Delphinium is a research-based motivational information system that draws upon principles of gamification, learning theory, motivation theory, and behavioral economics to help students WANT to perform better in your courses. Our aim is to improve your students’ completion and performance.
Delphinium also includes powerful communication tools to help teachers and students connect.
Delphinium draws on the science and art of building and supporting student motivation. The resulting engagement has a powerful positive effect on academic outcomes including completion, retention, and performance. The Delphinium educational motivational information system draws on the psychological tools that make games and other motivational environments compelling. Delphinium improves learner motivation and engagement by generating environments that create the following feelings and attitudes:
Success
Motivation increases when we feel successful. Gamification surfaces real-time information that help learners celebrate their successes and create and accomplish goals. Success enhances their identity as learners, which in turn results in more success.
Autonomy
Motivation increases when we are free to make choices. Gamification can allow students to make choices like topic order and timing.
Meaning
Motivation increases when we feel part of something meaningful. Gamification facilitates meaning by promoting social interaction and creating a purposeful narrative and context.
Urgency
Gamification creates a sense of urgency that drives completion, retention, performance, and, ultimately, success!
Fun
The feelings of success, autonomy, and meaning that gamification generate creates the kind of fun experiences leave students wanting to come back for more!
Delphinium needs to be installed by a user with administrator rights in Canvas.
- Delphinium uses Canvas data as input to output a motivational dashboard. To accomplish this, Delphinium READS the following APIs:
- List modules (Parameters: include[]=items, include[]=content_details, student_id)
- List assignments
- List assignment groups
- List quizzes in a course
- List discussion topics
- List submissions for multiple assignments (Parameters: student_ids[], grouped, graded_since, submitted_since, - include[]=submission_history, response_fields[]=score, response_fields[]=assignment_id, response_fields[]=graded_at, response_fields[]=id, response_fields[]=submitted_at, exclude_response_fields[]=preview_url, exclude_response_fields[]=discussion_entries
- List users in course (Parameters: enrollment_type)
- Get course-level assignment data
- Get user-in-a-course-level assignment data
- Get outcome results (Parameters: include[]=outcomes)
- Show user details
- List the grading standards available in a context
- Get course-level student summary data
- Get user-in-a-course-level participation data
- List grading periods
- Next, Delphinium READS the following APIs to understand better who is using the tool and how to customize configuration for them:
- List roles
- List permissions
- Get course settings
- Get a single course
- Get a single account
- List enrollment terms (Parameters: mode , group_conversation, course, context_code, subject, bulk_message, user_note)
- List enrollments
- List your courses (Parameters: include[]=term, order_by=start_at)
- In addition, some configurations of Delphinium add tasks to students’ Canvas To Do List by creating informational assignments that require no action by students and have no points. Delphinium works with these "To Do" assignments using the following APIs:
- Create an assignment (Parameters: assignment[name], assignment[due_at], assignment[description], assignment[published], assignment[points_possible])
- Delete an assignment
- Create an assignment group (Parameters: name)
- Delete an assignment group
- Delphinium does NOT interact with any assignments in the course except the ones Delphinium creates.
- Also, for ease of use, some configurations of Delphinium allow teachers to CREATE modules and publish/unpublish modules and assignments through the Delphinium interface using the following APIs:
- Create a module (Parameters: module[name])
- Update a module (Parameters: module[published])
- Update a module item (Parameters: module_item[published])
- Finally, Delphinium improves the Canvas messaging system with advanced filtering using the following API:
- Create a conversation
