If you have installed and configured the building block, the Echo360 Video Library option under Mashups will be visible for both Instructors and Students to embed videos from their Echo360 library into Blackboard content windows. However, Blackboard's default policy configuration strips many URLs from embeds done by students. To change this, a Blackboard Administrator must add entries for Echo360 into the default policy configuration file.
You actually have two options with respect to students embedding videos from Echo360:
- If you want Blackboard to not strip the Echo360 URL from student embeds (making the embed non-functional) you must add the Echo360 URL to the default policy XML file for iframes (also referred to as "white-listing" the Echo360 site).
- If you want student video submissions for Assignments to be locked down in Echo360 (student cannot edit or delete the video once submitted), you must also add the echo-library into the white list.
Student assignment lock-down is provided with version 1.0.8 and later of the Echo360 Building Block. See Adding an Echo360 Video Library option in Blackboard Mashups if you need to update to a newer version. If you have the current Building Block installed, the below procedure for white-listing Echo360 and the echo-library should be sufficient to allow students to embed and to lockdown assignment submissions.
REMEMBER that in order for students to embed videos, the Student Library must be enabled.
The following procedure must be performed by a Blackboard Administrator. As with all Blackboard Instructions provided in the Echo360 documentation, the procedure below is intended as a guide and may differ depending on the version you are using. If you need further assistance, please refer to the Blackboard documentation.
To add the Echo360 URL into the default policy "white list" for iframes in Blackboard
- Log into Blackboard as an administrator and open the Admin panel.
- In the Security block, select Safe HTML Filters.
- In the Safe HTML Filters page, select Safe HTML filter for Content Editor.
- Download the existing default-policy.xml shown on the page.
- Open the XML in a text editor or XML editing program.
- Search for iframe in the XML document. Find the iframe tag name validate action entry as highlighted in the below figure.
- In the TOP of the src attribute regexp list, add an entry with the following value:
THIS entry locks down videos submitted by students as a response to an assignment. SKIP THIS STEP if you do not want student assignment submissions to be locked.
- Scroll to the bottom of the list of regexp values (URLs) for iframes identified in the above figure.
- Add an entry for Echo360 as follows, replacing echo360.org with your regional URL if it differs (echo360.net.au, echo360.org.uk, echo360.ca):
- Save the edited XML file. You can retain the default name or you can give it a different name to delineate it from the original.
- Return to the Blackboard screen where the default-policy.xml file is listed, and click Upload.
- Select the edited XML file and upload it to Blackboard. The new file will not overwrite the original; if you did not rename it, you will see multiple default-policy.xml files in the list.
- SUGGESTED: Provide a description with the newly uploaded file that identifies what changed in the edited file. An example description is shown in the below figure.
- Click the menu arrow for the newly uploaded XML file and select Activate.
Once Activated, the updated XML file is the new policy applied to the content editor window and will allow students to embed videos from their Echo360 content library. REMEMBER that in order for students to embed videos, the Student Library must be enabled.