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Terms & Term Types

Terms and Term Types provide the time-based structure needed to organize learning and assessment data accurately in Outcomes. Outcomes relies on terms and term types to tie results to academic cycles, allowing institutions to track and compare learning outcomes over time through meaningful longitudinal reporting, trend analysis, and continuous improvement.

Create Annual Term

Annual Terms enable multi-term rollups and serve as the foundation for longitudinal reporting.

  • Define annual terms (e.g., AY 2025–2026)

  • Map all applicable academic terms to the appropriate annual term

  • Align annual terms with institutional reporting and accreditation cycles

  • Annual terms must have a start and end date cannot be continuous

Assign Term Types

Term Types define how learning periods are categorized and compared.

  • Examples include: Semester, Quarter, Trimester, Module

  • Ensure every active term is assigned a term type in Blackboard

Review and Standardize Terms

Clean, consistent term data improves usability, reporting accuracy and reduces downstream issues.

  • Standardize naming conventions (e.g., Fall 2025 vs. FA-25). Remember that these term names will now be visible beyond Blackboard to Provosts, Deans, Assessment teams, and even in accreditation reports.

  • Verify start and end dates align with the academic calendar

Create a Term Hierarchy

Term hierarchies define how learning periods roll up for reporting.

  • Identify which terms belong within each annual term

  • Confirm parent-child relationships reflect how learning occurs across the academic year

Things to Consider

  • Annual terms should reflect course delivery, institutional reporting, and accreditation cycles.

  • You are not required to retroactively assign term types or create annual-term relationships for old or unused terms. Unless your institution plans to do historical outcomes reporting. 

  • Outcomes recognizes only one child-to-parent relationship, where a term rolls up directly to an Annual Term. Nested or multi-level term relationships (for example, child → parent → annual term) are not supported.

  • Annual terms cannot be continuous

  • Child terms may be continuous, but results will be reported within the boundaries of the associated annual term

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