You can enable statistics tracking for specific items within a specific Content Area in order to collect student usage data on a single file or item. You can turn on Statistics Tracking at any time; data will begin being collected from the moment it is enabled.

You can also gather statistics for student activity in a whole Content Area, Discussion Board Forum, a Group or an overall summary of the whole course by using a Course Report, which you can learn how to generate here.

To enable Statistics Tracking:

1. Access the Content Area that contains the item you would like to track statistics for. Click the chevron associated with the item you would like to collect usage data for. Select Statistics Tracking On/Off from the menu.
   
   
   
   
2. Click the radio button next to On, to enable Statistics Tracking.
   
   
3. Click Submit.
   
   
4. A success message will appear on the Content Area home page. The Content Item will now have a description that reads "Enabled: Statistics Tracking" (students will not see this description). The system will now record specific dates and times when this Content Item is accessed by students.
   
   
   
   
5. To view the Statistics Report, click the chevron associated with the Content item and select View Statistics Report. You can watch a video tutorial on how to run a Report for a Content Area that has Statistics Tracking enabled here.
   
   
   
   
6. This will bring you to a Course Reports page. Click the chevron next to "Content Usage Statistics" and select Run.
   
   
   
   
7. Under "Report Specifications," select the format you would like the report to be produced in, the Start Date and End Date, and the students you would like to run the report for. Ctrl-click names to select individual students.
   
   
   
   NOTE: For the End Date, you must select the day following the last day for which you would like to collect data. In other words, if you want to collect the data from June 20, 2011, you would type June 21, 2011 for the End Date. (This is because the date in Blackboard rolls over at midnight, so collection for this group of statistics would actually close at 11:59 pm, on June 20, 2011).
   
   
8. The report will pop up in a new window (unless you have a pop up blocker installed); you can save the report from this screen. You will also be directed to a new page where you can choose to either "Download Report" to open the report in a new tab where you can save it to your hard drive, or to "Run a new Report" with different parameters.
   
   A Content Usage Report features information regarding the dates of access, the hour of the day, and the day of the week. For help interpreting this information, please see the "Interpreting a Course Report" portion of the Generating Course Reports tutorial which addresses similar topics regarding Course Reports.

Back to Faculty Help Resources