Blackboard Tips. Establish a school-wide naming convention for Blackboard courses WHY should I do this?

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1 Blackboard Tips for School-Based Administrators This guide is intended to be a reference for school-based administrators who want to see how their teachers are using Blackboard to meet students instructional needs. You will find how-to guides for: Establishing a naming convention for your school s Blackboard courses Gaining access to teachers Blackboard courses Customizing the My FCPS tab to manage a large number of courses Getting usage data for each Blackboard course Establish a school-wide naming convention for Blackboard courses Control the order in which your courses are displayed. Use a consistent system to help you, teachers, and students find each course easily within a list. Help teachers of multi-section classes remember which Blackboard course is active. 1. Decide what information each course name should have. Possibilities include: School year Team name Grade level Content area Teacher s name Class name 2. Decide on a format for the name. Within a course list, Blackboard organizes names numerically or alphabetically, with numbers appearing before letters. 3. Work with your administrative team and your SBTS to communicate the naming convention to teachers. Your SBTS can help teachers use the Settings feature in the Control Panel to name their courses according to your school s convention. Blackboard Tips for School-Based Administrators Page 1

2 Gain access to your teachers Blackboard courses See how teachers are using Blackboard to meet their students instructional needs. Gather usage data for each teacher s Blackboard courses. Know what progress a class has made in case of a teacher s unexpected or extended absence. OPTION #1: Create a generic administrator account and have teachers enroll this account in their Blackboard courses. 1. Call the ITFASTeam and ask them to set up a generic administrator account for your school. They will create an account with your school code and principal (e.g. the Hayfield MS account would be 181principal). The ITFASTeam will enroll this account in all of your school s courses. Pros: Cons: Does not require action from teachers All your school s courses are available to you Your personal Blackboard account does not have a lot of courses Generic account is enrolled as a student no access to usage data Potentially a long list of courses to scroll through OPTION #2: Have teachers enroll their supervising administrators in each of their Blackboard courses. 1. Decide what role an administrator should have in teachers courses. (Administrators will need to be enrolled as Teacher s Assistant or Instructor to have access to usage data.) 2. Work with your administrative team and your SBTS to have teachers enroll their administrators into each of their Blackboard courses. Teachers will then need to assign the administrator to the Teacher s Assistant or Instructor role. Pros: Cons: Each administrator only sees the courses of teachers he/she supervises Administrators can gather usage data for each course Requires action from teachers Your account may have a large number of courses Blackboard Tips for School-Based Administrators Page 2

3 Customize the My FCPS tab Manage a long list of courses. Streamline the appearance of the My FCPS tab. Select the content that you need and display it in a layout that works for you. MODIFY THE CONTENT OF THE MY FCPS TAB 1. In the upper-right corner of the My FCPS tab, click the Modify Content button. 2. You will see a list of available content modules with checkboxes next to them. Boxes with RED checkmarks have been set by the county Blackboard administrators and cannot be unchecked. Go through the list and check any modules you want to see on your My FCPS tab. Some of the most popular modules are: 24-7 Forms: Includes some common Blackboard forms such as Student Copy, Organization Request, New Account, and Remove Course. BART Access: Allows you to sign in to BART. My Courses: Displays the courses in which you are enrolled or an instructor. My Organizations: Displays the organizations in which you are enrolled. Teacher Training Materials and Resources: Provides Blackboard how-to guides for easy downloading and printing. 3. Once you have selected all your modules, click the Submit button at the bottom. You will get notification that your changes have been made; click OK. STREAMLINE THE MY COURSES MODULE 1. On the title bar of the My Courses module, click the pencil (edit) icon. 2. You will see a list of all your courses with checkboxes giving you the option to display the course name and other information about the course. To streamline your My Courses module: Uncheck all boxes in the Display Announcements column. Go through the list of courses and uncheck the Display Course Name box for any course you do not wish to see, such as old courses from previous school years. Blackboard Tips for School-Based Administrators Page 3

4 3. Click the Submit button at the bottom of the list. You will get notification that your changes have been made; click OK. CUSTOMIZE THE LAYOUT OF THE MY FCPS TAB 1. Minimize any modules that you need for reference but might not use very frequently, such as the 24-7 Forms and Teacher Training Materials and Resources modules. In the title bar for the module, click the minimize icon. 2. In the upper-right corner of the My FCPS Tab, click the Modify Layout button. 3. The first section allows you to determine the order in which you see your modules. Click once on a module s name to highlight it. Use the up or down arrow buttons to change the module s position in the column. Use the right or left arrow buttons to move a module from one column to another. You can also use the red X button to remove a module. (Modules marked with an asterisk cannot be removed.) 4. In the second section, you can select a new color scheme if you wish. 5. Click the Submit button at the bottom of the screen. You will get notification that your changes have been made; click OK. Blackboard Tips for School-Based Administrators Page 4

