My Learning Analytics

My Learning Analytics (MyLA) is a learning analytics platform designed for students to view their own learning data generated in the Canvas Learning Management System. It currently has 3 views (Resources Accessed, Assignment Planning, and Grade Distribution), with more views planned in the future.

Getting Started

These instructions will get a copy of MyLA up and running on your local machine with anonymized/fake student data.

Prerequisites

1. Install Docker.
2. Install Git.

Installation and Setup

1. Clone this repo. git clone https://github.com/tl-its-umich-edu/my-learning-analytics.git
2. Then cd into the repo. cd my-learning-analytics
3. Create a directory in your home directory called "mylasecrets". mkdir ~/mylasecrets. This directory is mapped by docker-compose.yml into the container as /secrets/
4. Copy the config/env_sample.json into mylasecrets as env.json. cp config/env_sample.json ~/mylasecrets/env.json
5. Examine the env.json file, you may need to change some of the configuration in it now or later. There are comments to help the configuration.
6. Create a new .env file and copy the values from .env.sample, which has the suggested default environment variable settings.
7. Examine the .env file. It mostly just has the MySQL information as well as locations of the environment files.
8. Start the Docker build process (this will take some time). docker-compose up -d --build
9. Download the latest SQL file from this link: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1Pj7roNjRPGyumKKal8-h5E6ukUiXTDI9.
10. Load database with data. docker exec -i student_dashboard_mysql mysql -u student_dashboard_user --password=student_dashboard_pw student_dashboard < {name of sql file}

You may also optionally place the json settings directly into the ENV_JSON environment variable if your deployment environment doesn't easily support mounting the env.json file into container. When using ENV_JSON put the entire contents of env.json into it as single line string.

Logging in as admininstrator

1. Navigate to http://localhost:5001/ and log in as:

   username: root
   password: root
   

2. As you are now logged in as root, there are no courses listed. Next 3 steps will help you view a sample course.
3. Connect to MySQL database.

   Host: 127.0.0.1
   Username: student_dashboard_user
   Password: student_dashboard_pw
   Database: student_dashboard
   Port: 5306
   

4. Navigate to course table and select canvas_id canvas_id("SELECT canvas_id From course"), which will be used in the next step.
5. Nagivate to http://localhost:5001/courses/{canvas_id} with the canvas_id you found. (For example, with SQL file myla_test_data_2019_10_16.sql loaded in, nagivate to http://localhost:5001/courses/235420 or http://localhost:5001/courses/362855 and you can view the course page as an admin.)
6. To get to the Django admin panel, click on the Avator in the top right, then click Admin, or go here: http://localhost:5001/admin.

Logging in as a student

1. Click on the top-right circle, then click Logout.
2. Connect to MySQL database.

   Host: 127.0.0.1
   Username: student_dashboard_user
   Password: student_dashboard_pw
   Database: student_dashboard
   Port: 5306
   

3. Navigate to user table and select a student sis_name, which will be used in the next step.
4. Create an authorized user. docker exec -it student_dashboard python manage.py createuser --username={insert sis_name} --password={create password} --email=test@test.com
   • Note: You can also make a user a superuser by connecting to the database, editing the record in auth_user and setting is_staff=1 and is_superuser=1.
5. Login using the username and password created.
6. The course(s) enrolled by the student with selected sis_name will be displayed. Click on a course to view as the student selected in step 3.

MyLA Configuring Settings

• If you were using a prior version of MyLA, there is a utility env_to_json.py to help convert your configuration. Running python env_to_json.py > config/env.json should create your new config file from your .envfile.

Secrets (Optional)

The bq_cred.json defined in the .env file is service account for BigQuery, and it needs to be supplied and put into the directory defined in the .env file and setup in the environment.

(Openshift Only) The /secrets/saml directory needs to contain 4 files for SAML configuration. These are currently hard-coded in settings.py though the path comes from the environment SAML2_FILES_BASE.

remote-metadata.xml
student-dashboard-saml.key
student-dashboard-saml.pem

Control course view options

View options can be controlled at the global and course level. If a view is disabled globally, it will be disabled for every course, even if previously enabled at the course level. If a view is not globally disabled, it can still be disabled at the course level.

VIEWS_DISABLED is the comma delimited list of views to disable (default empty). The expected name of the view is the same as the view's column name in the course_view_option table. For example VIEWS_DISABLED=show_resources_accessed,show_grade_distribution will disable both the Resources Accessed and Grade Distribution views.

'show_grade_type' is a field in the 'course' table that can either be 'Percent' or 'Point'. This specifies how the grades should be displayed in the different views in MyLA.

Note that by default all views are enabled when a course is added.

