This information applies only to the Ultra experience.

Course Activity Report

The Course Activity report, formerly known as "Course Activity Related to Grades," helps you understand how well your students are performing and how much they are interacting with your course. All roles with the privilege to view grades can access the Course Activity report. Turn on the Overall Grade feature to enhance your experience with the Course Activity report. You can:

  • Identify struggling students based on their overall grade, the number of hours they spend in your course, and the number of days since their last access
  • Message students who are falling behind and encourage them to increase their course activity
  • Congratulate students performing well in your course and ask them to be mentors
  • Customize your activity stream alerts for when a student's overall grade drops below a specific value or a student hasn't accessed the course for a certain number of days
  • Notify students based on course alerts when the days since their last access or their grade in the course is below expected
  • Download the table view to a CSV (comma-separated values) file to analyze the data with other tools
  • Download the scatter plot as a PDF or image to share information with other instructors or mentors of the course

Note: The course activity page relies on the Overall Grade (Ultra Course View) or External Grade (Original Course View) to be functional.  

Access the Course Activity Report

Select Course Activity in the course's Analytics tab.

Image of the table view of the Course Activity report on the Analytics tab, with a blue box around Analytics and Course Activity.

You can also access the report in the Grades section of the base navigation. Click the pie chart icon next to a course.

Image of the Grades tab, showing the pie chart icon to the left of the blue-outlined Overall Grade icon.

You can visit the "How Am I Doing" topic to see reports that students have available in their Grades section of the base navigation.

Table View

After students have interacted with the course and the report has data to display, you can use the table view.

The table view of the Course Analytics tab. Student names with additional information are on the left, with color-coded grades, hours in course, and days of inactivity.

You might see the table differently depending on settings, student activity in the course, and the data gathered in the course. The table has four columns:

  • Student: Student's first and last name. Additional student information is shown if available: accommodations, additional name, name pronunciation recording, pronunciation description, pronouns, and Student ID.
  • Overall Grade: A student's overall grade in the course. If the overall grade column is not turned on or if there is no graded material, this column won't display information. This column is updated every 24 hours, so the overall grade in the report might not match what is currently in the Gradebook.
  • Hours in Course: Number of hours a student has been active in your course. This column is updated every 24 hours. Hours in course are counted from the time students select something within the course to when students select something outside the course. If a student is logged out from their course session, only the time before their last action within the course is counted.
  • Days of Inactivity: Counts the days since a student last accessed a course. Each time a student accesses the course, the count of days of inactivity changes to 0.

When there are no students enrolled in the course or for courses with more than 1000 students, no data displays.

The table view of the Course Analytics tab when no students are enrolled. A person is looking at a cell phone above a caption saying, "No data to display."

Table Options

  • You can choose students and send them messages by selecting the Send message icon. When you send a message to multiple students, each student will receive an individual message and will not know which other students were included.
  • Select the Download button to download the table as a CSV. The exported file contains the following columns:
    • Last Name
    • First Name
    • Username
    • Student ID
    • Overall Grade
    • Hours in Course
    • Days of Inactivity
    • Last Access Date
  • Select a student on the table to bring up the Student Overview Page to check the student’s additional information, grades, progress, and more.
Image of the Student Overview Page, showing additional student information and a tab for Grades and Progress

Scatter Plot

The scatter plot's Y Axis represents the students' overall grades and the X Axis represents the students' number of hours in the course. You have a broad view of your students' performance in relation to each other and their activity levels. The data shown is refreshed every 24 hours.

Note: The scatter plot is not compatible with screenreaders.

Image of the scatter plot of the Course Activity report. There is a dot in the center showing a specific student, with Overall Grade, Hours in Course, and Days of Inactivity displayed above View Details.

Each dot represents a student. Students who spend more hours in the course tend to have higher grades. You can:

  • Zoom in or out by selecting the + and – icons at the top right. To focus on a specific region, select somewhere on the chart and drag to zoom in.
  • Identify visually odd trends, such as students with low grades who are spending a lot of time in the course or high performing students.
  • Select a dot to display the student's name, overall grade, hours in course, and days of inactivity. Hours in course are counted from the time students select something within the course to when students select something outside the course. If a student is logged out from their course session, only the time before their last action within the course is counted.
  • Select View Details to bring up the student's activity details report to check the student's progress on a weekly basis. You can visit the Student Activity Details topic for more information.
  • Select the Download button to download the scatter plot as a PDF or image file. The scatter plot can be shared with other instructors, academic staff, or mentors of the class.

When there are no students enrolled in the course, if the Overall Grade feature is not turned on, or for courses with more than 1000 students, the scatter plot is not available.

Image of the scatter plot view of the Course Activity report, showing a person looking at a cell phone above a caption saying "No data to display."

Alert Settings

You can customize your alerts to fit your teaching style on the Course Activity report:

  • Go to Alert Settings on the Course Activity report. Open this panel by selecting the Alert Settings icon at the top of the report.
Image of the table view of the Course activity report, with the Alert Settings icon outlined in blue in the top right corner.
  • Adjust alerts in the Student Performance section of the Gradebook settings. Open the settings panel by selecting the gear icon at the top of the Gradebook.
Image of the Performance Alerts section of the Gradebook settings, showing the option to change number of days of inactivity and overall grade percentage.

You'll receive activity stream notifications based on your settings:

  • If a student hasn't accessed the course in a certain number of days
  • When a student's Overall Grade drops below a certain percentage

Alerts are set to 5 days of student inactivity by default, but you can adjust alerts for each course. There is no default setting for grade percentage.

Select the notification on the activity stream to highlight the students with alerts in the scatter plot on the Course Activity report.

Screenshot of the Activity Stream tab of the base navigation. One of notifications, outlined in blue, shows that there are 4 students falling behind in Biology.

Students with alerts are highlighted in purple in the scatter plot.

Image of the scatter plot, showing the purple dots for several underperforming students who have alerts.

You can turn other kinds of notifications off or on in your activity stream settings. Check or uncheck the boxes under Performance alerts to adjust the alerts related the course activity report. The checkbox to the left of Performance alerts applies your settings to all notifications. Open this panel by selecting the gear icon at the top of the activity stream page.

Image of the Performance Alerts section of the Notification settings on the Activity Stream.

Performance alerts include:

  • If activity data is available, identify those who are participating or may need help
  • If grade data is available, compare grades with activity levels
  • Number falling behind
  • Number falling behind and absent
  • Number falling behind and failing
  • Number falling behind, absent, and failing

Note: Administrators can set up activity stream notifications at the institution level. They can select whether notifications are turned on by default, always on, or always off.