Anthology Illuminate
Blackboard Data, also known as Anthology Illuminate, gives access to data housed in Blackboard course shells. Access to Illuminate is limited to Blackboard Administrators only. Users looking for reports or specific Blackboard data should submit a request to the Blackboard team providing as many details as possible on the data desired.
See Also: CMU-Specific Data Queries
Data is provided through one of two methods:
- Illuminate Reporting: Pre-Created Reports
- Illuminate Data Developer: SQL Created Reports
Standard Anthology Illuminate Access Provides the following:
- 20 seat licenses for Reporting.
- 350 Snowflake credits for Developer.
- 1 service account that enables you to connect to different BI tools as well as to your own institutional data platforms.
Illuminate Reporting
Illuminate Reporting provides a set of easy-to-use, pre-created reports. Each report shows the activity that occurred in Blackboard to help solve usage and adoption questions.
There are (3) areas of reporting provided:
- Learning: reports on student activity, engagement, and performance.
- Teaching: reports on instructional practices and course design.
- Leading: reports on institutional administration, efficiency, and success.
- Go to illuminate.blackboard.com.
- Sign in with your Institutional Account.
- Find your school – Central Michigan University
- Use Central Michigan University Entra ID
- Select the base navigation menu.
- In the navigation panel, select the reporting area you want to access.
- Each reporting area has a list of available reports and a description of the questions each report answers.
- Select a report to access it.
Reports can have multiple tabs of information. Navigate through them to access all the available data.

Maximize or minimize data visualizations
- Inside a report tab, select the data visualization you want to maximize.
- Select the Maximize icon.
- To minimize the visualization, select the Minimize icon.
Export to CSV
- Inside a report tab, select the data visualization you want to export.
- Select the Menu Options icon.
- Select Export to CSV.
Print a report
- Inside a report tab, select the Export icon.
- Select Print.
- Choose the print settings.
- Select Go to preview.
- Check that you selected the settings you want or change your selections by selecting Configure.
- Select Print.
Download a PDF of a report
- Inside a report tab, select the Export icon.
- Select Generate PDF. You may have to wait a few minutes while generating the PDF file.
- When the PDF is ready, select Download Now.
- You can also select the Export icon again and choose View Downloads. A panel will open with the PDF files generated. Select Click to download.
Reporting data refresh frequency
Reporting data is refreshed overnight, according to the time zone of your Blackboard instance.
Illuminate Data Developer
Illuminate Developer provides direct access to Blackboard canonical data model through Snowflake. In Snowflake, SQL queries can be built to pull ad hoc reports and dashboards. Illuminate Canonical Data Model (CDM) for Blackboard data is refreshed nightly.
To Access (Blackboard Administrators Only):
1. From the base navigation menu in Illuminate, select Developer. See: How to Access Reports
2. Launch Snowflake

3. In Snowflake, you need to select Sign in using SSO, and you will be redirected to the authentication page.

To Run a Query
- Under the Projects/Worksheets
- Create a New Worksheet using the blue plus +
- Copy and paste an existing query or create your own
- Execute the query using blue play button
To Download Results
- Use the down arrow in the Results menu at the bottom
- Download the report as .csv, .csv for Excel, or .tsv
Pre-Built Queries
- In-house queries are located in the CoursePro SharePoint/LSS Training Manuals Folder
- Blackboard GitHub repository
Select queries are available to be run for users on a request basis. These queries provide the following information:
- Concourse Syllabus Links
- Course Item Count
- Course Purge
- Courses a User is Enrolled in
- Grade Center Global
- Rubric Scores Across Criterion
If you are in need of data not identified by one of the queries above, please submit a request to the Blackboard team providing as many details as possible on the data desired.