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Echo360 Status: 

EchoVideo: Adding a REST API Integration with Blackboard

Echo360
  • Updated

Overview

EchoVideo's REST API integration essentially provides EchoVideo with an "LMS / VLE course lookup by Instructor" capability. This integration provides the following features:

  1. The ability for EchoVideo admins or schedulers to create both EchoVideo sections and connect capture schedules directly to LMS Courses. This is described in Linking an EchoVideo Capture Schedule to an LMS Course.
  2. The ability for instructors to see and use the consolidated Analytics tab from within EchoVideo, which provides viewing and polling response data in one place for all of their LMS-course-related EchoVideo media.
  3. The ability for EchoVideo admins to opt-in to Course Roster Syncing which will provide the entire roster within consolidated Analytics (instead of just those users who have viewed content).

The basic process for API integration is:

  1. Create a Rest API integration in Blackboard.
  2. Add a Blackboard API configuration in EchoVideo
  3. Authorize the configuration.
  4. Test the configuration.

As with most LMS-to-EchoVideo configurations, this requires that you log into EchoVideo and Blackboard as an administrator.

Best Practices for application user access: The API integration requires a user Email address. It can be an administrator's email address or it can be an application user account you create for this purpose, with restricted access (the link is to a video describing this process). See the Blackboard documentation for Releasing your REST Integration, and work with your Blackboard Support representative as needed. You may also contact EchoVideo Support for more details.

Technical Detail regarding Blackboard user email lookup: The Blackboard API does not return enrollments for Blackboard system administrators. This is a design decision in Blackboard to as only Blackboard administrators are allowed to see the enrollments of other Blackboard administrators, and API integrations are not granted this administrative privilege.
Why does this matter? This means that if an instructor in EchoVideo is also an administrator in Blackboard, the EchoVideo consolidated analytics feature and the ability to link to a Blackboard course when creating to a schedule will not function for that user. When creating a schedule for an EchoVideo instructor who is also a Blackboard administrator, you will need to select course publishing using the scheduling workflow and establish a Blackboard course to EchoVideo link using the content link workflow.

To configure an API integration between Blackboard and EchoVideo

  1. Log into Blackboard as an administrator and click Admin from the left navigation.
  2. From the Admin Panel, locate the Integrations block and select Rest API Integrations, as identified in the below figure.
    Administrator Panel in Blackboard Rest API integrations selection identified for steps as described
  3. From the top of the Rest API Integrations list, select Create Integration, identified in the below figure.
    Blackboard Rest API integrations page with Create Integration option identified as described
  4. In the Create Rest API integration page, shown below, enter the following application ID:
    e0065539-7fb4-4f87-9f35-ce6effdc0b4c
  5. Enter an Admin Email address into the Learn User field. This is the user that the API integration will act as. See the note at the top of this page regarding recommendations for this account.
  6. Leave End User Access as the default of Yes.
  7. Change Authorized to Act As User to Yes.
    When complete the form should look similar to the following figure.
    New Rest API integration form completed with fields and values shown as described
  8. Click Submit.
  9. If you haven't already, open a new browser tab or window for EchoVideo and log in as an administrator.
  10. Click the Settings icon in the upper-right corner of the screen.
  11. From the Settings menu, select Institution Settings.

    General settings appears and Basic Info is selected by default.

  12. Click Integration.
  13. From the middle panel, select LMS / VLE.

    The LTI 1.1 tab is selected by default.

  14. Click the API tab.
    EchoVideo LMS configurations page with navigation to page and API tab shown as described
  15. Optionally, toggle on Full Course Roster. When on, it provides the full course roster for Consolidated Analytics. This allows Instructors to see who has not yet watched a piece of media or engaged with polling questions in their LMS course rather than displaying only those users who have.
  16. Click Add Configuration as shown in the figure above.
  17. In the form that appears, shown below, select Blackboard as the LMS Type.
  18. Enter a Name for the configuration.
  19. Enter your Blackboard Domain (base URL of your Blackboard instance).
    EchoVideo LMS API tab with the API integration form open and completed with fields and values as described
  20. Click Save.
  21. In the API tab that appears with your new configuration, click Authorize as shown in the below figure.
    LMS API page in Echo360 with new API configuration showing including Authorize button for steps as described
  22. If you receive a popup window requesting it, log into Blackboard as a system administrator. It does NOT have to be the same admin user configured for the Rest API Integration.
    If you are already logged into Blackboard as an administrator, you may see a brief popup while Blackboard confirms your login.
    After authorization, the popup closes and the API tab appears again.
  23. Click Test to ensure the configuration and communication works properly.
    Echo360 LMS API tab with configuration completed and Test button identified for steps as described
  24. In the popup that appears, enter an email address for a Blackboard instructor known to be enrolled in Blackboard courses, then click Search. See also the technical detail note at the bottom of this page.

If the configuration is successful, the bottom section of the test modal is populated with a list of that instructor's Blackboard courses, as shown in the below figure. You can close the dialog box using the X in the top right corner.

You are done! You can now Link your EchoVideo capture schedules to LMS courses. Your instructors will now see an Analytics tab in their main menu navigation, to access their LMS-course related media data.

Echo360 LMS API test configuration modal showing LMS instructor email entered and corresponding LMS course list shown as described

Technical Detail regarding Blackboard user email lookup: The Blackboard API does not allow for lookups via email address; the other supported LMS / VLEs do. To work with this limitation, EchoVideo takes the Email you enter for the user, cross-references it with that user email in EchoVideo, then uses the LMS user ID to obtain the list of courses from Blackboard.
Why does this matter? This means that to find a list of Blackboard courses for a user, that user MUST have entered into EchoVideo from Blackboard at least once. This provides us with the LMS user ID associated with their Email address and allows us to return their Blackboard course list.

Permissions needed for the Blackboard System Role

Our integration uses the following API calls and permissions:

GET /learn/api/public/v1/users/{userId}/courses

  • system.user.course.enrollment.VIEW system entitlement System Role Permissions:

    • Administrator Panel (Users) Users Edit View Course Enrollments

  • system.user.org.enrollment.VIEW system entitlement System Role Permissions:

    • Administrator Panel (Users) Users Edit View Organization Enrollments

GET /learn/api/public/v1/users/{userId}

  • system.user.VIEW system entitlement System Role Permissions:

    • Administrator Panel (Users) Users

GET /learn/api/public/v1/courses/$courseId/users?role=Instructor&expand=user

  • Returns a list of user memberships for the specified course or organization.

Callers not enrolled in the course must have at least one of the following entitlements:

  • For courses: 'course.user.VIEW', 'system.user.course.enrollment.VIEW', or 'system.courseuserlist.VIEW'
  • For organizations: 'course.user.VIEW', 'system.user.org.enrollment.VIEW', or 'system.orguserlist.VIEW'

    Callers enrolled in the course will only be able to see memberships that are available and that have opted to be included in the course roster.
    For callers enrolled in the course as well as those with the 'course.user.VIEW' entitlement, system fields such as externalId and dataSourceId will not be visible.

The Blackboard User that you use to authorize EchoVideo API calls into Blackboard with needs these permissions:

* 'system.user.course.enrollment.VIEW'
* 'system.user.org.enrollment.VIEW'
* 'system.user.VIEW'

These are the roles that should be selected in the Blackboard Administrator Panel System Roles Manage Privileges:
mceclip1.png

Please Note: There is no permission or privilege currently in Blackboard to allow users to see admins (even if they are Instructors). You can find more information about this behavior in the following Developer post: https://community.blackboard.com/blogs/4/980

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