Overview
Engagement Insights provides instructors with predictions about which students in a course are at risk for lower participation in active Harmonize discussions.
These predictions are generated by comparing each student’s participation in active Harmonize topics with that of their peers as well as with the participation of all students in concluded Harmonize topics.
We believe that participation in discussions is a useful proxy for students’ level of engagement in the course and that engagement in a course is a critical factor in whether students are successful in a course.
On this page, you will find an overview of how Engagement Insights work and how to access them. See also:
Inputs & Outputs
Engagement Insights use several aspects of student participation in discussions as input into generating predictions. These metrics currently fall into 5 categories:
- Requirements: How consistently a student completes all Harmonize topics and any configured milestones
- Quantity: How many posts and comments a student contributes to Harmonize topics
- Timing: How early and how often a student accesses and participates in Harmonize topics
- Content: The complexity of a student’s posts and comments in Harmonize topics
- Connectedness: How many peers a student is interacting with in Harmonize topics
With these inputs, Engagement Insights generates what’s called a Risk Ranking which predicts how likely a student is to exhibit low participation in an active Harmonize topic.
Risk Rankings can range from High (most likely to exhibit low participation) to On-Track (least likely to exhibit low participation).
Setup
Discussions
- Discussions only. Engagement Insights only utilizes students’ participation in Harmonize discussions and ignores participation in other Harmonize resources such as polls and Q&A boards.
- Due dates and accuracy. Predictions are most accurate when discussions have a set due date, which can be set through the LMS or through milestones.
- Graded vs. ungraded. Both graded and ungraded discussions will be used to drive predictions.
- Exclusion. If any Harmonize discussion in your course is optional for students to participate in (for example, a discussion setup for instructor office hours), it’s important to exclude such discussions from insights. This can be done through topic settings.
Timing
- Initial availability. Engagement Insights will not begin showing predictions or data for a course until at least one Harmonize discussion has concluded.
- Continuing availability. After the first Harmonize discussion has concluded, Engagement Insights will run continuously in the background as long as there is still at least one active Harmonize discussion in the course.
- Updates. When Engagement Insights is running in the background, it will analyze new student activity and adjust predictions accordingly.
Navigation
You can navigate to Engagement Insights one of two ways.
- First way. You can click on the components menu within any discussion page and select the Engagement Insights bar graph icon:
- After clicking the icon, select Go to Engagement Insights.
- Second way. On the Harmonize Communication Center, click the Engagement Insights card:
Features
Student List
All students enrolled in the course will be listed on the left side of the Engagement Insights page.
The list of students is broken up into two groups:
- The top group is called Outreach Suggestions and will contain any student that has a Risk Ranking of High, Medium, or Low.
- The bottom group is called All Other Students and will contain any student that has a Risk Ranking of On-Track.
At the top of the list is a search bar that will allow you to type in the name of a student to jump to them. Selecting any student in the list will display their details to the right of the list.
Active Topics
The Active Topics tab lists any Harmonize discussion that has students participating in it and has not yet concluded. Each student is given a Risk Ranking unique to each active Harmonize discussion. You can expand out each Harmonize topic to see specific details of the student’s participation and what may be contributing to their Risk Ranking (See Engagement Insights Reason Codes for more info).
Each active Harmonize topic also has a Reach Out to Student button that gives you several options for communicating with the student about the topic:
- Email. Selecting this option will provide an email link to the student that will open the default email app on your device. After you’ve sent the student an email, you can note the details of the email for your reference in the Outreach Log.
- Chat. Selecting this option will allow you to send a single direct chat message to the student. All chat conversations you have with the student will be automatically collected for you in the Outreach Log.
- Discussion. Selecting this option will open the discussion in a new window where you can respond directly to the student or tag them in content. All of your direct interactions with the student in a discussion are automatically collected for you in the Outreach Log.
Activity Over Time
The Activity Over Time tab will graph the student’s level of participation in 5 categories as it compares to their peers in each of the concluded Harmonize discussions for the course. You can toggle individual categories on and off to give you different views of the data. Hovering over or clicking on a node in the graph will give you additional details about the discussion topic. The graph view can also be toggled for a tabular view.
Outreach Log
The Outreach Log tab displays a time-ordered list of direct interactions you’ve had with the student and a link to or details about each interaction. The entries in the log are automatically collected for you in most cases. You can log additional interactions through the Outreach to Student button on the Active Topics tab.