There are several ways in which you can track student progress through your course. While there is no good way to track actual "seat time" over the Internet, there are a variety of methods you can use to gauge how much and how often students are working on their courses.

The Blackboard platform includes a Course Statistics utility in each course that allows the Instructor to define the parameters of a report and retrieve a visual and statistical summary of student activity. You can specify a date range, individual or multiple students (or an entire class), and what types of information to view.

*Other learning management systems, such as Moodle, eCollege, and ANGEL, offer similar tools.

You can also use the Online Gradebook to track student progress: by setting guidelines for progress, in conjunction with your Virtual School policies (for example, stating that Unit 2 should be completed by a certain date or length of time) you can make sure that students are mastering the material in a timely manner.

For more information on Course Statistics, check the Course Statistics section of the Blackboard Instructor's Manual.