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The Retention Center is automatically on and immediately visible in your My Blackboard menu, and also accessible in the Evaluation section of a course's Control Panel. The information in the Retention Center is for instructors only and is not seen by your students.
The Retention Center Page
Click the colored bar preceding the table to display a summary of the at-risk students in your course. Click a colored section to access more information. You can drill in further by clicking links in the pop-up boxes. For example, in a grade alert box, you can click the displayed number to access a list of students triggering the alert.
Note that you can access students and their observers from the Notify drop-down list from more than one spot in the tool. Observers are typically assigned to follow specific users in Blackboard Learn without interacting with the system, such as parents or counselors. Observers are able to view the course and track student progress.
Email notifications you send have a default subject and message that you can edit. If you are sending an email to more than one recipient, the list is not revealed to the group.
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Click the red dot indicator in a student's cell for more information, to include the student in the monitoring section in the right panel, or to send an email.
Monitoring Individual Students
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- Access the Retention Center.
- Click on the name of the student you wish to monitor.
- Click Monitor directly below the student's name.
- The star in the Monitor box will turn yellow if successful.
- Risk factors for students you are monitoring will appear on the right-hand side of the Retention Center next to the Risk Table.
- When students are selected for individual monitoring, information will be provided regardless of whether or not they meet the risk factors criteria.
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- Your last login
- Time lag for grading student submissions
- Your participation in the interactive components of your course. For example, the numbers appearing for blogs shows how many times you have posted, not your students or co-instructors.
- Recent announcements
- Fresh course content
This information is only for you, and other users cannot access it. Each time you enter your course, you can use it to determine which course areas require your attention.
The links in this section allow you to quickly take appropriate action to further engage your students. For example, click an assignment link to begin grading and provide feedback. You can easily access communication tools to interact with students , or post an announcement.
Customize the Retention Center
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- Access the Retention Center page.
- Click on Customize.
- Click Create Rule and select the type of rule you want to create.
On the Customize Retention Center page, point to Create Rule on the action bar and select one of the four rule types described in the following table:
Rule Type Description Course Activity Alert is based on students' overall activity within your course. Students who are below a defined level of activity trigger the alert. Blackboard measures the time a student works in a course using the data generated from his "clicks." A student is assumed to be working with a course from the time he clicks on something in the course until the time he clicks something outside the course or logs out. If a login session is timed out, Blackboard only counts the time until the last click within the course. The time is not counted between the last click within the course and the timeout.
No weighting of clicks is assigned to any areas.
Adaptive rules are not taken into account.
Grade Alert is based on a defined score for any grade or calculated column in the Grade Center. Students who score above or below the defined threshold for a specific grade item trigger an alert. Determine when a grade triggers an alert: - Set Grade Value: Use the drop-down lists to select above or below -AND- points or percentage. Type a value in the field.
- Use Average Grades: Type the percentage in the field and select above or below the average grade from the drop-down list.
Course Access Alert is based on the date users last accessed your course. Students who have not logged in for a defined number of days trigger an alert. Missed Deadline Alert is based on a defined due date for an assignment, test, or survey. Students who do not complete an assignment, test, or survey by the due date trigger an alert based on the option you choose: - Monitor all course deadlines: Determine how many deadlines must be missed and by how many days before an alert is triggered. From the drop-down list, select More Than or Less Than the number of days you chose.
- Monitor Specific Deadline: Make a selection in the Select Course Item drop-down list. The due date for each item appears in parentheses. Then, select More Than or Less Than from the drop-down list and type the number of days to trigger an alert.
Note: If you enter zero (0) for how many days, you are asking to be alerted if an item was not submitted before or on the deadline. No lateness is acceptable.
- Specify the Rule Information:
- Select Yes or No to include the rule in the Risk Table.
- If the rule IS included in the Risk Table, it will be included in the appropriate Rule Type column.
- If the rule IS NOT included in the Risk Table, it will appear on the main Retention Center page under Other Information You Are Monitoring.
- If the rule IS included in the Risk Table, it will be included in the appropriate Rule Type column.
- Select Yes or No to include the rule in the Risk Table.
- Select the Rule Criteria.
- Click Submit.
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- Access the Retention Center page
- Click on Customize
- Hover over the name of the rule and click on the drop-down arrow to the right of the rule name. Click Edit.
- Edit the rule as needed.
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When you delete a rule, all your course content and data remains intact. If no rules exist in a category, return to the main Retention Center page and click Use Defaults? in the appropriate column heading. The default rule and criteria are added. You can use the rule as is or edit it.
The Transition from the Early Warning System
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