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- Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
Blackboard Learn is web application software that allows users around the world to participate in training and educational opportunities. This software is utilized in high schools, college campuses, corporations, and government entities."Blackboard Learn Administration" navigates both novice and experienced administrators through the simple and complex parts of the E-Learning portal.Readers go step-by-step with the author from planning and installing a Blackboard Learn instance to supporting and administrating a system with courses and users.The book starts with how to plan, install, and brand a Blackboard Learn instance. Readers then learn about the creation and management of courses and users. You then learn about the tools and controls that administrator's possess within Blackboard Learn. Readers also review how to improve security and performance within their system. You then dip into complex topics such as integrating Blackboard Learn with other information systems and publisher websites.Administrating Blackboard Learn educates the reader on the fundamental tools and tasks for basic administration, while explaining complex options that expert administrators want to tackle.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013
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Table of Contents
Blackboard Learn Administration
Blackboard Learn Administration
Copyright © 2013 Packt Publishing
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First published: May 2013
Production Reference: 1170513
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
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ISBN 978-1-84969-306-6
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Cover Image by Neha Rajappan (<[email protected]>)
Credits
Author
Terry Patterson
Reviewers
David Hopkins
Dr Malcolm Murray
Simon Roberts
Wayne Twitchell
Mike Zimmerman
Acquisition Editor
Joanne Fitzpatrick
Lead Technical Editor
Sweny M. Sukumaran
Technical Editors
Prasad Dalvi
Pushpak Poddar
Project Coordinator
Shiksha Chaturvedi
Proofreaders
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Amy Guest
Indexer
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Graphics
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Production Coordinator
Conidon Miranda
Cover Work
Conidon Miranda
About the Author
Terry Patterson has over ten years of experience administrating Blackboard LMS environments at various institutions. During that time, he has held numerous leadership roles in Blackboard feedback panels and customer-led user groups. In 2009, he received a Blackboard Catalyst Award for his work in the Blackboard Community. He has given presentations at state, national, and international conferences about emerging and advanced integrations with the Blackboard application. He holds certifications as a Blackboard Trainer and a Blackboard Server Administrator. When not busy in his position as LMS Application Administrator at the University of Missouri, he works to help answer questions from other system administrators and posts the issues he faces on his Blackboard Guru blog at http://www.blackboardguru.com/.
I would like to thank my friends and family who have been positive and encouraging throughout this process. Thanks to my colleagues at the University of Missouri, including Tanys, Guy, Michael, Ethan, and countless others who have offered their expertise and support.
I also want to thank the many Blackboard employees who always welcomed my questions no matter how long winded they were. Thanks to the Packt Publishing team for their help, as I have learned the book-writing process. Finally, thanks to you, the Blackboard administrators reading this book I hope you find this book to be a helpful resource in your duties.
About the Reviewers
David Hopkins is a respected and experienced Learning Technologist at the University of Leicester, U.K. Working closely with administrators, managers, and academic teams, David investigates and advises on the appropriate use of technology for both classroom and distance-learning students.
David writes on aspects of learning technology and the pedagogic use of technology in (and out of) the classroom on the Technology Enhanced Learning blog at www.dontwasteyourtime.co.uk, and has a growing professional network centered around his blog and Twitter handle, @hopkinsdavid.
Dr Malcolm Murray has used Blackboard since Version 5.5. He has over a decade's experience in using Blackboard Learn as a system administrator, as a developer, and also to support his teaching. Currently based at Durham University in the U.K., he leads the University's Learning Technologies Team and is an Honorary Fellow of the School of Education. He holds a Ph.D. in Geography and a Postgraduate Certificate in Learning, Teaching, and Research in Higher Education. He is a member of the U.K. Heads of e-Learning Forum, a fellow of the (UK) Higher Education Academy, a certified member of the Association for Learning Technology, and the Director of OSCELOT (the Open Source Community for Educational Learning Objects and Tools). He regularly attends Blackboard conferences in the U.S. and Europe, participates in Blackboard's BugSquad and Beta initiatives, and is a past winner of the Blackboard Greenhouse Award (2005), Blackboard Innovators Award (2008), and Blackboard Catalyst Award (2010).
Simon Roberts has 30 years of experience in the IT industry, as a programmer and instructor. He teaches a variety of topics, including programming and system administration for various platforms. He enjoys the travel opportunities that come his way thanks to his work, and also acts as an FAA-certified flight instructor in his spare time. Simon lives in the Denver metro area in Colorado.
