report/analytics/api

Moodle 2.2 This page describes the API used by the Engagement Analytics indicators and reporting mechanisms.

Main info

IMPORTANT This page is a WIP and does not reflect the final state of the engagement analytics API!

The indicator's used by this plugin have been designed as sub-plugins to allow (and encourage) other developers to create their own indicators. Indicators could be developed to report on a wide range of things inside Moodle or even collect data from external systems to report on if desired.

Indicator

File Layout

Indicators live in a folder in mod/analytics/indicator. The layout inside this folder follows the typical layout for a Moodle plugin. For example, inside the mod/analytics/indicator/myind folder we would have:

indicator.class.php

Defines the indicator_myind class, which should extend the indicator base class.

renderer.php

This contains the definition of the analyticsindicator_myind_renderer class, which should extend the analyticsindicator_renderer base class.

thresholds_form.php

Defines the analyticsindicator_myind_thresholds_form which contains a function definition_inner for including on the report settings page.

lang/en/analyticsindicator_myind.php

English language strings for this indicator. You can, of course, include other languages too. The language file must define at least the string giving the indicator a name, for example $string['pluginname'] = 'My Indicator';

db/install.xml, db/upgrade.php

For creating any database tables required, as normal. See #Database_tables below.

db/access.php

Defines any capabilities required by this question type. This is very rarely needed.

Functions

The indicator base class defines the following functions: public function get_risk($userid, $courseid, $startdate = null, $enddate = null); public function get_course_risks($startdate = null, $enddate = null); private function get_risk_for_users($userids, $startdate, $enddate); final private function get_cache(); final private function set_cache(); abstract protected function get_rawdata($startdate, $enddate); abstract protected function calculate_risks(array $userids); public function get_name(); protected function load_config(); public function save_config();

Except for the functions mentioned below, the rest of the ones mentioned above are not generally intended to be overridden in the indicators themselves.

For the development of any new indicator, the functions you must implement are the abstracted ones: abstract protected function get_rawdata($startdate, $enddate); abstract protected function calculate_risks(array $userids);

If you have any settings (and most indicators probably will), you'll probably need: protected function load_config(); Which can be used to setup any default values you need for when a user hasn't input any on their own.

Examples

indicator_random

Return a random risk score for each user.

defined('MOODLE_INTERNAL') || die(); require_once(dirname(__FILE__).'/../indicator.class.php');

class indicator_random extends indicator {

   protected function get_rawdata($startdate, $enddate) {
       global $DB;
       $rawdata = array();
       $someusers = get_enrolled_users($this->context);
       foreach ($someusers as $user) {
           $rawdata[$user->id] = mt_rand(0,100);
       }
       return $rawdata;
   }

   protected function calculate_risks(array $userids) {
       $risks = array();
       foreach ($userids as $userid) {
           if (!isset($this->rawdata[$userid])) {
               $risk = new stdClass();
               $risk->risk = 0;
               $risk->info = 'No risk, user had no data collected.';
               $risks[$userid] = $risk;
           }

           $risk = new stdClass();
           $value = $this->rawdata[$userid];
           if ($value > $this->config['max']) {
               $value = $this->config['max'];
           } else if ($value < $this->config['min']) {
               $value = $this->config['min'];
           }
           $risk->risk = $value;
           $risk->info = 'Random risk calcualted.';
           $risks[$userid] = $risk;
       }
       return $risks;
   }

   protected function load_config() {
       parent::load_config();
       $defaults = $this->get_defaults();
       foreach ($defaults as $setting => $value) {
           if (!isset($this->config[$setting])) {
               $this->config[$setting] = $value;
           }
       }
   }

   public function get_defaults() {
       $defaults = array();
       $defaults['min'] = 5;
       $defaults['max'] = 20;
       return $defaults;
   }

}