5 Get usage data for your teachers Blackboard courses See how teachers are using their Blackboard courses to fill their students needs. Get usage data to determine how often and in what way students are accessing their teachers courses USING THE PERFORMANCE DASHBOARD 1. In the course menu on the left side of the screen, click the Control Panel button. 2. On the right side of the Control Panel in the Assessment box, click Performance Dashboard. 3. For each user enrolled in the course, the Performance Dashboard provides the following information: Last Name and First Name Username: For students, this will be the student ID number. Role: The user s role within the Blackboard course. Last Login and Days Since Last Login: This is the last login to Blackboard as a whole, not necessarily to the specific course you are in. Review Status: Clicking on the number link for a specific user lists each Review Status-enabled item in the course, whether that item is visible to the user, and whether the user has marked the item as reviewed or not. Adaptive Release: If the teacher uses the Adaptive Release function, clicking on the book icon for a specific user will display a course map in the form of a folder tree. Icons next to each folder and item will indicate whether that folder or item is visible to the user. Discussion Board: Clicking on the number link for a specific user will display a collection of all that user s posts to discussion boards in the course. View Grades: Clicking the gradebook icon will let you view the Blackboard gradebook for that specific user. 4. You can sort entries by any of the columns except Adaptive Release and View Grades. Click the white arrow at the top of a column to sort; click the arrow again to sort in reverse order. 5. To exit the Performance Dashboard, click the OK button at the bottom of the screen. You will be returned to the Control Panel. Blackboard Tips for School-Based Administrators Page 5

6 USING COURSE STATISTICS When using the Course Statistics feature, keep in mind that your results may take a while to load depending on the number of users in the course and the time frame you specify. One way to minimize this is to request data for a week or two at a time. You could also limit the number of users you request data for by taking a sample of students or by just selecting the instructor if you only want a picture of the teacher s usage. 1. In the course menu on the left side of the screen, click the Control Panel button. 2. On the right side of the Control Panel in the Assessment box, click Course Statistics. 3. In the first section, use the drop-down menu to select the type of report you want to see: Overall Summary of Usage: number and percentage of hits for each area within course (pie chart), number of hits for each user in each area of the course (table), total number of hits per day (bar graph), number of hits for each user for each day (table), total number of hits per hour of day (bar graph), total number of hits per day of week (bar graph). Accesses by Content Area: number and percentage of hits for each content area/ menu button within course (pie chart), number of hits for each user in each content area (table), total number of hits in content areas per day (bar graph), number of hits in content areas for each user for each day (table). Accesses by Groups (only available if the teacher has created groups): number and percentage of hits for each group page (pie chart), number of hits for each user on each group page (table), number of hits on each group page for each day (bar graph and table). Accesses by Forum (only available if the teacher has created a discussion board forum): number and percentage of hits for each discussion forum (pie chart), number of messages each user has posted in each forum (table), number of posts made on each day (bar graph), number of posts each user has made on each day (table). 4. In the second section, apply filters: Time Period: Using the drop-down menus or the calendar icon, select start and/or end dates for the data you want to see. Make sure you check the boxes if you want to use start and/or end dates. Users: Get data for all users or selected users. To select multiple users, hold the Control button on your keyboard and click once on each user you want to include. 5. Click the Submit button at the bottom of the screen. The results may take a while to load. Blackboard Tips for School-Based Administrators Page 6

7 6. At the top of the Course Statistics results screen, three buttons help you use the data: Change Filter: Allows you to change the filter settings and go back to the report without waiting again for all the data to load. Print: Allows you to print the Course Statistics. Export Data: Allows you to save the Course Statistics as a.csv (comma-delimited) file, which can be opened in Excel. 7. To exit the Course Statistics results page, click the OK button at the bottom of the page. You will be returned to the Control Panel. Sample pie chart showing percentage of hits in each area or tool within the course. Sample bar graph showing number of hits in the course per day of the week. Blackboard Tips for School-Based Administrators Page 7