Blackboard Data and User Integration with LTI 1.3 (Blackboard Ultra) - Course Evaluation & Surveys

This article is specifically for the Watermark Course Evaluations & Surveys product.  If you are setting up a developer key for other Watermark product (for example, Student Learning & Licensure or Planning & Self-Study), please refer to the Help Center document for that specific product. 

NOTE: LTI 1.3 requires the use of Blackboard Ultra base navigation. The use of original course view in Blackboard Ultra does not affect the LTI 1.3 integration.

Course Evaluation & Surveys is excited to announce the ability to display survey notifications in Blackboard Ultra that drives higher survey response rates and enables Blackboard Learn clients to upgrade to Ultra.  

This user integration enhancement supplements Course Evaluation & Survey’s existing data integration with Ultra for importing courses and enrollments and enabling grade points.

Key Highlights and Benefits

• Ability to control survey notification display placement:
  • Activity Stream
  • Institution page
  • Course
• Continuous display of survey notifications until the student submits a survey.
• Supplements the existing data integration between Course Evaluation & Surveys and Blackboard Ultra to enable Blackboard clients to confidently upgrade to Ultra.

Survey Notifications, Accessibility and Ultra Navigation

Through simple configurations in Blackboard’s Administrator Tools and Course Evaluation & Survey’s integration setup for Blackboard, you can now take full advantage of Course Evaluation & Survey’s data and user integration to Blackboard Ultra.  Downloading of Blackboard packets in Course Evaluation & Surveys will no longer be necessary for an Ultra connection.

The user experience is different between Ultra and Original Learn. In the Original Learn, restricting student navigation to other areas in Blackboard until the student completed a course evaluation was enabled.  

It is important to note that in order to adhere to accessibility guidelines, the ability to restrict this navigation within Ultra is forbidden.  For example, on the Activity Stream slider panel, on which notifications can be displayed, the student can click a large ‘X’ to close that panel, wherever it is displayed in Ultra, and move to other parts of Ultra. This ‘X’ cannot be blocked by Course Evaluation & Surveys, or any other vendor due to the accessibility protocols associated with it.

With that in mind, the Course Evaluation & Surveys team has developed a survey notification solution that will drive survey response rates by continuous display of the survey notification until students take the survey for all courses in which they are enrolled and for which surveys are available.  Optionally, disabling the ‘Do It Later’ feature will immediately re-display the notification again, obligating the student to complete the survey.

Survey Notification Displays in Blackboard Ultra

Activity Stream

Survey notifications will continue to display on the Activity Stream slider panel until the student completes the survey. While the student can close the slider panel by clicking the ‘X’, this action will not remove the survey notification. If the student clicks the 'X', it just closes the slider panel and the student stays on the page s/he is on, in most cases. But when they navigate back to another page on which the survey notification is placed, that notification is redisplayed again until the student takes the survey.

This behavior is applicable to any slide on which the survey notification is displayed - e.g., Institution page and Course.

You can still enable the ‘Do It Later’ option for Ultra survey notifications if you want to give students this option. Otherwise, a single option to take the survey will display to further encourage more rapid student response.

Clicking on the ‘Go to Survey’ action will bring the student directly to the survey within the Ultra experience. Here, again, clicking the ‘X’ on this slider panel will not remove the survey or its notification: think of this action as an alternate ‘Do It Later’ action inherent within Ultra itself.

Courses

Survey notifications can be displayed for each course for which a survey is available when the student clicks through to that course.

Institution Page

Integration Setup: Blackboard Ultra Administrator Tools

To complete the Blackboard LTI 1.3 integration setup to display survey notifications in Ultra, navigate to Blackboard’s Admin

section following the steps below. You will need the information stored in your Course Evaluation & Surveys Account settings

to complete the configuration.

NOTE: The following values will be provided to you by Support or the Integration Team along with the instructions below.

Used in Data Integration steps

• Application ID
• Application Key
• Application Secret

Used in User Integration steps

• Application ID same as above
• Public Keyset URL
• Authentication Request URL

INSTALLATION AND SETUP INSTRUCTIONS FOR DATA INTEGRATION FEATURES IN BLACKBOARD

Course Evaluations & Surveys Integration Setup in Blackboard

As a Blackboard Administrator, log in to your instance of Blackboard and complete the following:

