Getting Started with Blackboard Building Blocks
Getting Started with Building Blocks (part 1)
Denison Wright, Blackboard
New to Blackboard Building Blocks? This first of two sessions will cover the material available in the "Getting Started with Building Blocks Guide." We will walk through setting up a development environment and begin a first "Hello World" project.
PPT
| Apreso Recording
| Sample Code
Getting Started with Building Blocks (part 2)
Joel Lindsey, Blackboard
New to Blackboard Building Blocks? This second of two sessions will continue with the "Hello World" project developed in Part I (July 12, 10:15am). We will expand the functionality of the "Hello World" project by exploring more Blackboard Learning System APIs.
PPT | Apreso Recording | Sample Code
Java APIs in Depth: The Blackboard Learning System and Blackboard Community System
Heather Natour, Blackboard
Explore the Java APIs for Blackboard Learning System and Blackboard Community System. In this session we will walk through the APIs at a detailed level using sample Blackboard Building Blocks to illustrate key APIs.
PPT | Apreso Recording
Blackboard Student Portal: aligning functionality with user requirements
Louise Thorpe, Sheffield Hallam University
Mary Elder, Sheffield Hallam University
Sheffield Hallam University's Student Portal, powered by the Blackboard Community System, is a great example of how we effectively extended Blackboard software to meet the demands of our 32,000 users. Based on a realistic amount of incremental development and focused on user requirements, four key Building Blocks (and imaginative use of Blackboard's in-built functionality) have enabled us to deliver a student portal which integrates with other key institutional systems.
Best Practices for Building, Testing and Deploying Building Blocks (the "Starter Block")
Jeff Bradley, Blackboard
Taking advantage of industry best practices is a proven way to improve the quality of your development and test practices, as well as how you deploy and rollout new applications. Without doubt, proven best practices can improve your users' experiences. In this session we'll cover best practices that Blackboard has compiled for building, testing and deploying Building Blocks.
PPT | Apreso Recording | Sample code available in the Developer Tools area of the Downloads section of this site
Getting Started with Blackboard PowerLinks
Data Integration Using the Systems Integration API
Chris Dixon, Blackboard
Integration of former the Blackboard Learning System - Vista and CE Licenses with campus student information systems is typically among the first tasks pursued by an implementation team as it provides significant time savings via automation. This session will provide an overview of the System Integration API and discuss the most common integration strategies.
PPT | Apreso Recording
User Authentication Capabilities for Vista and CE
Chris Dixon, Blackboard
User authentication outside the platform is one of the most common integration priorities for deployment of the Blackboard Learning System - Vista and CE Licenses. Explore the authentication capabilities of the platform from out of the box capabilities to API calls and custom JAAS module development.
Apreso Recording
Introduction to the PowerSight Kit for Vista and CE
Jonathan Abourbih, Blackboard
The Blackboard PowerSight Kit for the Blackboard Learning System - Vista (Version 4) and CE (Version 6) Licenses gives school administrators and decision-makers access to vast amounts of data about how students and instructors interact with Blackboard. This workshop will show you how to sift through the massive repository of data to answer questions about how instructors are teaching, how students are learning and how your users are using Blackboard overall.
Apreso Recording
Introduction to PowerLink Webservices
Jonathan Abourbih, Blackboard
The Blackboard PowerLink Web Services provide API access to many of the same tools available in the UI from many different consumer languages. An overview of the available Web Services will be provided, followed by a walkthrough of some common use cases and example applications.
Apreso Recording
Developing a Generic Deployable Component for Single Sign-On
Stephen P. Vickers, The University of Edinburgh
This presentation is based upon my first PowerLink which was designed to provide a generic tool for allowing users to automatically connect to our other eLearning systems (such as a weblog and a wiki). It will include a demonstration of the tool as well as a description of some of the problems arising during the development process and some of the features which would be nice to see added to the Deployable Components Authentication framework.
PPT | Apreso Recording
Uses of the Blackboard PowerLinks SDK for Grades Management
Jeff Longland, University of Western Ontario
Come and see the projects that the University of Western Ontario has been developing to integrate the Blackboard Learning System – Vista Enterprise License into existing campus workflows for grades management. Learn how the Blackboard PowerLinks SDK has been utilized in conjunction with Java Web Start and J2EE to facilitate grades management.
