March 6, 2008
New myUMBC Tools Show How Good Students Use Blackboard
OIT announces the release of two new myUMBC tools designed to show the campus community how top UMBC students use Blackboard.
Specifically, students can "Check My Blackboard Activity" to see a comparison of their own activity against an anonymous summary of other students in their classes. In addition, faculty can now run their own "Grade Distribution" and "Tool Usage" reports showing their students' Blackboard activity by any item in the Blackboard grade book (including final grade), or by overall tool usage within the course.
While the trend needs further study, initial findings suggest that students who earn higher grades tend to use Blackboard more than students earning lower grades. It is NOT the case that using Blackboard alone will produce higher grades, simply by "gaming" the system.
But if students know how their activity compares to an anonymous summary of peers, at any time during the semester, this timely and personal feedback may allow them to monitor and change their own behavior as it pertains to engaging with course concepts, materials, instructors or each other. In essence, students can now draw their own conclusions about the quantity AND quality of their Blackboard activity and the impact this may or may not have on their learning.
Since the "Check Grade" tool in Blackboard allows students to view statistical differences between their grades and the class average for any visible item in the grade book, OIT will eventually publish student reports showing activity by grade distribution as well. In the meantime, faculty who wish to can provide further insight to students, by viewing, printing and publishing (as PDF files in their Bb course site) their current or past student activity GDRs for their specific courses.
Background
A year ago, OIT began reporting on UMBC's "Most Active Blackboard Courses" based on a simple "average hits per user" approach. In this way, "rankings" don't favor large enrollment sites over smaller ones. To date, we now have reports for the Spring, Summer and Fall 2007 semesters.
After OIT announced the Fall 2007 Blackboard reports and availability of the "self service" faculty Grade Distribution Reports (GDR), 16 faculty used their GDRs, which collectively showed overall Blackboard usage was higher by students earning higher grades. The self service GDRs complemented earlier pilots with two faculty from Geography and Environmental Systems (Karin Readel and Chris Swan), which also showed higher Blackboard usage among students earning higher grades.
While there is no statistically significant difference among students earning As, Bs and Cs (numerically there is: students earning higher grades tend to use it more), there is a significant difference between this group and those students who earn Ds and Fs. So far, the pattern has held true in the courses mentioned above, and OIT is working on a way to load final grades into a table that looks at all Bb courses to see if the trend is broadly generalizable.
OIT recognizes that hits alone are no endorsement (or indictment) of course quality. But looking at and publishing user activity is one way to help faculty and students identify and consult each other about effective teaching and learning practices. By adopting an attitude of transparency about Blackboard usage, the entire UMBC community (and not just OIT system administrators) gains a "birds eye view" of how this Course Management System (CMS) is being used.
For more information, visit http://www.umbc.edu/blackboard/reports. You can also view a brief video demo of these new myUMBC tools for students and faculty.
Posted by fritz at 2:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 14, 2007
OIT Publishes FA2007 Most Active Blackboard Courses Reports
OIT has again published UMBC's "Most Active Blackboard" courses reports for the Fall 2007 semester, based on an "average hits per user" approach. To learn more, visit www.umbc.edu/blackboard/reports.
Highlights include the following (based ONLY on student activity):
Most Active Graduate Course: EDUC 688 "Methodology of Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language" taught by George Chinnery, Eunju Chen, Margaret Wilson (avg hits per student: 2,075)
Most Active Undergraduate Course: PSYC 100 "Introduction to Psychology" taught by Kelly Forys, Brian Jobe, Linda Jones (avg hits per student: 927).
Most Active Department: Information Systems (90 Blackboard courses).
Most Active Community: "Project Lead The Way" managed by Anne Spence, Mechanical Engineering (avg hits per user: 1,214).
Total Number of Blackboard Courses (including those with multiple sections): 1,074
While activity alone is not a measure of quality, OIT publishes these reports so faculty can seek each other out about what does (or doesn't ) work in using Blackboard. Toward this end, faculty may also want to try out the new "Average Hits Per User by Final Grade Distribution" "self service" report announced on November 30, 2007.
For more information about the Blackboard Reports project, contact John Fritz at 410.455.6596 or fritz@umbc.edu.
Posted by fritz at 4:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 27, 2007
OIT Pilots New Report Showing Student Activity by Final Grade Distribution
As announced earlier this year, OIT has been publishing new reports and videos about how students and faculty actually use Blackboard. Now, after piloting with two faculty from Geography and Environmental Systems, OIT is extending the pilot to all faculty who want to see their students’ activity by final grade distribution.
In three of four courses taught by Karin Readel and Chris Swan, “A” students used Blackboard more than “B” students who used it more than “C” students and so on. OIT is making these “self service” grade distribution reports available to faculty to see if there is a similar trend in their Blackboard courses.
These “self service” reports query a “replica” of the main Blackboard server that is updated weekly. Only the instructor of record can query (and view) his or her course’s student activity by grade distribution, if there is a grade book column called GRADE and the grade type is set to “text” display using only A, B, C, D or F.
