Student engagement in a module is a complex concept. A simple approach is to open up the module, access the Gradebook, and switch the view to Students. This shows you when the students have last accessed the module. Obviously, this is a very superficial measure of engagement. To address this, an exciting new feature has been released in Blackboard Ultra, providing academics with some metrics of student activity within their module. Inside the Gradebook, there is a link to what is called Module Activity. By accessing this space, you can get some really useful statistics about student engagement.
The first view you are presented with is a holistic view of the entire module, allowing you to see which students are accessing it as well as showing you things like how long they spend in the module. If there are graded items in the module, these are also collated here. If the module utilises an Overall Mark, the data can be presented as either a list or a graph. If there’s no Overall Mark, you can view the data as a list.
You can set up an alert on a module level. This can notify you of any student how hasn’t engaged with the module within a set parameter. At time of writing, this is done on a module basis, rather than focusing on specific students.
If needed, you can also interrogate the data on an individual student level. This will give you a break down of the student activity, and compare it to the average use of the cohort. Data can be exported for later use. In addition, you can send a message to that student if appropriate.
For more specific details on using this tool, go here: https://eatsupport.tees.ac.uk/staff/knowledgebase/measuring-student-performance-in-blackboard-ultra/
You can also explore the official documentation here: https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Instructor/Ultra/Performance/Course_Reports/Course_Activity_Related_to_Grades
For a more in-depth discussion about student engagement, please don’t hesitate to contact the Digital Learning Specialist team at elearning@tees.ac.uk. They will be only too happy to have a conversation with you, focusing on pedagogic strategies to help make the most out of the Universities diverse range of learning ecosystems.