Early Alerts

Updated 19 Feb 2024

Early Alerts determines risk levels for students in your Mastering course based on a patented algorithm that examines student performance indicators based on assignment work.

  • Quickly see which students may be struggling or falling behind in the course.
  • Send an email to students who may need extra support.

You can adjust risk setting thresholds for individual courses, depending on the difficulty of the course.

Early Alerts is available for all Higher Education courses created after December 18, 2020 in the US and Australia.

If the Mastering course is paired with an LMS, Early Alerts reporting is limited to Mastering assignments.

From the Course Home – Select Early Alerts from the Performance Area.

From the Gradebook – Select Instructor Tools, Gradebook, then Early Alerts.

Assignment items that Early Alerts tracks

  • Early Alerts tracks the part questions in Mastering standard Homework and Test/Quiz assignment items that are for credit.
  • This includes any for-credit items you may have edited or created as well as for-credit items in Parent assignments and items in their associated Adaptive Follow-ups.

Early Alerts does NOT track time spent and other assignment types

  • Early Alerts risk data does not consider how much time students spend on items.
  • Any for-practice items (0 credit) or extra-credit items, Dynamic Study Modules, or Learning Catalytics activities are not considered.
  • Any work students complete outside of Mastering is not included in the risk analysis.

More about the data behind Early Alerts risk levels in Mastering

Select "" Help for how-to info that applies to that Early Alerts page.