Check LMS Activity
If your LMS (learning management system) is integrated with the Civitas Platform, you can review your students’ activity in two critical areas, both relative to their peers in the same section:
- The student’s current LMS grade (performance), versus the average of their peers
- The number of unique LMS login days (engagement), versus the average of their peers
This data is found on a student’s Course History page and refreshes nightly. Use this data to help inform follow-up during checkpoint alert periods or when adding a general alert.
Understanding LMS Data
Note: Access to this information is dependent on faculty use of the LMS grade book and the LMS provider. If a course does not have an LMS component or if the grades are not entered regularly, then this data may either not be available or not be current.
Grade — This captures the student’s current grade as recorded in the LMS grade book. The first number listed is the student’s in-progress grade in the LMS grade book, and the second number is the average in-progress grade for all of the students in the same course section. This data point will keep updating as the term progresses and additional scores are recorded.
Unique Login Days — This counts the number of unique days a student has logged into the LMS since the beginning of the term, which is a signal for level of engagement. The first number listed is the number of days the student has accessed the course in the LMS since the start of the term, and the second is the average number of days of course access for all the students in the course section.
Withdrawals — If a student withdraws from your course, the LMS login data for both the student and classmates is then locked, so you have an indication of the student’s engagement at the time of the withdrawl.
How Predictive is It?
LMS data is current (updated nightly) and highly predictive of a student’s likelihood to persist (re-enroll) term-to-term at most institutions.
- Login data may signal a drop in course engagement or a lack of access
- In-progress grades may signal that a student needs academic support
- Login and grade data together help surface issues (such as high effort with poor performance)
A 2016 review of 4,000,000 student records from 68 diverse U.S. institutions using the Civitas Platform found that:
- 69% of institutions had LMS activity in their top 10 predictors for undergraduate students’ persistence, increasing to 85% when looking at only first-year students.
- LMS engagement is highly predictive, especially when looking at consistency of attendance, grades in comparison to peers in the same course section, and relative engagement in the course content and discussion boards.
- All of the most predictive LMS features are derived variables (relative variables, consistency variables, minimum and maximum variables, and average variables), but the way existing LMS platforms present the data does not provide the most useful signals regarding student success.