This content was previously published by Blackboard, now part of Anthology. Product and/or solution names may have changed.

We're pleased to announce that, starting today, you can now measure how tools are being used across the Blackboard SaaS platform through the new Reporting Tier feature in Blackboard Data.

Blackboard Data is our platform approach to data and analytics, which combines data from Blackboard Learn SaaS, Collaborate, Ally, SafeAssign and the Blackboard mobile app into one robust data model. This data drives reporting in applications and aids in building new analytics solutions. At BbWorld 2019, we launched the Developer Tier of this platform, which has already enabled hundreds of clients to more easily access their institutions’ usage data and answer important questions using SQL queries. And in April this year, we deployed the Developer Tier to eligible clients hosted in Singapore and Canada.

We also launched the Reporting Tier to more than 150 “Blackboard Data Insider” institutions for testing and feedback, and we’d like to take this opportunity to thank our “Insiders” for their engagement. We’re now ready to release this tier, and the reports it includes, to all eligible clients hosted in the following AWS regions:

• US-East – which includes most of our Higher Education, Community College and K-12 school clients in the United States
• EU-Central – which includes most of our Higher and Further Education clients across Europe, Middle East and Africa.

The Reporting Tier provides a place to access reports outside of the teaching and learning tools, and is the ideal place to provide insights that span multiple products. It is also designed to serve the needs of people who wouldn’t usually spend time in those tools, like advisors and administrators.

We’re launching the Reporting Tier with reports that help system administrators measure adoption of the learning tools across the Blackboard SaaS EdTech platform; answering questions like:

• When are our students online?
• Which tools are being used most?
• How much time are we spending in Collaborate?

These reports are part of the Blackboard Reporting solution, which comes free with Learn SaaS. And we won’t stop there – we’d like your feedback and ideas for new reports to include as we continue improving these features. Simply click on the “What’s New” tab in the Reporting Tier to provide feedback.

The Reporting Tier will also deliver insights from future analytics products for other roles. Blackboard Achieve, our student success reporting solution that we expect to launch later this year, will use the Reporting Tier to deliver reports to Academic Leaders that will help them remove systemic barriers to student success, and help to identify and validate key performance indicators. We plan to migrate Blackboard Engage, our early risk identification solution formerly known as Blackboard Predict, later and will include student risk reporting for Advisors in the Reporting Tier, plus access to the predictive data in the Developer Tier. Other products will be built using these tiers over time as we build out our Blackboard Data platform.

We’re also improving our authentication approach for Blackboard Data to a more robust standard, with individually named user accounts (up to five per institution, initially) now available in all Blackboard Data supported regions.

Of course, many of you based outside these regions will be wondering when you’ll get access to these reports, so we’re keeping the Blackboard Data help page up-to-date with current availability. We will, of course, also release support bulletins and notify eligible clients as soon as the Reporting Tier becomes available in each region.

To request access to the Reporting Tier, or additional named user accounts for Blackboard Data, login to Behind the Blackboard and submit a support request.

Find out more about Blackboard Reporting, as well as more information on the individual reports.