Learning analytics

Performance Dashboard

The Performance Dashboard is accessed by clicking on the Evaluation section of the control panel.

Performance Dashboard is then selected from the submenu that appears.

The information is organised into sortable columns with the following entries for each site user:

  • Last Name, First Name and MySCU Username.
  • Role (e.g. student, tutor, lecturer).
  • Date and time of last site access.
  • Number of days since last site access.
  • Review Status – displays the number of reviewable content items that have been marked as reviewed by the user. Clicking on the number in this column will show all reviewable items and which of those have been marked as reviewed by the user.
  • Adaptive Release – clicking on the icon in this column will open a new window showing a directory map of all course content, with icons indicating whether each content item is visible to the user.
  • Discussion Board – how many posts the user has made to the Discussion Board. Clicking on the number in this column will display a list of the forums where the posts were made and statistics for the posts. The content of the user’s posts in a forum can be displayed by clicking on the forum name.
  • Customise Retention Centre – how many Retention Centre rules have been triggered by the user along with the number of rules that have been applied. Clicking on the number in this column will open the Retention Status page for the user.
  • View Grades – clicking on the icon in this column opens the Full Grade Centre page.

Further information

Performance Dashboard from Blackboard Help.

Site reports

Types of site reports available inside MySCU

  • All User Activity inside Content Areas – This report summarises all user activity inside the content areas of your learning site, allowing you to see which students are active and which content they are accessing. Activity data used to create this report is only retained for 180 days inside MySCU.
  • Course Activity Overview – This report shows the overall student activity inside your learning site, sorted by student and date. An individual student’s activity can be obtained by clicking on the student’s activity bar in the report. You can use this information to see both how long students spend in your learning site as well as which days of the week they access. The output of this report is a HTML page, however, there are options available in the report to create a printable view or to download its data to MS Excel.
  • Course Performance – This report is not operational in MySCU.
  • Overall Summary of User Activity – This report displays user activity across all areas of your learning site, broken down into the number of student hits per activity type, date, time of day and day of the week. This report is useful for seeing when students access the learning site and what tools they are using. Activity data used to create this report is only retained for 180 days inside MySCU.
  • Single Course User Participation Report – This report lists all students and provides for each student data regarding the number of assignment and test submissions, as well as the number of discussion forum, blog, journal and wiki contributions along with the date of their last submission or contribution. This report is extensive and is available only in MS Excel format.
  • Student Overview for Single Course – This report displays the activity of an individual student within a learning site, sorted by date. This report is the same as the individual student’s activity report obtained by clicking on the student’s activity bar in the Course Activity Overview report. The output of this report is a HTML page, with options to create a printable view or to download its data to MS Excel.
  • User Activity in Forums – This report displays a summary of the discussion forum activity of users in your learning site. You can use this report to see which forums are most popular with students and to see which students are using which forums. Activity data used to create this report is only retained for 180 days inside MySCU.
  • User Activity in Groups – This report displays a summary of group activity of group members in your learning site. You can use this report to see how active students are in their groups. Activity data used to create this report is only retained for 180 days inside MySCU.

How to run a site report

The site report generator is accessed by selecting Site Reports from the Evaluation submenu in your learning site’s control panel. The page that opens provides a searchable list of site reports that you can choose from. To run a particular site report, click on the downwards arrow that appears when you pass your mouse over the name of the report, then select Run.

The Run Reports page will display, asking you to select report criteria which may include your desired report output format, start and end dates for the report, and which students you would like the report to include. If you do not select any students, the report will include all students in your learning site. To select a subset of multiple students, use the Shift key when clicking to select multiple consecutive students or the Control key (Command key on Mac platform) when clicking to toggle the selection of multiple non-adjacent students from the list. Select Submit to run the report.

When the report has been generated, you will be provided with three options:

Save to Content Collection – Report files saved here are saved to MySCU’s content management system. These files are stored on MySCU servers and will be available whenever you are logged on.

Download Report – The report opens on your computer and is not saved until you manually save it from inside the application that the report opens into (web browser, MS Excel, MS Word etc). When you save the report in this way, you choose where it will be saved and it will only be accessible when you have access to that location. If you save the report to your local hard drive, for instance, you will not be able to access the report unless you are using that computer system.

Run a new Report – The report is discarded and you are returned to the Run Reports page so that you can select different report criteria.

Running these reports does not affect any of the learning site data used to generate them. The best way of becoming familiar with their use and to see which reports work best with you is to practise generating reports on a live MySCU learning site if you have access to one.

Further information

Course reports from Blackboard Help.