Blackboard Mobile Learn Installation/Configuration Guide INSTALLING THE BLACKBOARD MOBILE WEB SERVICES BUILDING BLOCK FOR BLACKBOARD LEARN, RELEASE 9.1 These instructions are for installing and configuring the Blackboard Mobile Web Services Building Block on Blackboard Learn, Release 9.1. Prerequisites These instructions assume you have Blackboard Learn, Release 9.1 installed and running and that you have obtained the Blackboard Learn, Release 9.1 version of the Blackboard Mobile Web Services Building Block from the Blackboard website (for example, Bb-Mobile-91.3.0.war). I. Installing and Registering the Building Block The process of installing the Blackboard Mobile Web Services Building Block involves uploading the Building Block package to the Blackboard Learn platform web server and then registering the instance. 1 2 3 Launch a Web browser and navigate to the login page of the Blackboard Learn instance. For example, opening the browser on the server might be as follows: https://blackboard.monument.edu Enter your administrator s username and password for the Blackboard Learn instance and click Login. When your credentials successfully authenticate to the server, the home page displays. Click the System Admin tab to display the Administrator Panel (similar to that shown below, but likely customized for your environment). 4 Locate the Building Blocks section of the Administrator Panel. In the Building Blocks section, click Building Blocks. The Building Blocks page displays a menu of several links such as Installed Tools, Proxy Tools, and Basic LTI Tool Providers. 1
5 Click Installed Tools to display the page of Building Blocks available or running on the system. 6 7 8 9! Click Upload Building Blocks to open the Install Building Block page. On the Install Building Block page, click Browse and navigate to the Building Block file. Click on the Building Block s filename and then click Open to select the file. The dialog closes and the filename displays in the Building Block Package field on the Install Building Block page.. Click Submit to upload the selected Building Block package to the server. The Blackboard Mobile Web Services Building Block displays in the list. To deploy the service, change the Availability setting from Inactive to Available. When you select Available from the drop-down menu, the Make Building Block Available page displays. # Confirm the Building Block s privileges by clicking Approve. The Building Block page refreshes and displays a message that the Building Block has been made Available to the system. $ The next step is to configure the public URL, authentication type, environment, and other settings so that members of your user community can connect to and use the service from their smart devices. From the Building Blocks page, click Settings for the Blackboard Mobile Web Services Building Block. The Blackboard Mobile menu page displays several links. 2
% Click Server Registration Settings to enter the Blackboard Learn instance s settings. & Enter values for your service as follows: Contact Email: Email address of the system administrator who will be responsible for this service. Support Email: Email address presented to members of your user community as your institution s support email address Support Email Label: Name of your institution s help desk presented to members of your user community Username Label: Label that will display to members of your user community when they login to Blackboard Mobile Learn using Native authentication. You can change this label as appropriate for your institution (e.g. StudentID, User ID ). Public URL: The public URL of the Blackboard Learn site through which users will access Mobile Learn. Name: The name of the instance that will be added to the Mobile Learn Registration Service. Environment: Identifies the type of instance for this deployment Development, Testing, Staging, or Production. Only when you choose Production does the address information registered for this service get populated to the Mobile Learn Registration Service where your user community can find it. 3
( Authentication Type: Choose Native if your institution uses the native Blackboard challenge-response mechanism (RDBMS) or LDAP/LDAPS for authentication. Choose Force To Web if your institution uses most any other authentication mechanism (for example, custom, Shibboleth, CAS). The HTTP Authentication option should generally not be used as this option is only for authentication systems such as Active Directory or Kerberos that use a browser popup challenge window when attempting to login. Click Submit when you are finished entering information for your service. At this point, the service is deployed and information about the service is sent in the background to the Mobile Learn Registration Service. II. Configuring the Blackboard Mobile Web Services Building Block for Blackboard Learn, Release 9.1 On the Blackboard Mobile Web Services Building Block s Settings page, there are several configuration options for Blackboard Mobile Learn. Configure Mobile Data Select how you want the following options to be configured and click Submit to make any changes: Enable grades. This option enables or disables grades to be viewed in all courses in the Mobile Learn app at your institution. Enable file uploads. This option enables or disables files to be uploaded by users using the Mobile Learn app. Show course id in course list. This option shows or hides the course ID displayed in the course list on the Mobile Learn app. Select how enrollments should be sorted. This option chooses the default sort method for a user s class enrollments in the app. Available sort methods are by enrollment date (the date a user is enrolled in a course), alphabetical (sorting alphabetically by course name), or course ID (sorting using the course ID). Portal Module Settings The Building Block includes a default portal module with announcements about Blackboard Mobile Learn. You can disable this module if you like by navigating to this section and clicking on the Disable button as follows: 4
This module may be manually disabled in System Admin > Communities: Tabs and Modules > Modules > search for Mobile Learning Update > select Edit Properties > set System Availability to No > click Submit. Mobile Analytics Mobile Learn analytics data collected on this Blackboard Learn instance may be shared on this page by clicking on the Share This Page button. When shared, an HTML link is provided which may be shared with others. A separate guide explaining the data found on each analytics report is available on Behind the Blackboard s Knowledge search for the Mobile Learn Analytics User Guide article. III. Troubleshooting the Blackboard Mobile Web Services Building Block for Blackboard Learn, Release 9.1 If your Blackboard Learn server cannot register with the Mobile Learn Registration Service, you may see an error message in red on the Blackboard Mobile Web Services Building Block s Settings page such as: Registration Inactive: We are not able to verify your URL. This can be indication that the URL entered is not actually public. This can also be a symptom of a firewall issue on the server or network your Blackboard Learn instance is located on. Verify that you have entered the correct public URL for your Blackboard Learn instance and that network traffic on ports 80 and 443 is opened to *.medu.com sites. If the URL is public and has been correctly entered on the Server Registration Settings page, and your firewall has been configured correctly, contact Behind the Blackboard for further support. 650 Massachusetts Avenue, NW 6th Floor Washington, DC 20001 1.800.424.9299, ext. 4 Available on select devices. Copyright 1997-2011. Blackboard Inc. All rights reserved. Blackboard, the Blackboard logo, BbWorld, Blackboard Learn, Blackboard Transact, Blackboard Connect, Blackboard Mobile, Blackboard Collaborate, the Blackboard Outcomes System, Behind the Blackboard, and Connect-ED are trademarks or registered trademarks of Blackboard Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and/or other countries. Blackboard products and services may be covered by one or more of the following U.S. Patents: 7,493,396; 7,558,853; 6,816,878. MAY2012B29.1