The Retention Center is an instructor-only tool that enables you to give focused attention to the students who needs it.

This tutorial shows you how to:1. Utilize Retention Center Info to monitor student and contact them.2. View and moody rules that trigger alerts.3. Create new rules

You can access a course’s Retention Center on the Control Panel in the Evaluation section (as shown above).

Let’ break down the information on the main page.

USER ACTIVITY& RETENTION CENTER

BLACKBOARD HOW TO

THE RETENTION CENTER

The RETENTION CENTER provides an easy way for instructors to discover which students in their courses are at risk. Instructors can communicate with struggling students and help them take immediate action for improvement.

Instructors can also use the PERFORMANCE DASHBOARD. Instructors can not only see the date of last access, but also view information about the student’s Discussion posts and Review status.

You can run several types of COURSE REPORTS to view information about course usage and activity. You can view summaries of course usage including which course areas are used most frequently and course access patterns for specific students.

USER ACTIVITY & RETENTION CENTERBLACKBOARD HOW TO

The Three main areas are:1. Students at risk.2. Specific people or items that you are monitoring.3. And your course activity.

THE RETENTION CENTER (continued)

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The category shows students are risk because of missed deadlines, low grades, minimal activity, or not logging in.

The risk table shows students in the four categories shown in the bar above the table.

You can sort the information in each column from highest risk to lowest risk by clicking the column header.

You can monitor specific students. Just click a red dot in their row to show the dropdown list and select the star.

The bar at the top shows the total number of students at risk. Click it to show the number of students in each category.

You can contact students easily in the category. For example, send an email to all of the students in a category who have not access the course recently.

THE RETENTION CENTER (continued)

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At a glance, you can see which assessments and course communication areas are awaiting your attention, and also when you last logged in or created content.

From this area, you can also send a quick announcement.

You can review your own level of interaction and jump directly to a communication tool to further engage your students.

THE RETENTION CENTER (continued)

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The Retention Center Also shows your activity in the course. Only you can see this information.

Blackboard's Performance Dashboard provides the instructor with a quick overview of each student’s performance within the course. Many instructors use the Performance Dashboard to see when the student last logged in to the course.

To access the Performance Dashboard: • Go to the Control Panel • In the Evaluation area, click Performance Dashboard. • The Performance Dashboard will be displayed.

View-Only ColumnsYou can sort the data in following columns, but you cannot change or review it: • Last Name • First Name • Username • Role • Last Course Access – This column displays the date the student last accessed the course. • Days Since Last Course Access – This column displays the number of days which have passed since the student last logged in.Interactive ColumnsYou can use the following columns to report on other performance features. Click the link or icon to access data. • Review Status – Displays the number of content itmes that the student has marked as Reviewed. Click the link for a detailed view of content items reviewed. • Adaptive Release – Clicking this icon opens the Course Map, showing every content item in the course. Icons beside each item in the Course Map indicate the visibility of an item to the student, and the review status of any items with a review requirement (if any). • Discussion Board –Displays the number of posts for a student. Click the link to display which forums the student has posted to and statistics about each post. Forum names link to a collection of posts for the user. • Customize Retention Center: Displays the number of alerts and the total number of rules for a student. Click the link to open the Retention Center page for the student. • View Grades - Provides a link to the Grade Center.

PERFORMANCE DASHBOARD

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These reports are used to display an overview of course access and can be limited to specific dates and users

To begin access course reports in the control panel under Evaluations:1. Run and overall summary of User Activity2. Select the report format3. Select the users4. Set the start and end date5. Submit

A notification indicates that the report is successful generated. Download the report and open it

The Access/Application section displays the number of hits for each course area or tool, followed by a breakdown of hits by the users.This section determines with areas are used most and least.

The Access/Date section displays a bar graph of user access during the specified date range, followed by a breakdown of hits by user.This section depicts trends in course access.

The Access/Hour of Day section displays the number and percentage of hits for each hour of the day. This section shows the time of day the course receives the most access.

USER ACTIVITY REPORTS

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