1. (NOTE: If you are setting this up for the first time then you will need to follow this step.  But if you already have a Blackboard Data Integration set up with Course Evaluations & Surveys and are upgrading to the Bb 1.3 integration then you can skip this step). Create a designated Blackboard Administrator, which will be associated to the integration. Below are the minimum permissions needed for a custom admin system role for Data Integration to work:
   • Administrator Panel (Courses) Courses
   • Administrator Panel (Courses) Courses Available/Unavailable 
   • Administrator Panel (Courses) Courses Edit Course Properties
   • Administrator Panel (Courses) Courses Edit Enrollments Add Enrollment
   • Administrator Panel (Courses) Terms
   • Administrator Panel (Integrations) Web Services
   • Administrator Panel (Tools and Utilities) System Reporting Data Sources
   • Administrator Panel (Users) Institution Roles
   • Administrator Panel (Users) Users
   • Administrator Panel (Users) Users Available / Unavailable
   • Administrator Panel (Users) Users Edit View Course Enrollments
   • Course/Organization Groups View All Groups
   • Course/Organization Control Panel (Grade Center) Full Control
   • User management by Web Services

2. Establish a connection between Course Evaluation & Surveys and Blackboard Learn Path: AdministratorTools > REST API Integrations

1. Select Create Integration
2. Application ID: Copy and paste the following Application ID into this field. The Application ID will be provided by Support or the Integration Team.
3. Learn User = Click Browse and select the Blackboard Administrator account or enter the username of the Blackboard Administrator you created for these integration purposes.
4. Available = Yes
5. End User Access = Yes
6. Authorized To Act As User = Yes
7. Click Submit.
8. REST API Integration will now appear as <CES Instance Name>EvaluationKIT UEF.

INTEGRATION SET UP STEPS IN COURSE EVALUATIONS & SURVEYS

Next, log in to your EvaluationKIT Account as the Course Evaluations & Surveys Administrator and navigate to Account > Integrations (section) > Blackboard > Data Integration (tab) to configure the Connection Settings:

1. Change the Blackboard Site Version to "Blackboard Learn SAAS Release"

2. Insert REST API Key and Secret values within Course Evaluation & Surveys (provided by Support or Integration Team)

3. Click Save

4. Click Test Connection

5. Notification = Test Passed

INSTALLATION AND SETUP INSTRUCTIONS FOR USER INTEGRATION FEATURES

1. Establish resource sharing connection between Course Evaluation & Surveys and Blackboard. This step may have already been completed if you configured LTI 1.1 for Blackboard Ultra. It does not need to be completed again for LTI 1.3.

Path: AdministratorTools > Cross-Origin Resource Sharing

Settings

1. Click Create Configuration
2. In the Origin field insert your Course Evaluation & Surveys account URL, e.g. https://yourschool.Course Evaluation & Surveys.com
3. Set Available to Yes
4. Click Submit

3. Establish the user and data integration connection between Course Evaluation & Surveys and Blackboard.

Path: Administrator Panel > LTI Tool Providers

1. Click Register LTI 1.3/Advantage Tool
2. Insert Client ID. The Client ID is the Application ID that was provided by Support or the Integration team.
3. In the Institution Policies section, enable the following
   • All three User Fields
   • Allows grade services access
   • Allow Membership Service Access
4. Click Submit
5. Click Submit again

Note: The Deployment ID will need to be copied and pasted into CES in a later step.

4. Create the connection and placement for Instructors and Administrator access from Course Evaluation & Surveys in Blackboard Ultra.

NOTE: The placement that will allow the CES notification to be displayed for students has already created automatically. The placement created below will allow access for your Instruction and Administrators from the Tool area within Blackboard.

Path: Administrator Panel > LTI Tool Providers > Manage Placements

Settings

1. Click Create Placement
2. Label = The label of the Tool you wish users to see in Blackboard, for example, Course Evaluations & Surveys
3. Handle = Can be a duplicate of the label of the Tool you wish users to see in Blackboard
4. Type = System Tool
5. Target link URI = Insert the Launch URL from your CES account under Account > LTI 1.3
6. Availability = Yes
7. Click Submit

5. Complete the LTI 1.3 screen in CES site

Path: Account > Integration < LTI 1.3

1. Insert Issuer = https://blackboard.com
2. Insert Client ID. The Client ID is the Application ID that was provided by Support or the Integration team.
3. Insert Deployment ID.Deployment ID of the LTI Tool created in Step 3 (LTI Tool Providers setup)
4. Insert Public Keyset URLThe Public Keyset URL will be provided by Support or the Integration Team.
5. Insert Authentication Request URLThe Authentication Request URL will be provided by Support or the Integration Team.
6. Click Save

6. Enable Ultra Extension in Course Evaluation & Surveys

Path: Account > Integration > Blackboard > User Integration

1. Click UI Version
2. Check Ultra Extention
3. Settings within Student Setup will carry over from previous settings
4. Expand Student Setup
5. Enable Display Survey Notification in Blackboard
6. Customize the Header and Body Text areas
7. Enable Show “Do It Later” button
8. Enable Go Directly to Survey