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Blindside Networks offers BigBlueButton hosting as software as a service (SaaS) for customers world-wide. In our SaaS offering, we provide two-way integration of analytics with your LMS to give educators and administrators greater insight into student activities. We call this value add from Blindside Networks “BN Analytics”.

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Overview

BN Analytics enabled two-way sharing of data with the learning management system (LMS).

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From the LMS

The BigBlueButton client can display analytics from the LMS in BigBlueButton sessions. The display can answer questions such as:
  1. Who is absent from my class?
  2. What are key metrics for each student that can help me give more personalized feedback?
  3. Are there any alerts on a student that I should be aware of?
Analytics from the BigBlueButton session can also be sent back to the LMS, or to an intermediate data warehouse, to enable unified reporting. With this unified data, the administrators and educators can generate reports that combined data from the LMS and BigBlueButton to answers questions such as:
  1. Who attended my class?
  2. Were students active in the class (active learning is far more effective than passive learning).
  3. Based on engagement in the LMS and active learning in the live class, are there any students currently at risk?
For assistance in setting up BN Analytics with Canvas, Moodle, or your own LMS, contact Blindside Networks at https://blindsidenetworks.com/contact-us/.

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Absentee List

When BigBlueButton starts a session, it can query the LMS for course roster and display absentee students. When a BigBlueButton session starts in Blindside Networks SaaS Hosting, the BigBlueButton server can request a roster from Moodle. BigBlueButton requesting a course roster from Moodle via the BN Alerts sub-plugin The request is handled by the BN Alerts sub-plugin in Moodle. To display absentee students, BigBlueButton shows an Absent List panel on the right that when clicked shows who is still absent. In the screen shot below, Jan Doe and John Doe are both absent. Absent List

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Student Analytics

In addition to the course roster, BigBlueButton can receive additional data from the LMS for each student. This information might be the student’s:
  • current grade
  • last login to the LMS
  • Total time spent in the LMS
  • … and any other information from the LMS.
For example, in the screen shot below, Moodle has sent a rich set of information for the student. Student panel in BigBlueButton showing rich analytics data sent from Moodle By providing this data in the live session, it saves time for the educator. For example, if a student was having difficulty answering a question, the educator could use the analytics from the LMS to check when the last time the student logged into the LMS, for example.

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Student Alerts

In addition to analytics, the LMS can also send specific alerts that cause BigBlueButton to highlight an important issue with the student (red background), giving the educator insight into a potential problem and opportunity to improve the situation in the class. Student alert highlighted with a red background in BigBlueButton The information could be also displayed as a warning (with yellow background). Student alert displayed as a warning with a yellow background in BigBlueButton The configuration of the roster, student analytics, and student alerts are all configurable by the administrator.