A brief dictionary for terms found throughout Blackboard Data Reporting: 

Controls 

  • Controls: section of filtering options within each report tab. 

  • Course term: the beginning and end of a period of study. You may select multiple options. The report tab will only show data from courses available during the specific course term or terms selected. 

  • Course duration type: courses can have different types of duration. A continuous course doesn't start or end. A fixed course has set calendar dates for the start and end of the term.  

  • Course item type: materials added to a course can be in multiple formats. For example, learning module, Sharable Content Objective Reference Model (SCORM) package, test, assignment, discussion, journal, file, teaching tools, and content market, link, document, folder. 

  • Course role: instructors (I) are users in a course with an instructor, teaching assistant, grader, or facilitator course role, that registered activity in the course. 

  • Date filter type: courses can be filtered by their creation date or the date that they're set to start on.  

  • Date range – from, to: limit data on a report tab to a specific group of dates. Set the group of dates from a start date to an end date. 

  • Exclude enrollments with no activity after X days: remove users enrolled in courses with student roles that haven’t registered any activity after the number of days selected.  

  • Expected grading time (days): number of days on which an instructor is expected to return a grade for student submissions. 

  • Exclude non-course sessions: a Blackboard Collaborate session that isn't created under a course. 

  • Exclude sessions with one attendee: sessions with one attendee don't represent synchronous learning or social interaction.  

  • Grade calculation: the type of formula to view or assign grades based on other graded items. You can select final grades only, an average of all grades, or automatic. Automatic uses final grades where they exist and the average of all grades where they don’t.

  • Grade boundary: the minimum grade required for a particular grade. For example, students with a grade of 70% or above, pass. Students with a grade below 70%, fail. In this example, 70% is a grade boundary.

  • Average of all grades: the sum of the grades divided by how many grades were summed.

  • Final grade: grade categorized as Final Grade.  

  • Include unavailable enrollments: count not available, not enabled, deleted student enrollments. 

  • Include only grades part of final grade: filter by only those grades that contributed to the final grade.

  • Institutional hierarchy - Levels 1, 2, 3, and 4+: define up to what level of your Institutional multi-level framework within Blackboard Learn to filter data by. For example, by schools, departments, academic programs, or specific courses. 

  • Student course activity type: define if you want to include student activity based on students’ last course access date or last course participation data. 

 

A

  • Active user:  a user with at least one session in the learning management system (LMS) within the time range selected. 

  • Active student enrollments: users enrolled in a course with a student role in Blackboard Learn and that have accessed and registered activity in the course. Students who dropped out of a course after one day of activity are included. 

  • Active instructor enrollments: users enrolled in a course with an instructor role in Blackboard Learn and that have accessed and registered activity in the course. 

  • Active course: a course that has at least one user activity record within the time range selected. 

  • Available course: A course must be made available before students enrolled in the course can view or access the course and its content. 

  • Available course days: the number of days a course has been available to students. 

  • Assessment: assessment items used in a course, including assignments, tests, and surveys. 

B

C

  • Class size: the number of student enrollments divided by the number of people with the instructor role in the course.

  • Course count: number of courses.

  • Course duration: the time between a course's start and end date. 

  • Current final grade: measures the normalized (%) grade score for a student in a course. For example, a student on a course with a total grade of 15 out of 20 points would have a normalized grade of 75% and would be counted in the 70-79% band. This measure only includes courses in which any grade has been posted and only counts active students. 

    • For a completed course, the current final grade is calculated with the grade reported in the external grade column in Blackboard Learn. 

    • For unfinished courses, the current final grade is calculated with the current grade and information about the remaining assessments to create a projected grade. Projected scores assume the same pace of performance on completed assessments.  

  • Course content items: any instructional or study resource. Content items include instructional course items used in a course, including syllabi, file attachments, learning modules, SCORM packages, and links to third-party content or tools. 

  • Comparison date range: the period you want to compare your, primary date range to. 

  • Course room: an open session dedicated to your course.

