1. A Blackboard Building Block™ Crash Course for Web Developers
Murali Yellepeddy, Architect

2. Agenda Blackboard Building Block Introduction Hooks into the platform
B2 Manager
Blackboard® API
Tag libraries
Security
Q&A

3. Introduction
If you've ever built a webapp for Tomcat®, WebLogic®, WebSphere®, etc Or a portlet for uPorta®l, Liferay®, etc - you've essentially already built a Blackboard Building Block
Blackboard® itself is nothing more than a bunch of webapps running on Tomcat

4. Blackboard® Architecture
Client
Bb App Server(s)
Bb DB Server
Apache /
IIS
Static files .html
Oracle® /
SQL*
Server®
Tomcat
.jsp pages
/webapp pages
Locale images
Collab
Server
chat & virtual
classroom

5. Blackboard Building Block Contents
B2s are most-closely-related to a portlet in that it's a simple webapp with 1 extra XML file that tells Blackboard where your app will hook into it
webapp
Manifest (XML)

6. BB-Manifest.XML
Describes the web application to the Blackboard plug-in manager
Metadata
Allows to extend functionality
Custom Content
Links
Portal Modules
Register to Notifications
Gradable Items
Security
Entitlements
Permissions

7. Basic Structure of a Blackboard-Manifest File
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO "?>
<manifest>
<!-- core extension information -->
<plugin>
<!-- general information: name, handle, etc. -->
<http-actions> ... </http-actions>
<!– Register to Notifications -->
<extension-defs> ... </extension-defs>
<!-- Custom Portal Modules -->
<module-defs> ... </module-defs>
<!–- Score Providers -->
<score-providers> ... </score-providers>

8. Basic Structure of a Blackboard-Manifest File
<!-- custom content handlers -->
<content-handlers>
<content-handler> ... </content-handler>
</content-handlers>
<!-- Tools defined by this extension -->
<application-defs>
<application> ... </application>
</application-defs>
<permissions> </permissions>
</plugin>
</manifest>

9. Example Code
Hello World Mashup content handler
Adds a course tool

10. Blackboard® B2 Manager

11. What to use to build it..
Just like a webapp, you can use whichever framework technology you want to use - Struts & Spring are the most common.
You can also use straight JSPs for the most basic of projects, but using MVC is recommended as a better practice
Similarly, you can easily add supporting libraries such as those from the Apache Commons projects to avoid reinventing the wheel for common tasks. Note, a lot of libraries already ship with Blackboard® Learn™(check /blackboard/apps/tomcat/lib)

12. Blackboard® Look & Feel
Easy to render the user interface using the Blackboard tag libraries - similar to the JSTL libraries (Java) or SharePoint web part Web UI Controls used to render HTML.
The tag libraries inherit the look/feel, usability, and accessibility of the core product
You can also roll your own UI using straight HTML if desired

13. Example Code

14. Javascript Blackboard uses Prototype.
You can layer additional AJAX technologies on top of it such as Scriptaculous for slick web 2.0-like behavior.
Would not recommend using JQuery as sometimes Prototype and JQuery don't interact so well. Another one to look at is AjaxTags.

15. Blackboard® API to Access Blackboard Data
Base persistence objects are defined in the package, blackboard.persist, with sub-packages including
announcement
calendar
content
course
gradebook
user

16. Context vs Persistence
Context tag
Current Session
Current Page
Who am I?
Where am I?
Persistence objects
Permanent Data Store
Retrieve or update data
Single objects
UserId given UserName
Lists of objects
All users in a course
All courses for a user

17. Permissions Wrapper around Java security
Allows administrators to allow or deny a building block based on what it is trying to access

18. References Documentation and API reference Tag libraries:
Tag libraries:
Current versions on your Blackboard Learn Server …/blackboard/content/WEB-INF/config/taglibs
Generate documentation (html-format)

19. Questions ?

20. The subject of the email should be title of this session:
Please provide feedback for this session by ing
The subject of the should be title of this session:
A Building Block Crash Course for Web Developers