{"id":10001,"date":"2026-01-07T08:27:56","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T08:27:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/?p=10001"},"modified":"2026-01-07T08:27:58","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T08:27:58","slug":"measuring-course-engagement-with-blackboard-tools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/2026\/01\/07\/measuring-course-engagement-with-blackboard-tools\/","title":{"rendered":"Measuring Course Engagement with Blackboard Tools"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1925\" height=\"496\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/files\/2025\/06\/Inclusivity-and-Accessibility.png\" alt=\"Inclusivity and Accessibility banner\" class=\"wp-image-9442\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Now that semester 1 teaching has finished and we are moving towards the assessment period, we wanted to write a blogpost to highlight the analytical reports that are available <a>in<\/a> Blackboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These reports can be used to monitor Blackboard usage and engagement and help you to re-enforce messages to students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Progress Summary<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>By default, the student progress summary is enabled on all content items in Blackboard courses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This allows Blackboard to record when content has been opened, and students are able to mark tasks as complete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To access the report, click on the &#8230; to the right of the content item and select Student Progress:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"780\" height=\"227\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/files\/2026\/01\/Assessment-and-feedback.png\" alt=\"Image showing student progress for content. \" class=\"wp-image-10005\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>There you\u2019ll see the progress report:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"936\" height=\"160\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/files\/2026\/01\/Progress-summary.png\" alt=\"Image showing Progress Summary page. \" class=\"wp-image-10008\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>From this page, you can also filter students by those who have unopened the content, those who have started it, and those who have marked it as complete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you apply a filter, you can message the highlighted students using the message button.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Test question analysis<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Using Blackboard tests? You can run a report to analyse the questions with:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Average score<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Possible questions<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Completed attempts<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Average time spent on the course<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition to this, it also allows you to re-examine questions with the Discrimination report. This indicates how well questions differentiate between students across all levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The difficulty report indicates which questions are easy, medium and hard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To view the report (once the test has ended), navigate to the test and select Question Analysis:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"936\" height=\"132\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/files\/2026\/01\/Question-analysis.png\" alt=\"Image showing Question Analysis menu item. \" class=\"wp-image-10009\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The report will run and you will receive an email once it has completed:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"936\" height=\"189\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/files\/2026\/01\/Report-summary.png\" alt=\"image showing test question analysis\" class=\"wp-image-10010\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Discussion analysis<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Making use of Discussions in your Blackboard course? Then you can run a report for the overview which will give you the total number of active students, the average number of posts per students, as well as the average wordcount for blogposts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can click on Student Activity for the overview:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"780\" height=\"147\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/files\/2026\/01\/student-activity.png\" alt=\"Image showing student activity overview\" class=\"wp-image-10011\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>You can use the message feature to contact students who haven\u2019t engaged, as well as see the top participants, and the responses with the most replies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Course Analytics<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The Course Analytics page allows you to flag alert settings for students based on the amount of time spent in the course and the dates since their last access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Choose Analytics from the top menu:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"426\" height=\"95\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/files\/2026\/01\/analytics.png\" alt=\"image showing the top menu of the course with Analytics highlighted.\" class=\"wp-image-10012\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>You have two views:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Student hours in the course against their overall mark<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"624\" height=\"174\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/files\/2026\/01\/activity-graph.png\" alt=\"Image showing student hours in the course against their overall grade\" class=\"wp-image-10013\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Student list view showing overall mark against missed due dates, hours in course, and days since last access<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>For further information on using the Analytics feature, see Blackboard Help: <a href=\"https:\/\/help.blackboard.com\/Learn\/Instructor\/Ultra\/Performance\/Course_Reports\/Course_Activity_Related_to_Grades\">https:\/\/help.blackboard.com\/Learn\/Instructor\/Ultra\/Performance\/Course_Reports\/Course_Activity_Related_to_Grades<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you are interested in looking in more detail at course analytics, we are holding an online training session on Monday 9 February between 15:10-16:00. <a href=\"https:\/\/training.aber.ac.uk\/othl\/f?p=168:39:6398653455550:::::\">You can book your place online via the training booking page.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Now that semester 1 teaching has finished and we are moving towards the assessment period, we wanted to write a blogpost to highlight the analytical reports that are available in Blackboard. These reports can be used to monitor Blackboard usage and engagement and help you to re-enforce messages to students. Progress Summary By default, the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6741,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blackboard"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9XLJV-2Bj","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6741"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10001"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10016,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10001\/revisions\/10016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/e-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}