Note: If you use these reports, they may be added to an anonymous, cumulative summary of all UMBC Bb courses to show student activity by final grade distribution. Unless you give OIT permission to do so, we will NOT publish your specific course’s final grade distribution in the list of most active Blackboard courses.
Future plans include developing a “Check My Activity” link faculty can enable for students that provides contextual feedback on how each student's activity compares to an anonymous summary of all other students in the course at any point during the semester. Students might also be able to “opt in” to receive email, rss or txt updates if their activity falls below a specific (or desired) level.
Reminder: The FA2007 Most Active Blackboard Courses reports will be run on Dec. 12, the day after classes end.
For more information about the UMBC Blackboard Reports project (www.umbc.edu/blackboard/reports), contact John Fritz (fritz@umbc.edu or 5-6596).
Posted by rarmstro at 8:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 16, 2007
GES Faculty Show and Tell How and Why They Use Blackboard
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Karin Readel |
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Chris Swan |
In addition, OIT has published pilot reports for some of Readel's and Swan's recent courses showing student activity by final grade distribution:
While this kind of individual course report is not yet available (faculty can do it manually), OIT intends to provide this service to faculty who wish to view it privately (or eventually post it inside a Bb course for future students to monitor and benchmark their own activity).
OIT will also be publishing a similar, public report that summarizes student activity and tool use by grade distribution in the top 25, 50, 75 and 100 percentile ranges of all UMBC Blackboard courses. The goal is to see what difference, if any, exists in student grade distribution across a range of Bb courses and activity levels.
After watching Readel and Swan show how they use Blackboard in their actual course sites, faculty may want to check out why they do so in two new "Q & A" video interviews on UMBC's iTunesU service (for more information about UMBC on iTunes, see http://itunes.umbc.edu).
OIT plans to publish more "Show & Tell" (how) and "Q & A" (why) videos from faculty teaching active Blackboard courses in other disciplines, but if you or a colleague has an effective practice or insight you'd be willing to share, send email to fritz@umbc.edu. Please include a short description of the pedagogical problem that is solved or the new learning opportunity that is created in using Blackboard.
Note: To protect the work and identity of students who may appear in the "Show & Tell" videos, only UMBC faculty can access them with their myUMBC userid & password. These videos are intended for collegial, professional development only, so all faculty are reminded that any medium containing identifiable student academic information constitutes an "educational record" that is protected by the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
Posted by fritz at 4:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 15, 2007
OIT Staff Present Blackboard Reporting Project at MDBUG Conference
OIT staff members John Fritz, director of Instructional Technology & New Media (ITNM), and Jeffrey Berman (an ITNM graduate assistant) presented the UMBC "Most Active Blackboard Courses" Reports project at the Maryland Blackboard Users Group (MDBUG) conference on Tuesday, October 2, at the UMBC Technology Center.
Proceedings are not yet available on the conference website, but you can watch Fritz and Berman's presentation, "Why and How UMBC Publishes Its Most Active Blackboard Courses Reports," on the Blackboard reports site (Fritz handles the "why" and Berman explains the "how").
Other UMBC presenters included:
Anne Rubin (History): "Child Labor in the American South: Using a Bb Wiki for Historical Research"
Matthias Gobbert (Math/Stats): "Screen Capture of Mathematics with Voice Over using a Tablet Laptop"
Katie Morris (Social Work): "Social Work & Technology: An Unlikely Pair?"
Bev Bickel & Adriana Val (MLL): "Multiple Voices from Online EFL Teacher Education"
For more information about the Maryland Blackboard Users Group, including the opt-in email listserve, visit www.umbc.edu/mdbug.
Posted by fritz at 1:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 13, 2007
SU2007 Blackboard Reports Now Include Tool Usage
OIT has published the Summer 2007 "Most Active Blackboard Courses" reports for all categories of usage (e.g., all courses, graduate courses, undergraduate courses, communities, etc.).
In addition, we have published the specific "tool usage" metrics for the top 50 courses in all categories. Future plans include providing this for all courses.
Reminder: Course activity alone is not a measure or endorsement of quality. These reports are merely provided as a way for faculty to seek each other out about what works (or doesn't) in using Blackboard.
Posted by fritz at 1:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 29, 2007
New Report Lists Most Active Blackboard Courses and Communities
Today, OIT is publishing a new set of reports that, for the first time, identifies the Top 50 most active Blackboard courses and communities by a simple “average hits per user” methodology. While there is no implication of “quality” based on activity alone—after all, students could be struggling to find directions for an assignment—these new reports rank activity across all Blackboard courses (e.g., undergraduate, graduate, by discipline) and by all users (e.g., faculty, students). As such, they allow faculty and students to network with one another about what works or doesn’t work in using technology in teaching and learning. The new Blackboard reports are available on the MyBlackboard tab and directly at http://www.umbc.edu/oit/newmedia/blackboard/stats (login required).
If you have any questions, contact John Fritz at 5-6596 or fritz@umbc.edu.
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