Timeout Settings & Activity Time

Target Audience: Teachers & Administrators (Buzz)

Understanding Student Activity Time

Both Accelerate and Buzz reports and dashboards record student activity time. The amount of time recorded can be affected by your domain’s idle timeout setting, which determines how long a student can remain inactive before being logged out automatically.

Buzz does not set a default idle timeout. During initial domain setup, administrators are prompted to choose one. We recommend setting a threshold so that time is not recorded for long periods after a student has left the browser open and walked away.

How to Interpret Activity Time

Activity time is an estimate, not a definitive measure of engagement. Use it to identify trends and guide conversations about a student’s progress. Keep these factors in mind:

Time alone does not equal engagement.
Multiple open courses can affect recorded time. A student can have two courses open in separate browser tabs at once. This is possible, though not recommended.
Students may leave their computers while still logged in. This can happen especially when students work at home. The domain’s idle timeout can reduce the amount of inactive time recorded.
Grade level and lesson design affect time. Students in grades K–5 are often assigned more offline work than older students. They may stay logged in while completing offline worksheets, but this is not always the case.

These factors can affect the numbers, but activity time can still be a useful indicator when you are supporting students.

Set the Idle Timeout (Administrators)

From the Admin App homepage, open the three-dot menu (⋮).
Select Domain Settings.
Scroll to the Miscellaneous section.
Enter the desired idle time. After this period of inactivity, students will need to log in again. Students who are actively working and interacting with the platform will not be logged out simply because the browser has been open for a long time.
Select Save in the upper-right corner of the Domain Settings page.