After creating the LTI Provider tool, you must create a link that points to the Echo360 LTI Provider tool. In Blackboard this is referred to as Create Placement or Manage Placement. This "places" a link to the Echo360 External Tool into the Content menu for course content.
The two most important aspects of this creation are naming the link (so it's recognizable as the link to Echo360) and configuring the Placement to allow grading for the Content tool type.
TIP: If you are still viewing the LTI Providers list from when you created the tool, you can skip to step 4 below.
To create the Echo360 LTI tool link (placement)
- While logged in as a system administrator, open the Administrator Panel. This is done either from the top menu or the side menu, depending on the version of Blackboard you are working with.
- Select LTI Tool Providers from the Integrations section of the admin panel.
- Find the Echo360 LTI tool you created, and hover over it to expose the menu arrow (also called a "chevron").
- From the menu select Manage Placements.
- Click Create Placement, located at the top of the Placements list.
- In the Placement form that appears, enter a Label that identifies this as a link to Echo360. This is the text that appears in the Build Content menu for a Course. This is required.
- Enter a Description that defines the purpose of this placement for this tool. It is optional.
- Enter a Handle or text that uniquely identifies this tool placement. This is required.
- Scroll down to the middle portion of the Placement form and ensure Availability is set to Yes. This is the default.
- Select Course content tool as the tool Type and enable the Allows grading checkbox.
These two selections are required for Blackboard to receive exported Gradebook analytics from Echo360 and write them to the Grade center for a course.
- Enable the Launch in New Window checkbox. This allows Echo to open in a new tab and eliminates issues related to viewing Echo360 content within a browser frame.
If you do NOT enable this checkbox, you should point users to the browser configuration articles located in the General Requirements topic group of this online help.
-
OPTIONALLY: Use the following URL to obtain an Echo360 icon to use for this tool. Right-click the image to save it locally, then upload it to the Icon entry in the form.
You can substitute the base URL with your regional URL.
https://echo360.org/assets/images/echo360_play_icon.png -
Scroll down to the Tool Provider Information section of the form.
- In the Tool Provider URL field, enter the Host URL from the Blackboard LMS settings in Echo360. Alternately, the Host URL is also visible on the LTI Provider Tools list in Blackboard, and can be copied from there for pasting into the Tool Provider URL field. See also the best practice note below.
- When finished, click Submit.
The Echo360 LTI tool link is now available under the Build Content menu within a Course. The tool can be added to courses by administrators or by instructors, whichever is appropriate to your institution.
BEST PRACTICE: Selecting and copying the values between Echo360 and the LMS can be difficult, and can be prone to not selecting the full value. To select the full value of an LMS field, do the following:
- Use your mouse to select a portion of the field values.
- Press Ctrl+A / Command+A to "select all" of the field.
- Press Ctrl+C / Command + C to copy the selected value.
- In the LMS/VLE, place your cursor into the corresponding (empty) field of the External Tool configuration.
- Press Ctrl+V/Command+V to paste the copied value into the field.