Blackboard 9.1 Adaptive Release

Adaptive Release Tool

Adaptive release allows instructors and course designers to release course content based on rules that they create; in other words, you can control what content is made available to which students and under what conditions they are allowed to see it. Rules can be created for individuals or groups, based on criteria related to date, time, assessment scores or attempts, and the review status of other items in the course.  For example, you can:

• Allow students to view a particular unit or resource only after they have attained a minimum score on a quiz.
• Share different supplementary materials with groups of students working on different projects.
• Share different schedule materials and syllabi with students in different sections but using the same course shell.
• Restrict students from joining a discussion forum until they have reviewed relevant course materials.
• Make the next assignment available only to those who have read a specific material.

The following options are available with the Adaptive Release tool.

• Adaptive Release – used to create basic rules for an item. In this tool only one rule per item may be created.
• Adaptive Release: Advanced – this feature allows instructors to create multiple rules per item. For example, if different rules apply for different Groups in a course this feature should be used.
• Set Review Status – this feature allows instructors to set a variable that tracks student review of materials.

There are three ways provided to learn more about creating Adaptive Release rules in Blackboard:

• Click here to view an interactive tutorial developed by Blackboard (opens in a new window)
• Step through the Quick Start Guide below

Creating Rules

An Adaptive Release rule consists of a set to criteria that defines the visibility of a content item to students. Criteria are the parts that make up the rule. For example, date and membership are two different criteria types. Each content item may have multiple rules and each rule may consist of multiple criteria. To view an item, a student must meet all criteria before the item is made available.
For example, the instructor may add an Assignment to a course.

• One rule for this Assignment may allow all students in Group 1 to view the Assignment after a specific date. For this rule you would set date and membership criteria.
• Another rule for this assignment may allow all students in Group 2 to view the Assignment once they pass Quiz 1.  This rule would require you to set membership and gradebook criteria.
• A third way of using Adaptive Release is to create rules that ensure that students read a piece of content before proceeding to a test, activity, or new unit. For this type of rule you would enable the review status for the content, and Review Status criteria in the Adaptive Release rules. 

The next section shows how to set up these three type of rules.

To restrict the viewing of an assignment after a specific date to Group 1

1. Turn Edit Mode for the course on.
2. Navigate to the Content Area that contains the assignment that will be restricted.
3. Click on the chevron to the right of the assignment. The Adaptive Release page will be displayed.
4. Check the boxes next to the Display After and Display Until, and then click on the calendar icon select the dates and the clock icon to select times the assignment will be available to group 1.
   
5. In the Membership area click on group 1
6. Then click on the right-arrow icon to add it to the Selected Course Groups.
7. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the [Submit] button to save your rule.

To restrict group 2 to viewing an assignment after passing a quiz

1. Turn Edit Mode for the course on.
2. Navigate to the Content Area that contains the assignment that will be restricted.
3. Click on the chevron to the right of the assignment. The Adaptive Release page will be displayed.
4. In the Membership area click on group 2
5. Then click on the right-arrow icon to add it to the Selected Course Groups.
6. Scroll down to the Grade area, and then click on the dropdown arrow to the right of the Select a Grade Center column field, and then click on the activity that will be used for the rule.
7. Select one of the following:

• User has at least one attempt for this item – regardless of the score the user has submitted the activity. For example, an instructor may create a pre-test for students to prepare for the final exam. Using this condition, the instructor can release review materials to only students who have attempted the pre-test at least once.
• Score is within specified range. Displays content based on a required score. Options include: Less than or equal to, Greater than or equal to, or Equal to. This condition is often used to determine if a user should be directed to reinforcement activities or allowed to move on to the next activity or module.  For example, the course requires a student to demonstrate mastery of the concepts in module 1 before they can move on to the more advanced topics in module 2.  Using this condition, the instructor can release the advanced module to students who score at or above a specified value.
• Score between X and Y. This condition is used to display content based on a range of scores. For example an instructor might release an item only to users who scored between a 70 and 80 and might need some remediation, but less remediation then users who received less than a 70. In this case, the instructor creates two content items and releases one to users who fall into the 70-80 range and releases the other to students who received less than or equal to  70.