Wayne Twitchell is a leader in online teaching-and-learning for over 15 years, despite being denied admission to the prestigious Mensa club. As Blackboard administrator at Grinnell College and in his current position at the University of Northern Iowa, he has managed and supported a range of Blackboard products including Learning Management, Community, and Content management in a vertically-integrated way while integrating individual products (such as Learn) into an existing campus infrastructure. Dr. Twitchell's approach engages the visionary potential of technology both in and out of the classroom without forgetting the nuts and bolts of teaching. He currently lives in Cedar Falls Iowa with his partner (who was admitted to Mensa) and their amazing bearded dragon, Gogo, as well as their puppet sheepdog, Winston.
Mike Zimmerman has been a Blackboard system administrator at the University of Nebraska in Omaha since 2001. He is an active contributor in the Blackboard user community and ListServ, and has been a part of the Blackboard Dr. C user support forums since 2006.
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Preface
Welcome to Blackboard Learn Administration. In this book, we will review the basic and advanced topics that make up Blackboard Learn administration. By the end of this book, we will have a better understanding of Blackboard Learn, and hopefully, have some tips and tricks to add to our "administrator's toolbox". So let's get ready to challenge ourselves as we learn more about Blackboard Learn.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Planning a Blackboard Learn Instance, reviews the information, issues, and concerns that administrators should address before installing Blackboard Learn.
Chapter 2, Installing Blackboard Learn, will show you how to prepare, install, upgrade, and maintain a Blackboard Learn environment.
Chapter 3, Setting Up and Customizing Blackboard Learn, reviews the customization options available within Blackboard Learn.
Chapter 4, Creating Courses in Blackboard Learn, will teach you how to prepare and create Blackboard Learn courses.
Chapter 5, Administrating Courses in Blackboard Learn, will show you the options to maintain, support, back up, and remove Blackboard Learn courses.
Chapter 6, Creating Users in Blackboard Learn, reviews how to create users within a Blackboard Learn environment.
Chapter 7, Managing Roles and Users in Blackboard Learn, will help you discover how to maintain, control, and remove roles and users within Blackboard Learn.
Chapter 8, Using Tools and Utilities in Blackboard Learn, will show you how to use administrator tools within Blackboard Learn.
Chapter 9, Security, Reporting, and Configuration in Blackboard Learn, reviews how to improve security, how to create reports, and performance tuning options within Blackboard Learn environments.
Chapter 10, Authentication and Data Integration in Blackboard Learn, will teach you how to connect a Blackboard Learn environment to external authentication providers and student information systems.
Chapter 11, Implementing Building Blocks in Blackboard Learn, will show you how to add building blocks and other third-party tools to a Blackboard Learn instance.
Chapter 12, Logs, Troubleshooting, and Disaster Recovery in Blackboard Learn, reviews what logs can help troubleshoot issues within a Blackboard Learn environment, and how to develop a disaster-recovery plan.
Appendix shows the default actions for eight major system roles.
What you need for this book
Access to a Blackboard Learn environment is essential to gaining experience and following along as we discuss the different parts of the application. This environment is preferably a test or development instance. If you plan to use this book to build that environment, then that will work as well. We will also need a text editor, an XML editor, and an optional HTML editor.
Who this book is for
Most novice and advanced Blackboard Learn administrators will find this book helpful. It covers many of the basic skills that will be used on a regular basis, along with advanced topics such as performance tuning, external authentication, and data integration.
Conventions
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: "Once completed, check that the DB_BLOCK_SIZE value is set to 8192."
A block of code is set as follows:
Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "We click on the Downloads link that is found under the Self Service heading on the Behind the Blackboard website."
Note
Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.
Tip
Tips and tricks appear like this.
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Chapter 1. Planning a Blackboard Learn Instance
Blackboard can be an overwhelming environment for any user when they first login, and it can be the same for administrators. Many administrators find the Blackboard environment assigned to us with little training and lots of documents to read. When family and friends ask me what Blackboard is, I normally compare the software to a virtual community. We as administrators play dog catcher, city plumber, master planner, police officer, garbage collector, fire fighter, and even the mayor. With all these different hats that we wear, it's time that we spend time learning more about how we can improve the ways in which we serve our virtual community.
In this chapter we will work to become familiar and comfortable with what Blackboard is and how we are going to set up our new Blackboard Learn instance.
What is Blackboard Learn?
Blackboard Learn is an enterprise-level learning management system similar to other products such as Desire2Learn, Canvas, Moodle, and Sakai. The software uses web tools to create content-based web pages that allow for a secure online environment for users to complete training or courses via the internet. Many organizations use Blackboard Learn for government entities, private companies, along with K12 and higher educational institutions.
