Openness webinar and Developer Day
George Kroner
If any of you work at schools who use Blackboard, I hope you've seen
great improvements in terms of your ability to integrate, extend and
customise your VLE over the past 18-24 months. I wanted to make
everyone aware of a few events to learn more about what openness means
in relation to Blackboard and how to get started with development on
Blackboard using open standards and APIs.
Thank you,
-George
Webinar: What Openness Means
Wednesday, 11 April, 2012 4:00 pm GDT
http://bit.ly/xNjtFg
Blackboard is committed to providing an open, extensible VLE that
allows clients the flexibility to customise in order to fit the needs
of their institution. Our open approach extends to the way we work
with our clients to build our technology.
Join David Ashman, Principal Architect for Blackboard Learn, to learn
more about the Blackboard approach to openness, including:
- Open API, for third party developers to extend the Learn platform
through the Building Blocks program (Building Blocks are what
Blackboard calls plugins)
- Open standards that define non-proprietary solutions for common
problems and provide end users a broader choice through multiple
vendors
- Open database to enable client access to and understanding of the
data and structures in your installation
- Open community to share roadmap information and empower users to
shape ongoing product development
- Open education initiatives to support clients to share and license
course resources
Event: Blackboard Developers Day
Monday, 23 April, 2012 (all day in Antwerp, Belgium, just prior to the
Blackboard Teaching and Learning Conference)
http://bit.ly/yaz0hV
Each Developers Day hosts sessions covering many topics relevant to
Blackboard developers, system administrators, and other technical
individuals. Learn firsthand how to enhance your Blackboard virtual
learning environment and make your life easier by using plugins, APIs,
web services, open standards, and other product capabilities to
integrate with other campus systems, extend new functionality to
students and instructors, and meet your institution's specific
customisation and administration requirements.
Sessions will accommodate the specific interests of the audience based
on a survey to be administered closer to the event and may include:
- Building Blocks development made easy with the Blackboard Eclipse
plugin and automated development tools (hands-on session)
- New features and enhancements for developers and system
administrators in Blackboard Learn 9.1 SP8 [including Learning Tool
(BLTI) placements, Apache 2 support, installer, and task management
improvements]
- Using the Student Information System integration framework (hands-on session)
- Developing reports using BIRT to examine system usage (hands-on session)
- Using the Authentication Framework to support Shibboleth and CAS
authentication
- Security and Building Blocks best practices and development techniques
- Learn application server security enhancements, configuration, and
best practices