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CourseInfo will likely grow past the 100 course mark this month, demonstrating how popular this teaching support tool has become on our campus. If you have been using CourseInfo for some time already, you probably know that it is easy to enable course statistics allowing you to track the number of uses the different documents get. Though it can't tell you how long a document was left open - perhaps being read - it will tell you the number of times a document was opened.
This statistic can help you gauge how your students are using the online materials. If you're not sure if you have the course statistics option enabled, follow the steps below. There is also a way to enable, or secure, others from seeing the course and staff information folders as well as the course documents folder. The student tools and communication areas are always secure and can only be accessed by those enrolled in the course.
To enable course statistics:
- Select the Control Panel link.
- Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and click on the radio button "Full Detail" enabled and then click on the "Go" button.
Later, when you want to check on the course statistics follow these steps:
- Select the Control Panel link.
- Select the Assessment Area link.
- Scroll down to the Course Statistics link and click on that.
- Choose the report type you would like, enter the date range you want to have included in the report, select all or individual users, click on YES to refresh the data set and finally, check the type of statistical information you want.
- Click on Generate Report and CourseInfo will provide you with both a table presentation of the data as well as pie and bar charts for quick interpretation.
If you have already been tracking your course statistics, you may have noticed that there were folks looking at your course files that were not registered for it. Unfortunately, the default setting for CourseInfo is to allow any user in the CourseInfo database access to course information and documents. Blackboard claims this is helpful for students wanting to learn more about what is covered in a course before they take it. I can appreciate that, but you may have reasons you don't want currently unregistered users reading your files. An easy fix would have been to allow us as the administrators to set the default to block this type of access, but that would be too good to be true. You'll have to do it yourself for any course you are the instructor of.
Follow these steps to secure or enable specific areas within your course:
- Select the Control Panel link.
- Select the Site Management link.
- Select the Course Options link.
- Click on the radio buttons on the right side of the screen to E (enable access) or S (secure access). Selecting "S" will allow only your registered students to enter that section.
If you have any questions about these or other CourseInfo features, please contact Chris Braster (Chris.Braster@mail.tju.edu) or myself (Tony.Frisby@jefferson.edu). We're here to help!
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