Blackboard – Course Reports
UIC instructors can run several types of course reports to view information about course usage and student activity. You can view summaries such as which course areas are used most frequently and course access patterns for specific students. These reports can be very useful to help your students be active and remain motivated throughout the semester.
*Important note about reports: Blackboard is aware of an error with the results displayed by the Retention Center and is working on a resolution. Please use the Grade Center and Course Reports for tracking student performance instead of the Retention Center for the time being.
Types of Reports Heading link
- All User Activity inside Content Areas displays a summary of all user activity inside content areas for a course. Use this report to determine which students are active in your course and which content areas they use.
- Course Activity Overview displays overall activity within a single course, sorted by student and date. Data includes the total and average time spent per active student and the total amount and type of activity each student had in the course. Optionally, you can filter the report by one or more groups. Only students who are members of the selected groups are included in report results.
- Course Coverage Report displays data on course items that have been aligned to goals.
- Course Performance displays how a single course performs against a selected set of goals.
- Overall Summary of User Activity displays user activity for all areas of your 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.
- Single Course User Participation Report displays the number of user submissions in your course for assignments, tests, discussions, blogs, and journals within the chosen time frame. You don’t need to grade an item for data to be included in the report. The data is provided in a Microsoft Excel.
- Student Overview for Single Course displays an individual student’s activity within your course, sorted by date. Data includes the total overall time a student spent in your course. You can view detailed information about a student’s activity, such as which items and content areas a student accessed and the time spent on each. Use this report to check a certain student’s course activity.
- User Activity in Forums displays a summary of user activity in discussion forums in your course.
- User Activity in Groups displays a summary of user activity in groups for your course.
Tips Heading link
- The LTS instructional Designers recommend the use of Course Activity Overview report. This report is an easy way to get an overview of the overall activity within a single course, sorted by student and date. You can quickly see which students have never logged in or those that have only spent a short time in the course.
- Report data is automatically refreshed every four hours for all reports except activity reports. Activity data is refreshed once per day at midnight. Reports are available in the same Evaluation menu that the Retention Center and the Performance Dashboard.
- It is always recommended to set student success criteria during the design of your course to ensure you can easily see your students’ performance.
Please note that if you use tools that are not part of Blackboard (e.g. Piazza, G Suite, etc.), that activity will not be reflected in the reports listed here.
Get Support Heading link
The Center for the Advancement of Teaching Excellence (CATE) instructional designers or instructional support staff in your college can help you evaluate your options and set up the proper tracking mechanisms, or schedule an appointment with an instructional designer here: go.uic.edu/IDappointment.
Visit teaching.uic.edu for more tips, resources and strategies for online teaching.