Performance Dashboard

As with the Course Reports and Retention Center, the Performance Dashboard for any Blackboard course can also be accessed under the Evaluation area of the Blackboard Control Panel.

The Performance Dashboard provides an overview into all user activity within the course.  From this one area, instructors can monitor the following information (if you have each feature enabled within your course) about each user within a course.

(image taken from Blackboard Help's Performance Dashboard page)

• Date/Time of last course access
• Days since last course access
• Review Status - indicates how many items the user has reviewed if you use the review status feature
• Adaptive Release - clicking on the folder will display a new window with an overview of course areas (for which Adaptive Release is enabled) that a user has accessed (learn more about Adaptive Release at Blackboard Help's Release Content page) - the following symbols are used to indicate user access

• Discussion Board - clicking the displayed number opens a page displaying information about all discussion board posts from that particular user, including the total posts, date of last post, average post length, minimum/maximum post length, and average post position within each forum

• Customize Retention Center - displays number of rules a user has triggered out of the total number of retention center rules; clicking the displayed number opens a page showing Retention Center status for a particular user
• View Grades - provides a direct link to the Full Grade Center

Any of the columns can be sorted in in either ascending or descending order.  Clicking on the print icon will open a new window that displays information in a printer-friendly format.  

For a video overview of the Performance Dashboard, visit Blackboard OnDemand's Performance Dashboard tutorial.  For additional details, visit Blackboard Help's Performance Dashboard page.

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For additional assistance with Blackboard Reports and Evaluation, contact the TLC at tlc@icc.edu or (309) 694-8908, or visit us in room 240A on the East Peoria campus.

Next week our Blackboard Users' Group will meet in the TLC on Wednesday, November 4 at 12noon or Thursday, November 5 at 3pm - participants may attend either session.

Our November blog series will focus on collaboration tools (discussion boards, blogs, journals, and wikis).

Retention Center

Instructors can access the Retention Center either under the Evaluation menu of the Blackboard Control Panel or from the My Blackboard drop-down menu in the upper-right area of Blackboard.  See both methods for accessing the Retention Center in the image below (taken from Blackboard's official help page for the Retention Center):

Blackboard's Retention Center (formerly known as the "Early Warning System") provides instructors with a visual overview of student activity and progress within a given course.  This system, which requires no initial setup to function but can be customized to suit your preferences, offers an effective means for monitoring student progress and easily identifying which students are at risk within your course.  Additionally, pre-written messages are available to email to at-risk students, encouraging them to take immediate action.

Check out Blackboard's video for an overview of the Retention Center and its features:

There are four pre-configured default rules for the Retention Center:

• Course Activity - Activity in the last 1 week(s) is 20% below course average
• Course Access - Last access more than 5 day(s) ago
• Grade - External Grade is 25% below class average
• Missed Deadline - 1 deadline(s) have been missed by more than 0 days

Since these are already established, there is no setup required on the part of the instructor; however, any of the default rules can be customized, and new rules can also be added.  The Course Activity and Grade rules use the rest of students in that particular course as the norm, while the Course Access and Missed Deadline rules are individually-based.  The numbers used for measurement within any of these rules can be modified.  

Visiting the Retention Center will display an At-Risk Table, providing a visual overview of student activity and progress within the given course (as displayed in the video) and helping instructors to easily identify at-risk students.  Instructors can drill down into the Retention Center to view details about individual students and then choose when to email students to alert them of any issues, as well as suggesting actions to be taken.  Emails are pre-written but can be customized by the instructor.  This offers an effective means for viewing overall student activity without having to individually monitor each student's interactions to identify any potential issues.

Additionally, instructors can even monitor their own activity within a course to help you "become more aware of how your behaviors are (or are not) contributing to student success" (https://en-us.help.blackboard.com/Learn/9.1_2014_04/Instructor/130_Student_Performance/010_Retention_Center).  This information can only be viewed by the instructor and can be used to help keep yourself on track or recognize which areas might require your attention.  

For additional details and customization options of the Retention Center, view Blackboard's official Retention Center Help page.  Visit us again next week to learn more about monitoring students via the Performance Dashboard.

Course Reports

Under the Evaluation menu of the Blackboard Control Panel, instructors can select the Course Reports option to run various forms of reports that monitor student usage and activity within a course.  Different types of reports will allow instructors to tell how much time particular students have spent within a course, as well as which areas of the course they accessed (to some degree).  

Report Types

All descriptions below of report types were taken directly from the Blackboard Course Reports page with additional details taken from Blackboard Help's Course Reports page.

• All User Activity inside Content Areas:  displays a summary of all user activity inside Content Areas (any button on the course navigation menu that does not link only to a specific Blackboard tool) for the course

• Course Activity Overview:  displays overall activity within a single course, sorted by student and date; data includes the total and average time spent per user and the total amount of activity the user had in the course
  
  You can also run a report for Student Overview for Single Course by clicking on an individual student's name.  This report can help you determine which days of the week students are active in your course and see how much time overall students spend (taken from About Course Report Types).  

• Overall Summary of User Activity:  displays user activity for all areas of the course, as well as activity dates, times, and days of the week
  
  Use this report to view student access as well as how often course tools are used (taken from About Course Report Types).  

• Single Course User Participation Report:  displays detailed statistics on submissions (assignments, tests, discussions, blogs, journals) for all users in the course during a specified time frame; items need not be graded to be included in the report and are provided in an Excel spreadsheet (taken from About Course Report Types)

• Student Overview for Single Course:  displays an individual student's activity within a course, sorted by date; data includes total overall time the student spent in the course, as well as detailed information about the student's activity, such as which items and Content Areas the student accessed and the time spent on each
  
  Use this report to check a particular student's course activity (taken from About Course Report Types).  

• User Activity in Forums:  displays a summary of user activity in Discussion Board forums for the course; allows instructors to see which forums are used most

• User Activity in Groups:  displays a summary of user activity in Groups for the course; allows instructors to see how active students are in their groups

Generating a Report

1. From the Course Reports page, select the drop-down menu next to the type of report you wish to generate, and click Run.
2. Select report specifications on the Run Reports page.
• Format (PDF, HTML, Excel, Word)
• Start and End Dates
• Students/Users (to select multiple students/users, hold down the Ctrl key while clicking on each name)
3. Click Submit.
• PDF and HTML formats will open in a new window
• Excel and Word formats prompt you to save the file first
4. Select one of the following tasks once the report has run:
• Download Report  (to save it to the Downloads folder on your computer)
• Run a New Report  (to enter different criteria or run a different report type)
5. Click OK.

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Contact the Teaching & Learning Center at any time with questions about Blackboard's Course Reports.

In the following posts this month, we'll cover the additional areas of the Evaluation menu: Performance Dashboard and Retention Center.