While students use MyCourses to conveniently print out their homework assignments, they may not be aware that their professors can track their every move. A "detailed summary of activity" allows professors to check on MyCourses use for each student in their class and see whether or not students downloaded required reading or other assignments.
The activity report notes when students access an item posted on the site, how long they were online and the frequency of their use. Another feature lets professors view information about all students in a course, including average time per session, total time and the number of sessions for every online tool. MyCourses can also generate graphical representations of student tracking data.
Though students can view who else in their courses is online, only instructors have access to the tracking tools. Information about the tracking feature is not available on the MyCourses Web site, so students are largely unaware that such features exist.
When Brown transitioned from using the WebCT online course management system to Blackboard's MyCourses, student tracking tools became more extensive. Professors can now view information per student or per an individual student's session, including the number of files or entries viewed, the number of mail messages read and the number of assignments started or completed.
The purpose of student tracking, according to CIS Senior Instructional Technologist Patricia Zudeck, is to allow professors to see which online tools the students actually use.
"We don't really promote it because there hasn't been a lot of interest in it," Zudeck said. Regina DeAngelo, who is also a CIS senior instructional technologist and is responsible for teaching professors to use MyCourses' features, agreed that few professors use the tracking capabilities. "I have actually never had a professor who has mentioned using it," she said.
Ross Cheit, associate professor of public policy, has used the tracking tools for the past two or three years as an additional indicator of students' involvement in his course. "Sure enough it identified a few people who I didn't know were very engaged in the course," he said. Cheit said last year he invited to lunch the 10 students who used the site the most to get their feedback about the course's site.
He added that though monitoring students' use of the site is helpful, it is only a crude measure of their actual academic performance. "It has a very tempting quality," he said.
Students were not unnerved by the tracking features, but said it is important to notify students if professors are using them.
"It is unethical for them to do that and not inform us," Daniel MacCombie '08 said. "Students don't really have a choice in whether or not to use MyCourses." Alex Morse '11, a freshman representative on the Undergraduate Council of Students, said UCS could help inform students of the tracking feature if students consider it a problem. Both students said the site should indicate that these tools exist.
The tracking feature does have limitations. Professors at the University of British Columbia, where the system was developed, found the tracking platform was an insignificant measure of student activity. For example, a student may access the file through a friend's account or access a file on their own account but never actually view it.
