Problem:
Administrators – do you wish you had a way to check if courses are ready for semester start?
Solution:
If so – then consider using the Instructor Usage Advanced Data Set (ADS) provided within Data Hub. It provides information about how instructors are using Brightspace functionality within their courses. While this report was first intended to be used for understanding how an instructor is using Brightspace – it can also be useful to check on the readiness of the course at semester start.
Setting up the Export:
You have 3 filters available with the Instructor Usage ADS:
- Org Unit ID
- Roles Included
- Date Range
Before exporting be sure to provide an Org Unit Id as this is required. The Org Unit ID is an Org Unit's unique identification value that appears in the Org Unit's web address (all Org Unit IDs are also listed in the Org Unit Editor). All courses that are children of this Org Unit are included in the export – so for instance if you want to check on all the courses within a semester or department you must provide the Org Unit Id for the semester or department.
You may also find it helpful to filter to only the Instructor role and/or add a date range to restrict the export.
Figure: The Instructor Usage filter option.
The export will provide the following fields:
- Username
- First Name
- Last Name
- Org Defined Id
- User Id
- Role Name
- Role Id
- Is Active
- Course Offering Name
- Course Offering Code
- Course Offering Id
- Number of Content Topics Visited
- Last Access to Course Offering Content
- Number of Assignments
- Number of Assignment Submissions Commented on
- Number of Grade Items
- Number of Graded Grade Items
- Last Modification of a Grade Item
- Number of Discussion Posts
- Number of Discussion Posts Authored
- Last Discussion Post Date
- Last Access to Course Offering
- Number Of Logins To The System
Reviewing the Export:
As mentioned - this report was first intended to be used for understanding how an instructor is using Brightspace – it can also be useful to check on the readiness of the course(s) at semester start by focusing on certain fields/columns.
For example – by sorting on the Last Access to Course Offering column you can find which instructors have not yet accessed their course(s).
Sorting on the Last Access to Course Offering Content will show which instructors have not yet accessed or reviewed any of the content within their course. This can be used along with the Number of Content Topics Visited to give you an idea of the number of content topics an instructor as visited within their course(s).
Often grades, assignments and welcome discussion forums are required to be set up before the course begins. These fields are also included in the export to assess the entire course readiness. There may be other requirements for course readiness that are not included in the Instructor Usage ADS such as setting up attendance registers. This is where admins can pull in 1 or 2 Brightspace Data Sets to add even further detail to the course readiness at such a critical time.
We hope you found this helpful - and best of luck in the coming semester!
