mastery-progress.R

# mastery-progress.R
# A script that takes an exported Learning Mastery outcome report CSV file 
# generated by Canvas and creates a simple, readable text-based mastery report.

# By D Brian Walton, February 1, 2020
# Released to the public domain. Feel free to use this in any way that helps you.
# Modify file names, groups and outcomes to match your use case.

# Objectives for Math 234 are organized in outcome groups.
# Here is information about the groups that will be used in the report.
# The short codes are used in the script for grouping.
outcome.groups=c("G1","G2","G3","G4","G5","G6")
# The names are used in formatted text.
group.names = list(G1="Cross-Over",
                   G2="Derivatives",
                   G3="Limits",
                   G4="Applications",
                   G5="Trigonometry",
                   G6="Integration"
                  )

# This is a list of all possible outcomes, organized by groups and sorted
# into the order that I wish to use. I only use short codes. The full title
# does appear in the CSV file that will be imported. These codes appear at the
# start of the relevant title in the Canvas outcome.
all.outcomes = list(G1=c("CO1","CO2a","CO2b","CO3","CO4"), 
                    G2=c("D1","D2","D3a","D3b","D4a","D4b","D5","D6","D7a","D7b","D7c","D7d","D7e","D7f","D7g","D7h","D8a","D8b","D8c","D9"), 
                    G3=c("L1","L2","L3","L4","L5","L6","L7"), 
                    G4=c("A1","A2","A3","A4","A5"), 
                    G5=c("T1","T2","T3","T4"), 
                    G6=c("I1","I2a","I2b","I2c","I2d","I2e","I2f","I3","I4","I5","I6","I7","I8")
                   )

# When I generate the report, I only include some of the outcomes.
# As the semester progresses, more and more of the outcomes will be included.
active.groups = c("G1","G2")
active.outcomes = list(G1=c("CO1","CO2a","CO2b","CO3","CO4"), 
                       G2=c("D1","D2","D3a","D3b")
                      )

# Now I import the CSV file that Canvas provided.
# The as.is flag is to prevent text from being cast as a factor.
Math234.outcomes = read.csv("~/Downloads/Outcomes-Calculus_with_Modeling_II.csv", 
                            as.is=TRUE
                           )
# We will need to find the outcomes based on the header entries for the columns.
header.names = names(Math234.outcomes)

# Find the columns belonging to outcomes of interest.
# This is done in a pre-processing step so that we don't have to do the
# work repeatedly for every student. The outcome.lookup list is being
# treated like a Python dictionary or a hash table so that I can find
# the column belonging to a particular outcome based on the group and
# outcome codes.
outcome.lookup = list()
for (group in active.groups) {
    for (outcome in active.outcomes[[group]]) {
        # We find the column by doing a grep (regex) search on the headers.
        # The column ending in ".result" is the one with scores.
column = grep(sprintf("%s.*%s.*.result", group, outcome), header.names)
        # Store the relevant column number in our hash table list.
        outcome.lookup[sprintf("%s.%s",group,outcome)] = column
    }
}

# The column with student names is not sorted. 
# It is also a single entry "FirstName LastName"
# I want to sort by last name. (I don't worry about repeat names)
students = Math234.outcomes$Student.name
last.names = sapply(strsplit(students, " "), tail, 1)
# This essentially sorts just the index of students rather than the list itself.
alpha = order(last.names)

# Now we are going to go through the students in the sorted order.
# This generates a short text block for each student.
for (i in alpha) {
    # First, create a line identifying the student's name
name = Math234.outcomes$Student.name[i]
    cat("\n\n\n", name, "\n\n", sep="")
    
# For each student, look up their current progress in outcomes
    for (group in active.groups) {
        for (outcome in active.outcomes[[group]]) {
            # Find the outcome's column from our earlier hash table.
            column = outcome.lookup[[sprintf("%s.%s",group,outcome)]]
            # My format choice is to show a blank on unmastered outcomes.
            mastery = ""
            if (!is.na(Math234.outcomes[i,column])) {
                mastery = "Mastery Shown"
            }
            cat(group.names[[group]], " ", outcome, ": ", mastery, "\n", sep="")
        }
        cat("\n")
    }
}