Control the primary user interface color

MyLA allows you to configure the primary color of the user interface (i.e., the color used for the top toolbar, or DashboardAppBar, and other structural components of the application). You can set this color by defining a key-value pair in env.json, with the key being "PRIMARY_UI_COLOR" and the value being a valid hex value. See env_sample.json for an example.

Other colors from the user interface are currently fixed and included in version control, as they are intentional design choices. You can see where color values are set in assets/src/defaultPalette.js.

LTI v1.3 Configuration

• MyLA Supports LTI 1.3 and using pylti1.3

• Instructions for LTI 1.3 configuration are in MyLA Wiki

• You also need to configure CSP value in the environment, specifically the FRAME_SRC. (See next section) In addition you need to ensure you are using https and CSRF_COOKIE_SECURE is true with your domain (or instructure.com) in trusted origins.

Content Security Policy

All of the Content Security Policy headers can be configured. In the env_sample.json there is a sample security policy that should work to bring it up. It has REPORT_ONLY set to true; by default it won't actually do anything. If you're using LTI to embed this tool or you want to configure the policy you need to adjust these values and set REPORT_ONLY to false.

Populate initial terms and courses using demo

A demo_init.sh.sample file has been provided to help initialize terms and courses. This can be used in combination with cron.py to provide some data to start exploring the tool's features. Rename the file to demo_init.sh and replace the provided fabricated values with those of terms and courses relevant to your local institution, providing additional courses or terms as desired. Ensure that the CANVAS_DATA_ID_INCREMENT environment variable is set appropriately in dashboard/settings.py, and then run the following command:

docker exec -it student_dashboard /bin/bash ./demo_init.sh

If you have problems, you can connect direct into a specific container with the command

docker-compose run web /bin/bash

Openshift process

You should login via Shibboleth into the application. Once you do that for the first admin you'll have to go into the database auth_user table and change is_staff and is_superuser to both be true. After doing this you can change future users with any admin via the GUI.

Load user, file, file access data into database

Users and files are loaded now with the cron job. This is run on a separate pod in Openshift when the environment variable IS_CRON_POD=true.

Crons are configured in this project with django-cron. Django-cron is executed whenever python manage.py runcrons is run but it is limited via a few environment variables.

The installation notes recommends that you have a Unix crontab scheduled to run every 5 minutes to run this command. https://django-cron.readthedocs.io/en/latest/installation.html

This is configured with these values (Django Cron) Run only at 2AM

RUN_AT_TIMES=2:00

(Unix Cron) - Run every 5 minutes

CRONTAB_SCHEDULE=*/5 * * * *

For local testing, make sure your secrets are added and your VPN is active. Then run this command on a running container to execute the cronjob

docker exec -it student_dashboard /bin/bash -c "python manage.py migrate django_cron && python manage.py runcrons --force"

After about 30-60 seconds the crons should have completed and you should have data! In the admin interface there is a table where you can check the status of the cron job runs.

Additional Resources

Video guide to setting up courses in the My Learning Analytics admin tool.

Populating Copyright information in footer

1. Since MyLA can be used by multiple institution, copyright information needs to be entitled to institutions needs.
2. Django Flatpages serves the purpose. The display of the copyright content can be controlled from the Django Admin view.
3. The url for configuring copyright info must be /copyright/ since that is used in the base.html for pulling the info. Read more here

Testing

The application currently uses two frameworks for front-end testing: Cypress and Jest. There are plans to implement back-end tests in the future.

Cypress Testing

Some front-end tests are implemented using the Cypress framework.

For running cypress tests locally, it is essential that you have Myla instance running locally. Launch Myla from the browser go to the admin view and add user called donald07 with password root. Get the latest depersonalized datadump as described from the Step 9 in installation and setup.

Install cypress

npm install cypress

and install the plugins add-on with

npm i cypress-plugin-snapshots -S

Cypress can be started with the command

npm run cypress:open

When running tests do not use the All Tests button due to unsolved issues. Run the cypress test if UI change are there as part of the work. If a snapshot fails due to change in the UI, try updating the snapshot from the failed test from cypress controlled browser 'compare snapshot' and a pop up appears to Update Snapshot

Jest Testing

Other front-end tests leverage the Jest framework.

To run the Jest test suite, execute the command docker exec -it webpack_watcher npm test

To update snapshots, execute docker exec -it webpack_watcher npm run-script update-snapshot

Accessibility

Keyboard Navigation

Users that use Safari or Firefox on macOS that would like to enable keyboard navigation in MyLA will have to follow the steps here.

Contributing to MyLA

• Contribution Guide

License check

MyLA is licenced under Apache v2.0. There is a file myla_licence_compat.ini that can be used with Python Licence Check to check any new dependencies and their licences.