Over the past few years, Blackboard has acquired many competitors including WebCT and Angel Learning. While both these product lines may be used within some organizations, Blackboard plans to end these product lines. We will spend this book concentrating on the product line entitled Blackboard Learn which combines Blackboard's WebCT line and the Blackboard Academic Suite line.
How does Blackboard Learn work?
The heart of Blackboard Learn is made up of multiple components. When installed on the Windows operating system, Blackboard uses the IIS web server. While on Linux and Solaris, Blackboard uses the Apache web server. Apart from the web servers, Blackboard Learn runs its own version of Tomcat, a web container that uses Blackboard's servlets to dynamically create web pages (called JavaServer Pages or .JSP files) to deliver course content and complete tasks. Tomcat creates these pages by accessing information stored within a database.
Blackboard also includes a collaboration server. This server creates a text-based environment which allows interaction between users in a basic form. Most administrators will initially have the collaboration server run beside Tomcat, however it can be installed to run on a separate server.
Blackboard Learn's databases run within Microsoft SQL or Oracle depending on some internal factors, such as if our organization contains a majority of Windows, Linux, or Solaris servers, database administrator experience, or application cost and support. The specific versions required by our Blackboard instance can be found in the release notes that accompany the Blackboard Learn installer. Each Blackboard Learn version may change what operating system and database application it supports.
The following diagram suggests the structure of a Blackboard Learn instance:
Blackboard Learn architecture
Most Blackboard administrators would agree that they strive to develop and maintain a stable Blackboard Learn environment. One of the most important factors to achieve that goal is a good foundation.
Earlier we used the example of a community, having good streets along with enough power and water will allow a community to support many residents. In this case, we need to examine the hardware and software requirements along with the different architecture options for our Blackboard Learn instance or virtual community. After we review our options, we can create a decision diagram that can help us decide what architecture options are right for our plans.
One server / Two server architecture
A one server architecture is the simplest installation of Blackboard Learn for an organization. A one server instance means that your database, application, and collaboration servers all reside on the same server.
The following diagram shows the structure of a one server architecture:
This can be a great option if we only have a few classes and a limited number of users. It's also ideal if you don't expect increased class or user growth in the near future. Many small organizations or developers use a one server architecture.
The drawback of a one server instance is the one point of failure. If any hardware or software issues occur, the Blackboard Learn environment is down for users. This environment also creates issues when your organization needs to expand their environment for growing users and course offerings. If the instance grows too big for the hardware and software it operates on, then it will require a move that will bring more server downtime. More downtime means users' work and course development is delayed.
A two server architecture is very similar to a one server, however the database has moved to a new server. This allows our server to use more processor time on Tomcat and our IIS or Apache server. The issues we brought up earlier in a one server architecture still remain the same.
The following diagram shows the structure of a two server architecture:
Multiple server architecture
A multiple server instance offers the best starting point for any organization. Multiple servers split Blackboard services into a server for our database, multiple servers host our Tomcat and IIS or Apache servers, and even a server that hosts our collaboration server. This architecture requires additional hardware. All the servers will need to put course and user files in one central location for every server to have access. We can accomplish this with the use of a network storage device or SAN.
This design also requires a load balancer to be added as well. It creates a single point of access, so when our user types http://blackboard.myorganization.com into their browser, the load balancer will direct the response to one of our application servers, bbapp1, bbapp2, or bbapp3.
Most Blackboard administrators would recommend an organization with plans to expand users and course offerings to implement this type of instance. When the organization grows, additional application servers can be added to meet increased load with little effect on the experience of our users. The diagram below offers us a view of how a two server instance can grow into a much larger instance:
While the multiple server structure does allow the easy expansion of Blackboard Learn, it doesn't completely address issues with a single point of failure. If the database server or storage device fails, the system will be down. Some organizations may turn to adding another database server or additional backup storage devices. We will address planning for a disaster and disaster recovery in Chapter 12, Logs, Troubleshooting, and Disaster Recovery in Blackboard Learn.
Blackboard instance environments
While Blackboard Learn instances can be created using different types of configurations, the one thing we should also examine would be where those configurations thrive. When we think of any web service, we think of servers in a rack that do one or two different things. However, with the increase in hardware loads and costs, many organizations are looking to use the latest technology options to meet their needs and stretch their budgets.
