UMBC began exploring Learning Analytics in 2007 when we published the UMBC Blackboard Reports site. Among other things, we found that students earning a D or F use Bb about 40 percent less than students earning a C or higher — every semester. If the pattern held true, which it has, we wondered what would happen if students knew this sooner in the semester. That led to the development of our Check My Activity “dashboard” in myUMBC, that lets students check their Bb activity against an anonymous summary of peers. If faculty use the Bb grade center, students can also check their activity against peers who earned the same, higher or lower grade on any assignment.
Recently, we’ve also wondered if and how the pattern of student usage might influence faculty course design. In short, we are trying to see how feedback to faculty and students about their use of a DoIT technology might influence or inform teaching and learning at UMBC.
Except for updates to the reporting cache at the end of the semester, the old Blackboard Reports is no longer actively maintained. Instead, we are in the process of switching over to using Blackboard Analytics for Learn (BA4L), which we collaborated with Bb to develop. Make no mistake, they developed it, but we were also among the first campuses to pilot