Note: For this example, select “Less than or equal to” and enter 35 in the value field. In this example, only the users who scored a 35 or below on the quiz will be able to see the extra credit assignment. Those who scored higher than 35 will not see it. The instructor can view the assignment by turning the course Edit Mode on.

8. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the [Submit] button to save your rule.

To set review status restrictions on activities or resources

1. Navigate to the module or item that will be tracked, and then click on the chevron to the right of the item.
2. Next click on the Set Review Status link in the functions menu.  The Review Status screen will be displayed.
   
3. Click on the Enable radio button.
4. Then click on the [Submit] button. To add the [Marked Reviewed] button to the item.

Releasing materials based on review status restrictions

In this example set rules that require students to review the Discussion Rubric before they can participate in the Week 2 discussion forum.  To create these rules:

1. Navigate to the module or item that will be tracked, and then click on the chevron to the right of the item that will be restricted.
2. Next click on the Adaptive Release link in the functions menu.
3. Scroll down to the Review Status area.
4. Click the [Browse] button to the right of the Select an item text field. The Course Map will be displayed.
5. Select the item that must be reviewed prior to piece of content or exam is released. For this example:

• Click on the “+” icon to the left of the “Syllabus” folder to see the folder contents.
• Click on the “Discussion Rubric” entry.

6. The Course Map will disappear and the “Discussion Rubric” path will appear in the Select an item text field. 
7. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the [Submit] button to save your changes.

Note: In this example, students will only see the link to the Discussion Rubric. When they click the [Mark Reviewed] button the Week 2 Discussion Forum will appear. Instructors will always have access to the hidden materials by turning the Edit Mode on.

You can also set up rules that are applied to specific students. To create rules for individual students:

1. Open the Control Panel for your course.
2. Navigate to the Content Area that contains the assignment that will be restricted, then click on the chevron to the right of the item.
3. Next click on the Adaptive Release link. The Adaptive Release page will be displayed.
   
4. Enter the one or more user names in the Username field (separate multiple IDs with commas).
5. If you are unsure of the user name, click on the [Browse] button to the right of the Username box to search for the user. The Course Membership page will be displayed.
6. Click on the dropdown arrow to the right of the Field area then select either First Name or Last Name to search by.
7. Enter a student’s first or last name in the Term field.
8. Next click the [Go] button.
9. The user name(s) will be displayed in a Course Membership window.  Click in the checkbox to the left of the user’s name to be added to the rule.
10. Click the [Submit] button. You will be returned to the Adaptive Release screen and the student’s user name will be displayed in the Username field.
11.  Complete the appropriate rule fields then click the [Submit] button to save the rule.

Copying Rules

If you plan on applying multiple rules to a given content item it may be quicker to copy an Adaptive Release rules instead of creating a new one from scratch. (Note: a rule from one content item may not be copied to another content item.)
The following steps guide you through copy process.

1. Navigate to the Content Area that will have additional rules applied.
2. Click on the chevron to the right of the item. Then click on Adaptive Release:Advanced. The …Advanced screen will be displayed.
3. Click the checkbox to the left of the rule that you would like to copy.
4. Click on the [Copy] button or the chevron to the right of the rule then click on Copy entry in the dropdown menu. . A copy of the rule will appear at the bottom of the list. It has the same name as the original rule with “Copy of” at the beginning of the title.
5. Click on the chevron to the right of the copied rule then click on Manage to make changes to the name,  or  click on Edit Criteria to edit the rule.

Deleting Rules

1. Navigate to the Content Area that will have additional rules applied.
2. Click on the chevron to the right of the item. Then click on Adaptive Release:Advanced. The …Advanced screen will be displayed.
3. Click the checkbox to the left of the rule(s) to be removed. (Multiple rules may be selected.)
4. Click the [Delete] button.  The remove dialog box will be displayed.
5. Click the [OK] button. The dialog box will close and the rule edit screen will refresh.

Blackboard 9.1, Tools