The first option that many organizations use would be virtual servers. These software created servers reside on a hardware server; however, multiple virtual servers can be on one hardware server. This option allows for the maximum use of purchased hardware to meet the needs of the organization. Blackboard Inc. does support the installation of its product on virtual server software. The two main manufacturers are VMWare and Microsoft's Hyper V.
While most of the organizations I have worked with have used some type of virtualization, we may need to convince administration to use virtual servers. One of the biggest reasons I have shared with administrators is the ease of duplicating the server and the ability to bring the system back up. When built correctly, you can bring a virtual server back up in another location within minutes instead of hours. While we won't cover the installation and setup of virtual servers in our discussions, it is important that we understand that it is an option when planning our Blackboard Learn architecture.
Blackboard does offer managed hosting for clients. This service has Blackboard's engineering teams to take care of your instance. However, according to some clients, the service does limit the amount of control administrators have to the backend.
How do I decide what architecture to build?
Now that we reviewed the types of instances and options for our Blackboard Learn instance, let's discuss what instance we should build. If we currently are looking to have a small user pilot to test our Blackboard Learn, we can start with a single server instance that can make it easy for us to collect helpful data on how instructors and students will use Blackboard Learn. If we are migrating from another LMS product, we can use course and user storage amounts, user activity, or any other data to provide additional insight.
Tip
In Chapter 9, Security, Reporting, and Configuration in Blackboard Learn we discuss the collection of different types of data to improve the performance of our Blackboard Learn environment and the use of the BbStats tool that can greatly help collect data from within a Blackboard Learn pilot. When collecting our data we should work to find the averages based on multiple weeks when our environment has peak usage.
We also need to review some major questions that will help us plan what installation we will implement. First we should review how much growth our instance will see in the coming years:
Now we should look at course growth:
Then we look at what requirements come from your IT department:
Now that we have covered all these questions and hopefully collected some data from our previous LMS or pilot project, let's look at some tables to help us analyze our information:
This table will help us review the current data sets that we have. Based on that information we can understand what type of instance we currently need. The first row, Current Active Users, compares the number of users who have logged into our system or we expect to login to our system over a 90 day period. The second row looks at the combined file storage for course and user files. These files are normally associated with courses and student submitted content within them. Our third row discusses the growth or adoption rate over the next five years of the Blackboard Learn environment.
The next two rows review the number of courses created and kept on the system for an instructional term and how long these courses are kept within our environment. Some courses may never go away or some institutions create new ones each term. Our course retention normally follows a set institutional policy. The next row asks about the use of Blackboard Learn's assessment tool with face-to-face or on campus courses. The assessment tool is the heaviest process on our Blackboard Learn environment. If the tool is used to give an assessment to over 50 students at once in a lab setting, our architecture may create an unacceptable experience for users. Now let's review the broader questions we mentioned earlier by using this table:
While our first table reviewed the current data we have, our discussion here is about the expected use and growth. Select answers to the questions in our form. If most of them are classified in the Small and Stable or Large and Stable columns, our environment will probably not see any growth so planning for expanding the Blackboard Learn instance is not a high priority. Our organization might look at a one or two server instance due to this fact. If most of our selections are within the Small and Growing or Large and Growing columns we will want to plan for some expansion and may want initially implement a multiple server architecture that will allow for the addition of application servers when needed.
While deciding the architecture of the Blackboard Learn environment for our organization we have many variables like server types, processors, memory, and organizational budgets. Even with these variables, this discussion should offer some clarity. In Chapter 9, Security, Reporting, and Configuration in Blackboard Learn we will learn how to improve the current architecture by tuning the Blackboard Learn, Apache or IIS, and Tomcat settings to get the most out of our architecture.
Summary
In this chapter, our initial discussion introduced us to Blackboard Learn and gave us a broad overview of its components. We also discussed planning the architecture of a Blackboard Learn instance. We can build our instance on one, two, or multiple server architectures. These servers can be hardware based, virtual, or even in the cloud. When we plan to create a Blackboard Learn instance, we must look at multiple factors around our organization including its use, the number of users, and how it may grow in the future. Once we create a plan on what type of instance we need to build, the creation of our Blackboard Learn instance can begin.
Our next chapter takes the planning we have done for our virtual community and puts it into motion. We will learn how to install Blackboard Learn and how to prepare our server or servers for it. Our discussions will also address how to upgrade and patch our instance to fix problems or security issues. Our construction team has been given the green light. Let's get to it!
