Overview

The Blackboard Early Warning System lets you see at a glance students who may be struggling in your class. In particular, the system generates reports that quickly identify students with a low grade on a specific item or a low overall grade, students who are missing due dates, and students who are not logging in to the course. Once the report is generated, an interface lets you send e-mail alerts to those students. You are also able to customize the e-mail message, and, if appropriate, copy another person such as an advisor or another instructor in the class. Although the Early Warning System may be used primarily to contact students about potential substandard performance in the course, the system may also be used to commend students when their grades are outstanding.   Sometimes, a commendation is better than a warning!

Blackboard will keep a log of all the notifications that you send.   This notifications history provides important documentation about the types of notifications you send, when they were sent, and to whom they were sent.   You will also receive an e-mail copy of each notification that you send.

The four steps to generating early alerts are:

1. Create a Rule
2. Refresh the rule
3. Review Results
4. Send notifications

 

Continue to the next page for the video tutorial and handout.  

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