Canvas Extractor

This tool retrieves and writes out to CSV students, active sections, assignments, and submissions by querying the Canvas API. For more information on the this tool and its output files, please see the main repository readme.

Getting Started

1. Download the latest code from the project homepage by clicking on the green "CODE" button and choosing an appropriate option. If choosing the Zip option, extract the file contents using your favorite zip tool.

2. Open a command prompt* and change to this file's directory (* e.g. cmd.exe, PowerShell, bash).

3. Ensure you have Python 3.9+ and Poetry.

4. At a command prompt, install all required dependencies:

   poetry install
   

5. Optional: make a copy of the .env.example file, named simply .env, and customize the settings as described in the Configuration section below.

6. Create an access token by signing into your Canvas instance. Go to Account > Settings, then scroll down to the "Approved Integrations" section and click the "New Access Token" button. If using a .env file, then copy the token into this file.

7. Run the extractor one of two ways:

   • Execute the extractor with minimum command line arguments:

     poetry run python edfi_canvas_extractor -b [canvas url] -a [api token]
         -s [start date range] -e [end date range] -f assignments
     

   • Alternately, run with environment variables or .env file:

     poetry run python edfi_canvas_extractor
     

   • For detailed help, execute poetry run python edfi_canvas_extractor -h.

Configuration

Application configuration is provided through environment variables or command line interface (CLI) arguments. CLI arguments take precedence over environment variables. Environment variables can be set the normal way, or by using a dedicated .env file like

CANVAS_BASE_URL=[CANVAS_BASE_URL]
CANVAS_ACCESS_TOKEN=[CANVAS_ACCESS_TOKEN]
START_DATE=[CLASS_START_DATE]
END_DATE=[CLASS_END_DATE]
OUTPUT_DIRECTORY=data

Supported parameters:

* Start Date and End Date are used in pulling course data and would typically span a semester or equivalent school calendar timespan.

** Valid values for the optional log level:

• DEBUG
• INFO(default)
• WARNING
• ERROR
• CRITICAL

*** When there's no specified feature, the extractor will always process Users, Sections, and Section Associations, which are considered the core feature. Other features (can combine two or more):

• assignments (Enables the extraction of assignments and submissions)
• grades (Enables the extraction of grades) - EXPERIMENTAL, subject to breaking changes

When setting features via .env file or through environment variable, combine features by using a bracketed comma-separate list, e.g. FEATURE=[assignments, grades]. To combine features at the command line, simply list them together: --feature assignments, grades.

Output

CSV files in the data(or the specified output) directory with the LMS Unifying Data Model format.

Logging and Exit Codes

Log statements are written to the standard output. If you wish to capture log details, then be sure to redirect the output to a file. For example:

poetry run python edfi_canvas_extractor > 2020-12-07-15-43.log

If any errors occurred during the script run, then there will be a final print message to the standard error handler as an additional mechanism for calling attention to the error: "A fatal error occurred, please review the log output for more information."

The application will exit with status code 1 if there were any log messages at the ERROR or CRITICAL level, otherwise it will exit with status code 0.

Developer Operations

1. Style check: poetry run flake8
2. Static typing check: poetry run mypy .
3. Run unit tests: poetry run pytest
4. Run unit tests with code coverage: poetry run coverage run -m pytest
5. View code coverage: poetry run coverage report

Also see build.py for use of the build script.

Visual Studio Code (Optional)

To work in Visual Studio Code install the Python Extension. Then type Ctrl-Shift-P, then choose Python:Select Interpreter, then choose the environment that includes .venv in the name.

Legal Information

Copyright (c) 2022 Ed-Fi Alliance, LLC and contributors.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License").

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.

See NOTICES for additional copyright and license notifications.