Chapter 2. Installing Blackboard Learn
Our earlier chapter took us through the process of planning and reviewing what type of Blackboard Learn instance we need to create for our users and what hardware components we need to meet their expectations. The chapter laid out the blueprints required for our virtual community. In this chapter we strap on our hard hats, grab our shovels, charge up our power tools, and maybe even drive a bulldozer to start building on our blueprints. In this chapter we will discuss:
So grab your coffee-filled travel mug; it's time to start constructing!
Operating systems
As mentioned earlier, Blackboard Learn runs on three different operating systems: Microsoft Windows, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Solaris. The operating system used will often decide what other software items you will require during the installation process. We will have two examples in this chapter; one will be for those users who plan to use Microsoft Windows, and the other covers Red Hat and Solaris. Why would we put Red Hat and Solaris together? Well, both are different flavors of the Linux operating system, but the installation of Blackboard Learn requires the same steps.
The first thing we must do is familiarize ourselves with the resources available to Blackboard Learn system administrators. We can find many of these resources within Blackboard Inc.'s support website, called Behind the Blackboard (http://behind.blackboard.com). This website contains documentation, support bulletins, Knowledge Base Articles (KBAs), information about known issues, and a location from where we can download Blackboard Learn Installer. It is also the site where we can create support tickets for our environment. However, we must have login credentials from Blackboard Inc. to access these materials. For now, we need to go to the website, Behind the Blackboard, and download the release notes for the version of Blackboard Learn we will install. The release notes will be found in the same location as the installer. We click on the Downloads link that is found under the Self Service tab on the Behind the Blackboard website, as shown in the following screenshot:
Then select the Blackboard version we want to install, such as Blackboard Learn 9.1. Our next page tells us about this version of Blackboard Learn and at the bottom of the page we find the links to the various Service Packs. At the bottom of this page we find the Download Files and Release Notes links. When we click on the Download Files link, a page loads that displays the links to download our installer file and also all the documentation that relates to this version of Blackboard Learn. We can click on the link to download the release notes which are normally in the PDF format. The following screenshot illustrates this process:
These release notes give us information about what hardware and software this version of Blackboard Learn supports. These also list the possible steps to fix issues. We will want to take a print of these notes, so we can refer back to them during our installation process.
Based on the information contained within the release notes, we know the architectures and the operating systems that will work with our selected Blackboard Learn version. We should also make sure that our server or servers use 64-bit environments. The latest versions of Blackboard Learn only support installations in these environments. Once we have checked that, we need to make sure our server or servers are up-to-date. Do this by starting your update managers (either Windows Update or the yum utility) to ensure the operating system is updated. If your organization has specific rules about updates, make sure to discuss which items should be allowed in the update.
Space requirements
We also need to discuss the file structure and storage of our Blackboard Learn files. Our discussions in Chapter 1, Planning a Blackboard Learn Instance, briefly mentioned the file-structure needs and that our Blackboard Learn environment needs large storage areas for files from the course, the users, and the system itself. Most Blackboard administrators will put the Blackboard folder on a different drive than the server's operating system, either by creating a new drive in the Windows server, such as F:/Blackboard for application files, or G:/Bb-Content/ for content files. In Linux or Solaris, we add an additional hard drive mounted to the /usr/local/blackboard/ and /usr/local/blackboard/content/ subdirectories. We will also want to make sure that we understand the sizing issues of the application and log files. In the following table, we see the average folder sizes for a medium Blackboard Learn instance. This information, along with our discussion in Chapter 1, Planning a Blackboard Learn Instance, helps us plan our storage expectations.
Installing JDK
In Chapter 1, Planning a Blackboard Learn Instance, we discussed that Blackboard Learn runs on Tomcat, which uses Java to create the pages that users will see on their browser. Many times we hear the term Java being used in a variety of different places; in a discussion about desktops and laptops, servers, or even some electronic devices. So let's take a moment to understand what type of Java affects us and our Blackboard Learn environment. Java Runtime Environment (JRE) will normally be found installed on your desktop or laptop. It allows Java applets to run within a browser or a Java application on your device. JDK helps to create and compile Java applets.
Blackboard Learn can be very specific about which version of Java it uses, and most operating systems don't include the correct version of Java during the operating-system installation. Because of this, we will install JDK, which allows Blackboard Learn to create the pages and files we need.
First we must download the JDK software package for our operating system. Our release notes should tell us which version we need to install. You should find the JDK package by going to the Java SE Downloads website at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html. In this case, we are downloading the latest version of Java SE7, which is Java SE 7u17 (Update 17), as shown in the following screenshot.
Now we click on the JDK download image. On the JDK download page, we will need to accept the licensing agreement and download the JDK package appropriate to our operating system.
Once we have
