Advanced Blackboard Integration from Start to Finish

Overview

The Advanced Blackboard Integration allows users to seamlessly link Blackboard activities—such as Tests and Assignments—to performance measures in the Learning Management System (LMS).

This integration simplifies the process of tracking student progress by enabling users to connect course activities directly to performance metrics in P&SS. By supporting a variety of activity types, it provides a more complete and insightful view of student performance across multiple assessment methods.

Required Data

The Planning & Self-Study Advanced Blackboard Integration requires additional files to be uploaded to System Administration.

The table below lists the files required for use of Planning & Self-Study with the integration.

Required Data Mapping

Required or Optional Recommended Frequency of Updating

Organizations

Required

One time import

Programs

Required

Update as programs are added or removed

People

Required

  • PSS Users

  • Students

Needs reviewed each new term

Terms

Required for mapping to terms from the LMS.

Can build out a year in advance

Courses

Required

Needs reviewed each new term

Sections

Required for mapping to courses from the LMS.

Needs reviewed each new term

Enrollments

Required

Needs reviewed each new term

Basic Person Attributes

Required if filtering by student demographics

  • Gender

  • race/ethnicity

  • First_generation

  • Pell eligibility

N/a

Student Term Attributes

Required if filtering by student demographics

  • Primary major

  • Attending Status

N/a

Program Curriculum

Required

Needs reviewed each new term

Note: Cohort Enrollment data is not required for Planning & Self Study.

The steps to pulling data from Blackboard are as follows:

  • Creating a Measure to pull Blackboard data into
  • Aligning the Measure to an Activity
  • Defining the Met Criteria

All of these steps are described in further detail in the resources linked below.

Creating a New Measure

The first step in the integration is to build a Measure into which the data from Blackboard can be pulled.

While there are three areas in Planning & Self Study where Measures can be created, for the purposes of the integration, Measures must be created in the Outcomes area.

This process is described in further detail in the section titled "Creating Measures in the Outcomes Area" of the article linked below:

Adding Measures to an Outcome

Adding an Alignment

Administrators and Contributors can add alignments to a Measure of a learning outcome. Users must select the source before choosing the alignment type. Follow the steps below to add an alignment.

For more information on Aligning a Measure to an Activity, see the article linked below:

Adding an Alignment using Advanced Blackboard Integration

Defining the Met Criteria for Activity Alignments

Users can define the met criteria for activity alignments using one of three options: Grade, Points, or Percentage. The steps in the article below outline how to set the met criteria based on the selected method.

Defining the Met Criteria for Activity Alignments

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