  • Course Tool: course tool items used in a course, including announcements, discussion forums, wikis, blogs, and journals. 

D

E

F

  • Frequency of student access: measures the percentage of available days a student visits a course. This measure only counts active students. If the course has ended, the percentage is based on the total days of the course from start to end. If the course is ongoing, the percentage is based on the number of days the course has been available so far. 

G

  • Graded and ungraded enrollments: count the number of active student enrollments with graded and ungraded items in a course.
  • Grade Distribution: shows how grades are spread in a course. A smaller grade distribution percentage means more students have similar grades. Grade distribution is calculated as the difference between the upper 75% and lower 25% quartiles in a set of grades (interquartile range).
  • Grade boundary: the minimum grade required for a particular grade. For example, students with a grade of 70% or above, pass. Students with a grade below 70%, fail. In this example, 70% is a grade boundary.

H

I

  • Inactive student enrollments: students enrolled in a course and with no activity throughout the duration of a course. 

  • Inside grading time: when an instructor returns a grade before or on the Expected Grading Time (days) selected in Controls. 

  • Instructor enrollments: users included in a course list under an instructor role. 

  • Instructor course access frequency: the percentage of available course days an instructor or instructors visit a course. If the course has ended, the percentage is based on the total days of the course from start to end. If the course is ongoing, the percentage is based on the number of days the course has been available so far. If a course has multiple instructors, this measure will consider data for all instructors enrolled in that course.

  • Instructor-student engagement ratio: the average time, in hours, instructor enrollments spend in a course divided by the average time, in hours, students spend in a course.

  • Instructor engagement with virtual classroom: the time in hours, instructor enrollments spend in Collaborate sessions.

J

K

L

  • Last course access date: based on the date users last accessed your course. 

  • Last course participation date: based on students' overall activity within your course. Blackboard measures the time a student works on a course with the data generated from "clicks." Students are assumed to be working with a course from the time they click something in the course until the time they click something outside the course or log out. If a login session is timed out, Blackboard only counts the time until the last click within the course. The time isn't counted between the last click within the course and the timeout. 

  • Late assessments: assessments completed after the due date. 

  • Learning tools: all tools available in the LMS, from built-in tools like discussions, assignments etc. to third-party plugins and LTI. 

M

N

O

  • Outside grading time: when an instructor returns a grade after the Expected Grading Time (days) selected in Controls. 

  • On-time assessments: assessments completed on or before the due date. 

  • Overdue assessments: assessments haven’t been completed. Due date has passed.

P

  • Previously active students: students with registered course activity 8 days ago or more.  

  • Primary date range: the period you want to set as a base date. 

Q

R

  • Recently active students: students with registered course activity in the last 7 days. 

S

  • SCORM Packages: One type of web-based learning content you can use in your course is called an SCO, or Shareable Content Object. These SCOs are gathered together into a compressed ZIP file called a content package. The zipped file can be unpackaged and played through a content player. Typically, individual components or entire packages are provided to you by schools, publishers, commercial companies, or other sources. 

    • Your institution controls whether the SCORM Engine is enabled. If enabled by your institution, the SCORM Engine B2 becomes the default content player for all newly uploaded content packages, as well as any existing content packages that are re-uploaded. 

  • Student enrollments: users included in a course list under a student role.

  • Student participation in Collaborate: the percentage of time student enrollments participate in synchronous course sessions on Collaborate. The measure is based on a total of hours per course for sessions in which both students and instructors were present. This measure only counts active students. If you don't use Collaborate, no data is shown.

  • Synchronous session: a Blackboard Collaborate session in which both, students and instructors, are present. 

  • Submission: when a student finishes an assignment and selects Submit.

T

U

  • Unique user/attendee: every user or attendee has a distinct ID to ensure the same user isn't considered twice if, for instance, they join the same session twice. 

  • Unique student: every student has a distinct ID to ensure the same user isn't considered twice.

  • Upcoming assessments: assessments haven’t been completed. The due date is in the future. 

V

W

X

Y

Z