Intermediate
Project Management: Herding Cats
Mary Sue Dahill, Blackboard
Your project schedule is all set, your project requirements are clear and your stakeholders are supportive. So what's the problem? Getting people moving in the same direction! In this session you will learn how to motivate cross-functional team members and negotiate successfully toward your end goal. Learn how to lead without authority.
PPT | Apreso Recording
Product Development Best Practices
Marc Nadeau, Blackboard
Positive user experiences and great products start with good planning and informed requirements analysis. Thoughtful design and development, in addition to repeatable testing and thorough documentation, can lead your team to success. Join us to discuss Blackboard Product Development's best practices and how you can take advantage of them for your own development projects.
PPT | Apreso Recording
Using Web Services to Deliver Library Resources in Blackboard
Robert Owens, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Richard Cox, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Join members of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro team as they discuss a pilot project between the Jackson Library and the Teaching and Learning Center. The project included an ASP.NET Web service to expose library journals and databases and a Building Block built using Adobe Flex to present the library information to students and faculty.
Using Web Services to Retrieve Gradebook Reports
George Kroner, Blackboard
Learn how to use Web services to retrieve gradebook reports and gain an understanding of the Blackboard Gradebook APIs. This session will expose you to an overview of the Blackboard Gradebook, how it works and how to leverage our APIs to obtain data on student progress and outcomes.
PPT | Apreso Recording | Sample Code
MyUNH for Parents: How Students are Empowered to Enroll Their Parents in Blackboard
Bill Baber, University of New Hampshire
Renee Cicerchi, University of New Hampshire
Dmitry Sadykov, University of New Hampshire
Providing parents with authenticated portal access can greatly extend the types of services offered, and can even include bill payment. We will explore the technical challenges that were overcome at the University of New Hampshire when extending access for parents to the Blackboard Community System and MyUNH by using Blackboard Building Block APIs, integration with identity management and SCT Banner. Take away information about our solution-approach model, which may be appropriate for your institution.
e-Grades: A Detailed Postmortem of a Blackboard to Banner Grade Submission Tool
James Black, University of South Florida
Glen Parker, University of South Florida
e-Grades is a tool developed by the University of South Florida that has been successfully deployed in production for three semesters. With our e-Grades Building Block, faculty can submit midterm and final grades for their courses within Blackboard software directly to our SCT Banner installation. This session is appropriate to Building Blocks developers at all levels. We'll explore all aspects of the design, development and deployment of this tool.
Implementing Single Sign-On to Remote Services via Blackboard Building Blocks and Blackboard PowerLinks
Jon Bodner, Blackboard
Scholar is Blackboard's new academic resource sharing web application. It enables Blackboard users to store and share resources on a central server via an interface that is integrated into the Blackboard application. Rather than require users to enter a user id and password every time they click on the Scholar tab, we use single-sign on to share credentials between the Scholar server and our Blackboard installation. How do we do that? Attend this talk to learn how to use Blackboard PowerLinks and Blackboard Building Blocks to implement a secure single-sign on system from your Blackboard installation to a remote server.
PPT | Apreso Recording
Advanced
Building Building Blocks at Princeton
Jennifer Chen, Princeton University
Kevin Perry, Princeton University
Thomas True, Princeton University
Attend this session for an overview of Building Block development and deployment at Princeton University. Presenters will share details of several Building Blocks including their e-reserve tool, precept scheduling too and the interface to their Almagest presentation tool. Additionally they will discuss the integration of Movable Type and MediaWiki into the Blackboard interface, other Building Blocks used at Princeton as well as tools that are currently under development.
Creating Custom Course Content: The Sign-Up List
Malcolm R. Murray, Durham University
This session will walk through the design decisions and methods employed to create a custom course content item in Blackboard. This includes a consideration of how to store custom data and make the content description "respond" to users' actions. The presenter will discuss a tool developed by the author via the open-source OSCELOT group and clearly demonstrate the benefits of community development.
Leveraging Open Source for Your Project
Jeff Johnson, Blackboard
George Kroner, Blackboard
From libraries to frameworks, incorporating open source into your project can help to simplify development efforts, reduce maintenance costs and increase the quality of your projects. Get a sampling of open source projects and some ideas on how you can incorporate open source into your own projects.
PPT | Apreso Recording
Using Ajax in Building Blocks
Bill Richard, Blackboard
What is Ajax? Is it useful for Blackboard Building Blocks? This session will introduce the technology and how to leverage it effectively when designing and developing your Building Blocks.
