Video and Instructions: Using the Instructor Dashboard
In this VitalSource video and written instructions, we look at using the benefits and use of the Instructor Dashboard.
The Instructor Dashboard offers an easy way for instructors to access student data in real-time and track progress in any course, at any time, to ensure course material is being accessed.
Instructors can use information in the Instructor Dashboard to analyze students' study habits, adapt lesson plans, and quickly identify at-risk students to help them succeed.
Accessing the Instructor Dashboard
There are two ways to access the Instructor Dashboard.
- The first is to visit analytics.vitalsource.com and log in using your Manage or Bookshelf credentials.
- The second way is by clicking the Instructor Portal tab in Launch via your Learning Management System (LMS).
Then click Launch Instructor Analytics.
If you don’t see the Instructor Portal tab in Launch, contact your Customer Success Manager.
Using the Instructor Dashboard
The Course Dashboard provides statistics of all the courses you instruct, including a summary of key student engagement metrics. You’ll only see information about the students in your specific courses and sections.
If you’re teaching in multiple institutions, you can use the company dropdown to switch between different institutions.
At the top of the dashboard, you can see some metrics about the courses you instruct.
- Total Students shows the total of students in all your active courses and sections.
- Total Book Access displays the percentage of students who have opened at least one of the course materials.
- Average Session Length is the overall average session length for all students.
Each course and section that you teach is represented by a card.
You can use the options above the cards to customize the results. You can sort them in different ways, change the view from grid to list, search for a particular course, or filter them by status.
Click the three dots of a card to find a summary of the course.
To see more details about a course, simply flip the card back over, click inside the card, and then you’ll be redirected to the Course Detail page.
The Course Detail Page
The Course Detail Page provides metrics about a specific course section.
If you have adopted multiple books for your course, you can use the Books dropdown to see the metrics of a specific course material.
Also, if you teach in multiple courses, you can quickly navigate them by clicking on the course name.
After selecting a course and a book (or multiple books), the metrics will update automatically.
Rostering
If your course has roster integration, you will see a donut chart. The donut chart displays how many students have (or haven’t) accessed the materials of your course. If you hover over the different sections of the donut, the chart legend will show the exact number of students and the corresponding percentage.
Also, you can click in those sections to get more information about the students.
VitalSource strongly encourages institutions to provide us with rostering access, which is specific student enrollment information. This information powers robust analytics.
For courses without roster integration, you will see the average total sessions and the average session length.
Course-Level Engagement Metrics
If you scroll a little bit down, you’ll find course-level engagement metrics, allowing you to ensure students read consistently and better understand how different groups of students engage. These metrics are global and provide information for all students enrolled in the selected course.
Student Usage
The first chart is Student Usage. It shows different averages of the reading habits of the students, to ensure they read consistently throughout the course term. It’s displayed in week-level groups relative to the course start date.
Engagement Groups
Engagement Groups provide insight into how course engagement is distributed. Students are segmented into quartiles based on the total amount of time they have interacted with the course materials. You can expand the groups to get the list of students and some details of their individual behavior.
Study Habits
Our last chart is student Study Habits. It’s helpful to analyze how students are engaging relative to their classmates. Each student is represented as a dot. If you hover over a dot, you’ll see brief information about that student.
If you want to see the behavior of a student in particular, you can use the search bar, or click the name of the student in the charts.
To learn more about our instructor dashboard, visit success.vitalsource.com