Student Performance Assistant
From Academic Computing
Contents |
[edit] Purpose
The user will be introduced to the uses of the Student Performance Assistant Blackboard course tool.
[edit] Prerequisites
Participants should have taken the Introduction to Blackboard.
[edit] Student Performance Assistant
The Student Performance Assistant (SPA) is used to e-mail students based on their grades on a particular Gradebook item or to e-mail students their progress report. The SPA uses upper and lower thresholds per Gradebook Item to determine which students are above, below, or equal to your specified grade range of concern.
[edit] Accessing the Student Performance Assistant
The SPA is located in your course’s Control Panel in the Course Tools area.
[edit] Emailing Students Based on Grades
If this is your first time accessing the SPA, you will a screen similar to this:
You must first choose the Gradebook Item before you enter your grade range of concern in the Upper and Lower Threshold fields. Those thresholds will now be saved for that Gradebook Item. If you should modify the thresholds, the last thresholds used for the Gradebook Item will then be saved.
After choosing the thresholds, click on the “GO” button beside the Gradebook Item dropdown menu. Do not click “Submit” since you have not selected any users to e-mail.
Red arrows are those students below your grade range of concern.
Equal signs are those users who are within the grade range of concern.
Green arrows are those users who are above the grade range of concern.
You can now select which users you wish to e-mail. You can select users with the buttons at the top of the screen or by checking the check boxes. You can send to any combination of all the equal signs, all the red arrows, all the green arrows, any combination of groups, or individual users. You cannot, however, unselect an entire group (i.e. all the green arrows). If you wish to unselect users, you must either uncheck the check box by their names or click the “Unselect All” button at the top of the screen. Click the “Submit” button to go to the Send Email screen.
In the Send E-mail screen, you can write a message to the students you have selected.
[edit] E-mailing Students’ Progress Report
If you click on the picture link 
, you will go to the Progress Report page. However, before you access the Progress Report, you will see the Photo Access Agreement screen. You must agree to the agreement before going to the Progress Report screen.
After agreeing to the Photo Access Agreement, you will see the student’s Progress Report. The Progress Report includes access statistics for the course, grades, discussion board postings, links to modify grades, and a link to e-mail portions of the Progress Report.
If you notice that one or more of the grades are incorrect, you can click on the “Modify” button to change the grades. If you grade Discussion Board Posts, you can also go to the “Discussion Grader” via the link.
You can e-mail portions of the progress report to the student by clicking on the “E-mail Progress Report” button at the bottom of the screen.
You can choose which portion of the Progress Report you wish to e-mail to the student by checking the box next to the Progress Report item. You may also add comments to the student in the Comment section. Click the “Submit” button to send e-mail the Progress Report to the student.
