Impact Glossary

This glossary contains definitions for commonly used terms you may find while working with Impact.

Active Users

Users that are actively accessing a learning application.

Adoption Level

Usage of selected tools - calculated based on the unique campaign users that have logged in to the learning application over a selected period of time and how many of them have triggered at least one monitor that lives underneath each monitor category or one of its child categories.

Articles

Articles are customizable support content that can be placed within an institution's Support Center.

Assign to Users

Allows you to manage which users your message is targeted at.

Building Block

Java web app that is deployed as a plug-in to the Blackboard Learn application.

Campaign

A campaign is essentially a container that allows you to bring together all of the Impact tools and features related to a specific use case you want to address in your LMS.

For example, a campaign to increase the use of discussion boards can include messages on the discussion page, support articles about FAQs surrounding discussions, and monitors on the discussion boards page. A campaign does not need all three elements but you can mix and match messages, support, and monitors as you see fit. 

A campaign targets a particular audience (e.g. faculty or students) and has a specific time range (e.g. one month). A use case can consist of one or multiple campaigns.

Campaign Engagement

Ability to see which proportion of the campaign's messages and articles has been viewed by which proportion of the campaign audience. The overall engagement is broken down into message views and support article views.

Champions

The number of users who have triggered a specific monitor most often.

Conditions

Rules for which element/page will trigger the context.

Connect to Context

Connecting to a context defines where in your learning application the messages are presented. Contexts can be specific pages or specific elements on pages. You can connect your message to multiple contexts.

Content Library

Messages, monitors, and support articles that have been created on your Impact instance.

Contexts

A set of placement and positioning rules used to recognize and remember a specific area you want to track or add a message to.

Course Activity Report

Compares the usage of specific tools for courses based on your search criteria.

Custom User Group

A custom collection of users defined within Impact based on a set of conditions.

Expert User Account

Credentials used to log in to the Impact Dashboard.

Help Items

Help items refer to the content items that are placed within an Impact campaign.

Hint Message

Hint messages are messages that are connected to a specific element on a page in your learning application.

Inline Editor

A flexible content management tool, which can be activated within the learning application.

Instance

A dedicated Impact environment hosted via Amazon Web Services.

LTI Tools

Learning Tools Interoperability provides a framework through which an LMS (Canvas) can send some verifiable information about a user to a third party.

Messages

Impact messages are customizable messages that can be placed on-demand, anywhere within your learning application - targeted at any specific group of users.

Message Type

Message type shows how your message is displayed in your learning application. Impact allows you to present your message in three ways: hint messages, systray messages, and pop-up messages

Monitor (Activity Monitor)

A user activity tracker placed on a page or element within the learning application.

Monitor Category

A sub-section of a Reporting Template, which can contain monitors and/or additional Monitor Sub-Categories.

Data from a single monitor across several User Groups.

Out of the Box Walkthroughs

Pre-made Walkthroughs that offer step-by-step guidance to instructors and students on the workflows of the various tools and features.

Page Views

The total page loads performed indicate how heavily the application has been used.

Plugin

A small JavaScript code snippet used to inject Impact into Canvas, Moodle, and other web-based applications.

Pop-up Message

Pop-up messages are displayed immediately when the targeted user lands on the relevant page (on page load).

Presentation

Allows you to adjust the styling of your message. You can adjust: the height and width of your message (in pixels), the orientation of your message (only for Hint message types), the visibility of proactive feedback buttons (upvote/downvote) on your message, and the message icon (only for Popup messages and types).

Releases

Impact Release Notes represent a scheduled event when customer-affecting code is intended to be visible in a specified environment. Impact Releases contain code changes that are intended to fix bugs, improve performance, and prepare for new features and content.

Reporting Template

A hierarchical structure used to organize monitors for reporting purposes.

Rich Edit Mode

Ability to edit content using the Rich Text Editor for a what-you-see-is-what-you-get experience.

Status

The status of your message, which can be draft or published.

Support Button

A floating button, which can be embedded on every page of a learning application for users to launch the Support Center.

Support Center

An in-application support environment, which is presented as an overlay on top of learning applications.

Systray Message

Systray messages are messages displayed in the bottom right corner of your learning environment.

Tags

Tags allow you to categorize messages, articles, and walkthroughs based on any term. This makes it easy to find and filter messages, articles, and walkthroughs.

Target Audience

The majority of Impact features allow or require you to assign specific audiences. User Roles, Profile User Groups, Categories, Filters, and Campaigns make up these audiences and allow you to feel confident that the correct users see your Impact content and appear on reports.

Tool Category

A grouping of out-of-the-box content items based on which functionality or tool they relate to, which is used to filter and manage the visibility of said content.

Tool Categories

Tool categories provide you with the ability to show or hide Out of the Box content related to specific functionalities or tools that are or are not relevant to your institution and can be managed from your dashboard.

Trigger

A trigger defines a set of actions that are performed in response to an insert, update, or delete operation on a specified table.

Use Case

A use case is a list of steps that illustrate how a process will be carried out in the Impact ecosystem to achieve your desired EdTech outcome. By having a theme defined with set outcomes, a use case is aimed at helping you build a bridge from where you currently are, to where you would like to be. Through targeting a current challenge you are facing, a use case deploys best practices (through Impact campaigns, etc.) towards an effective end goal.

User Group

Types (Canvas):

Subaccount Cumulative - Includes users directly aligned with the subaccount its and child subaccounts

Subaccount - Users directly aligned with a subaccount. This group does not include users in the child subaccounts

Course Role - User is enrolled in a course with this base role or a custom course role based on this base role.

Primary - A user's primary role is determined by their highest ranking base role within all of their course enrollment.

Base Role - User is enrolled in a course with this base role. Does not include any custom course roles.

Admin - Account admin for a sub-account.

Root Admin - Account admin on the root level of a Canvas account.

Consortium Admin - Account admin for a consortium of Canvas accounts.

User - User who is registered in Canvas.

Primary Role Ranking:

User (1), Observer (2), Student (3), Designer (4), Teaching Assistant - TA (5), Teacher (6), Administrator - admin (7), Root Administrator - root_admin (8)

Visualization of the usage of several monitors for a single User Group.

Visibility

Schedule Visibility:

Scheduling the visibility of your message enables you to select a start date/time and end date/time during which your messages are displayed in your learning application. When the end date and time are reached, the message is automatically hidden.

Walkthroughs

Allows Impact admins to create step-by-step guidance of a process in Canvas or Blackboard Learn Original. A walkthrough consists of multiple steps that may span multiple pages.