PPT | Apreso Recording | Sample Code
Building Blocks Usability from Idea to Reality
Stephanie Cupp, Blackboard
Are you at a loss for how to take your idea from concept to reality? Using a real world example, this session will cover how to design your Building Block with accessibility in mind, provide an introductory grounding on interface design principles and discuss usability and user testing as part of your design process.
PPT | Apreso Recording
Developer Resources: Introducing the new Knowledge Base Wiki
Volker Kleinschmidt, Blackboard
Jason Minkoff, Blackboard
Blackboard's client extranet, Behind the Blackboard, has been redesigned to improve the client and developer online experience. Join us as we dive into the new Knowledge Base Wiki and learn how to customize your wiki pages, mine the wiki for information and other tips and tricks to get the most out of Behind the Blackboard.
PPT | Apreso Recording
MyUNH Directed Communication: Addressing Complex Communications via the Community System
Bill Baber, University of New Hampshire
Renee Cicerchi, University of New Hampshire
Dmitry Sadykov, University of New Hampshire
Getting communication out accurately to the precise audience, with appropriate approval, without duplication and in a timely fashion is always a challenge. University of New Hampshire has created a directed communication system to address this need using Building Blocks and the Blackboard
Community System. Attendees will see an excellent example of how a critical and complex institutional need was solved by leveraging available APIs for our broadly utilized Blackboard Community System.
System Administration
Virtualization Technologies and Blackboard: The Future of Blackboard on Multi-Core Technologies
Kurt Klemperer, Blackboard
This session will provide a summary overview of the virtualization technologies presently under evaluation by Blackboard. The list includes VMWare, Xen and Logical Domains (LDOMs). System administrators will be provided guidance around the configuration and optimization of these technologies, as well as sizing guidance. This session will address system administrators for the Blackboard Academic Suite, Vista and CE Licenses.
PPT | Apreso Recording
Performance Testing Blackboard Building Blocks and Blackboard PowerLinks
Kirk Gray, Blackboard
Building Blocks developers: Arm yourself with the know-how and freely available tools to perform performance testing on your java code. JUnitPerf, Faban, JProbe, and HttpUnit will be used to demonstrate a simple performance benchmark.
PPT | Apreso Recording
Blackboard in Baker Street: The Sign of Four
Volker Kleinschmidt, Blackboard
Join Volker Kleinschmidt for a treatise upon the tracing of footsteps, with some remarks upon the uses of log data as a preserver of impresses. He will discuss how to isolate mysterious events such as disappearing or altered data, and differentiate user error from bugs or security issues.
PPT | Apreso Recording
Performance Troubleshooting - Windows
Jeremy Portzer, Blackboard
Join us for this guide to troubleshooting and resolving acute performance problems on your Windows-based Blackboard installation. Topics to be covered in this session include: categorizing and classifying performance problems; obtaining, reading, and understanding a Tomcat thread dump; SQL Server performance considerations; and baseline best practices from Blackboard Client Support.
PPT | Apreso Recording
Performance Troubleshooting - Unix
Jeremy Portzer, Blackboard
This session will provide a guide to troubleshooting and resolving acute performance problems on your UNIX-based Blackboard installation. Topics to be covered in this session include: categorizing and classifying performance problems; obtaining, reading, and understanding a Tomcat thread dump; understanding the Blackboard performance report; and baseline best practices from Blackboard Client Support.
PPT | Apreso Recording
Administering the Blackboard Content System
Volker Kleinschmidt, Blackboard
Looking for a more detailed understanding of how to manage the Blackboard Content System? Join us for a walk-through of the system settings as well as best practices, pitfalls, tips and tricks. From logging to troubleshooting to command-line tools - this is a great opportunity to get detailed information about how to administer the Blackboard Content System.
PPT | Apreso Recording
What the Heck is a Hotfix?
John Fontaine, Blackboard
Don't know what a hotfix is? Curious how Blackboard handles our software maintenance? This session will review the common maintenance releases from Blackboard and share planning strategies for implementing these releases on your campus. We'll also review Blackboard practices for bug fixing and software maintenance.
PPT | Apreso Recording
Blackboard, JMX, JConsole and Glassbox: An Inside Look into Performance Management
Kirk Gray, Blackboard
This session will cover the use of JMX, JConsole, and the open source tool Glassbox to monitor and instrument your application. We will demonstrate the setup and monitoring of a simple application through the management consoles provided by Sun and Glassbox.
PPT | Apreso Recording | Sample Code 1 2 3 4
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