Mining User Data: Getting the Most out of your CMS

John Fritz, UMBC

About UMBC• Founded in 1966• “Research extensive university” Carnegie classification• 12,041 Students

– 9,464 undergrad, 2,577 grad• 1,319 Faculty

– 636 FT, 683 PT• Selected Brags

– One of 50 Best Colleges for Women– 1st in undergrad chemistry degrees

awarded to African Americans – Six-time National College Chess

Champions

Blackboard @ UMBC• Learning System Version 7.2• As of Fall 2007

– 11,614 students (96% of all students)– 1,074 Bb course sites (includes multi-section courses)– 808 Instructors (61% of all instructors)– 356 Communities

• Includes all student, faculty and staff senates• Support Staff:

– 2 FTE (Admin & Support) – 1 Server Admin

Faculty Support Challenges• MOST FACULTY LEARN BEST FROM OTHER

FACULTY . . .

• BUT the “default state” of a Course Management System is a closed door.

• Most faculty don’t talk to each other about their teaching.

• Unanalyzed data: don’t know what we don’t know.

Academic Analytics

Solution: Transparency• Show faculty what peers are doing through

publicly available reports of student use.– System Administrators should not have the only

“birds eye” view of an application.

• Which courses do you show?

• Average “hits per student” makes all courses equal candidates regardless of size.– Usage alone is not an indicator of quality.– But activity by students piques faculty interest.

Three Types of Usage

Rankings Based on Usage

Course Tool Usage

Rankings by Department

Rankings in Context

How Faculty Connect

Student Usage Results

GDR for SCI100

Self Service Reports

Future Plans

• Provide self service reports to students who can monitor their activity against– Anonymous summary of the current class

roster.– Activity by grade distribution for students in

past versions of the course.• Alert students who may be at risk?• Who decides?

More Information• "Copyright John Fritz, 2008.

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