loaded into it. First select the semester or term whose data you want to see. Then you can select the specific course(s) you want to see data for in the Select Course Name filter mentioned below. 
  
• Select Date: Allows you to look at data within a specified date range. Make sure to open the calendar and select today's date in order to view the most recent data. (If you click on the start or end date, you will get a little calendar icon as seen in the screenshot below. The calendar icon makes it easier to select a date.)
  
• Select Course Name: Allows you to filter the data by course, if you have more than one course in the dashboard.
• Select Main Activity Type. Allows you to filter by Canvas, Kaltura Video, and Unizin Engage eText Activity Type. (The list in the drop-down will vary depending on how you have your course set up. For example, if you don't use Engage eText or Kaltura Videos, those options will not appear in the Main Activity Type drop-down.)The Canvas Activity Types include Announcements, Assignments, Collaborations, Discussions, Grades, Modules, Pages, Quizzes, and Canvas  Pages. See the Official Data Definitions at the bottom of this page for definitions of the Activity Types.
• Select Name of Activity: Allows you to filter by specific named items or pages within Canvas. (i.e. a specific Quiz, Assignment or Wiki Page)
• Select Student Name: Allows you to filter the data by student(s).

The five filters apply to all three visualizations simultaneously. When you set the filters on one visualization, they will persist as you navigate to other LEAD visualizations. More information about working with filters in Tableau can be found in the How to Use a Tableau Visualization guide.

Remember that after you change a filter, you must click the Apply button before the change will take effect.

The Home Page contains a brief description of LEAD as well as links to all the other pages and functional descriptions of the icons in the visualizations. Please note that you can also navigate to any page in LEAD by selecting the tabs at the top of the page.

This visualization shows you a heat map of when your students are accessing your course in Canvas. On the left you can filter the data by Date, Student(s),  Activity Type (eg Canvas Quizzes), and Specific Activity (eg Week One Quiz). So if you would like to know when your students generally take a quiz in Canvas, you can set the date range for the whole semester, select All students and select Quizzes. You can also narrow your filters to a specific quiz (by date or by Name of Activity), and a specific student (or set of students).

The darker red an hour block is, the more times that course  activity has been accessed at that time of day, for the date range you selected. It will show access to the course across all Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, etc for the date range. Whatever the highest number of accesses in a given hour will be the darkest red and the visualization will adjust the shading on the other cells accordingly. You can also hover over any cell and see the exact number of pages accessed for that specific block of time.

This scatterplot visualization is a comparison of students' grades and the total number of pages they have viewed in your Canvas course. The higher up on the y-axis a student is, the higher their grade is in your course (according to the Canvas Gradebook). The further to the right along the x-axis, the more pages a student has viewed in Canvas. (Note: student grades will always display the overall grade for the entire semester. If you use the date filter and narrow down to an earlier or shorter period of time in the semester, the page view counts will be limited to the selected dates, however the grades will always be the current (or final) grade in the course.)

The visualization also draws a trend line for your whole course comparing grades to page views. While there is usually a general, course-wide relationship between grades and page views, individual students may be outliers to this trend. As with any comparison, the relationship between grades and page views should not be viewed as determinative for any individual student.

This visualization may help when:

• Identifying student "outliers" and using this information as part of a broader discussion to determine whether they may need an intervention or more support
• Gathering more information about Canvas usage behaviors for students who seem to be struggling in your course

This visualization allows you to see how many times your students are accessing the various activity types in your course. You can use filters to drill-down and see how much a specific piece of content in your course is being accessed, and who is accessing it. This visualization can also give you a sense for how many students and which students are accessing specific pieces of content in your course. For example, you can select Canvas Assignments from Main Activity Type, and then select one specific assignment (eg. Week 1 Assignment) from Name of Activity to see how many times students in your course clicked on that specific assignment; you can also filter by student to see which students accessed a specific item.

Page Views (Kaltura)

An instance of any Kaltura video platform web page being loaded or reloaded and played in a web browser linked within a Canvas course, as long as the page is recorded on a Canvas server; meaning, it is a Canvas native application. If there is a link embedded into a Canvas course which leads the user to a non-Kaltura (external) location or application (for example, Kaltura videos linked to third-party external content authoring software), any activity that happens outside of Canvas is not recorded or accounted for in Kaltura Page Views. A Kaltura page view can be thought of as Kaltura click-stream data.

Kaltura Percentage of Video Viewed

A percentile metric capturing the percentage of a Kaltura video viewed loaded via a web browser linked to in a Canvas course, as long as the page is recorded on a Canvas server; meaning, it is a Canvas native application. If there is a link embedded into a Canvas course which leads the user to a non-Kaltura (external) location or application (for example, Kaltura videos linked to third-party external content authoring software), any activity that happens outside of Canvas is not recorded or accounted for in Kaltura Percentage of Video Viewed(Not currently available in LEAD).

Page View (Engage eText)

An instance of an Engage eText web page being loaded or reloaded and viewed in a web browser linked within a Canvas course, as long as the page is recorded on a Canvas server; meaning, it is a Canvas native application. If there is a link embedded into a Canvas course which leads the user to a non-Engage eText (external) location or application (for example, Engage eText pages linked to via Pressbooks or other external content authoring software), any activity that happens outside of Canvas is not recorded or accounted for in Page Views. An Engage eText page view can be thought of as Engage eText click-stream data. Data captured in Page Views (Engage eText) is displayed as page number and as a document name that an instructor or course administrator names. 

Pages (Canvas)

Modules (Canvas)

Page Views (Canvas)

An instance of any web page being loaded or reloaded in a web browser within a Canvas course, as long as the page is recorded on a Canvas server; meaning, it is a Canvas native application. If there is a link embedded into a Canvas course which leads the user to a non-Canvas (external) location or application, any activity that happens outside of Canvas is not recorded or accounted for in Canvas Page Views. A page view can be thought of as Canvas click stream data.

Announcements (Canvas)

A way for Canvas course instructors to communicate with students about course activities and post course-related topics on a page within Canvas. Announcements are designed to allow instructors to broadcast information out to all members of a course or to all members of sections within a course.

Assignments (Canvas)

A task or piece of work that a student is given to do within Canvas by a Canvas course instructor, showing students what will be expected of them and how many possible points their work is worth. Assignments can be assigned to everyone in the course or differentiated by user.

Collaborations (Canvas)

Canvas technology that allows multiple users to work together on the same document at the same time. Collaborative documents are saved in real-time, and changes made by any of its users will be immediately visible to everyone.

Discussions (Canvas)

Interactive, asynchronous online communication between two or more people recorded in Canvas. Users can participate in a conversation with an entire class or group.

Gradebook Grades (Canvas)

A feature within the Canvas learning management system that stores grades awarded within the system or manually entered by the instructor. Student grades may be displayed as traditional letter grades, points, or percentage awarded for activities.

Quizzes (Canvas)

A scored (number or letter grade) way for Canvas course instructors to assess students' knowledge within Canvas. Quizzes may be timed or untimed.