Who can do this?
The procedures on this page must be performed by a Blackboard Administrator who is also an Echo360 administrator, or working with an Echo360 administrator.
The Echo360 Media Analytics tool provides viewing data for all of the Echo360 media currently associated with the Blackboard Course where the link is accessed from. Clicking the analytics tool link opens a consolidated media analytics page in Echo360, showing view data for all of the Echo360 media currently embedded in the Blackboard course as well as for media located in any Echo360 section linked to this Blackboard course.
Instructors can use this to get at-a-glance information about Student views of course media as well as polling responses for embedded interactive media or section-published presentations.
Who Can See Echo360 Analytics? Media viewing data is only allowed for Echo360 instructors and administrators. Meaning the role the user has in a Blackboard course determines whether the link shows the Echo360 media analytics page, or takes the user to their Echo360 Library. Echo360 observes IMS mapping as listed in LMS to Echo360 User Role Mappings.
If you are not sure of your IMS role mapping, this table in the Blackboard documentation may help: https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Administrator/SaaS/Integrations/Learning_Tools_Interoperability#lti-role-mapping_OTP-7
Adding an Echo360 analytics link for instructors involves creating a placement for the link that provides easy user access. If you already have other Echo360 placements, these procedures will look very familiar.
The most important aspects of this creation are naming the placement to be recognizable as the tool for Echo360 analytics, configuring the placement as a Course Tool so it's easy for instructors to access, but not available for students, and adding the necessary blackboard_course_id parameter to the tool so that Echo360 can retrieve all of the relevant media data for the Blackboard course.
To create the Echo360 analytics tool placement
- While logged in as a system administrator, open the Administrator Panel.
- Select LTI Tool Providers from the Integrations section of the admin panel.
- Find the Echo360 LTI tool you have already created, and hover over it to expose the menu arrow (also called a "chevron"). If you do NOT yet have an Echo360 LTI tool, see Add Echo360 as an External LTI Tool in Blackboard.
- From the menu select Manage Placements.
- Click Create Placement, located at the top of the Placements list.
- Add a Label that clearly identifies this link as one to the user's Echo360 Library. We suggest "Echo360 Media Analytics". This label appears in the Course Tools list for selection.
- Add a description if desired. This field is optional.
- Enter a Handle or text that uniquely identifies this tool placement. This is what will appear in the Placements list for the tool (for Admins).
- For Availability select Yes.
- In the Type section of the form, enable the Course Tool radio button.
- Make sure that Allow student access is NOT checked, as shown in the figure below. Students cannot see viewing analytics in Echo360.
- Enable the Launch in New Window checkbox. We recommend doing this to provide the full window space available for viewing your Echo360 media analytics, but it is not required.
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OPTIONALLY: Use the following URL to obtain an Echo360 icon to use for this tool: https://echo360.org/assets/images/echo360_play_icon.png
- Navigate to the above linked URL page (changing the base domain to your regional domain).
- Right-click the image to save it locally.
- Upload it to the Icon entry in the form.
- Scroll down to the Tool Provider Information section of the form.
- In the Tool Provider URL field, copy/paste the Host URL from the Blackboard LMS configuration fields in Echo360.
- Place your cursor at the END of the pasted URL and manually type in /launch/analytics. THIS IS CASE SENSITIVE!! Be sure to enter the text in all lower case, exactly as provided here and shown in the below figure.
TIP: The Host URL is also visible on the LTI Provider Tools list in Blackboard, and can be copied from there for pasting into the Tool Provider URL field. Be sure to append the URL as cited above.
- In the Tool Provider Key field, enter the Consumer Key value from the Blackboard LMS configuration fields in Echo360.
If the LTI tool has this set globally (and not "per link") you can skip this step. - In the Tool Provider Secret field, enter the Consumer Secret value from the Blackboard LMS configuration fields in Echo360.
If the LTI tool has this set globally (and not "per link") you can skip this step. - In the Tool Provider Custom Parameters text box, enter the following exactly as provided here and as shown in the above figure:
blackboard_course_id=@X@course.pk_string@X@ - When finished, click Submit.
The custom parameter is necessary so that the tool will pass the Blackboard course identifier that Echo360 needs, so that the Analytics page can properly gather and present all course-related Echo360 media to the user.
Once the placement is done, an Echo360 Media Analytics link is now available under the Course Management area for all courses for all instructors (and admins).
In Learn view courses, click Course Tools under Course Management in the left navigation to expand the available list and see the new Echo360 Media Analytics tool. This is shown in the below figure.
In Ultra view courses, click Books & Tools to open a side-panel with selections, then select the Echo360 Media Analytics tool, as shown in the below figure.
