LTI tool - Blackboard Learn how-to - Sphere Engine documentation

Integrate Sphere Engine Problems LTI tool with Blackboard Learn (Original and Ultra) by following this short tutorial.

Integration with the system

Log in to your Blackboard system as an Administrator (you need these credentials to be able to implement Sphere Engine so that an Instructor would be able to use it in courses).

Go to the Admin section.

Inside the Admin panel find the Integrations section and click on the LTI Tool Providers link.

Fig. 2. Blackboard admin panel - Integrations section

In the LTI Tool Providers section click on Register Provider Domain.

Blackboard admin panel - Integrations - Register Provider Domain — Fig. 3. Blackboard admin panel - Integrations section

Scroll down to the Default Configuration section and tick the Set globally option.

Fig. 4. Blackboard admin panel - Default Configuration - Set globally

Now you need to obtain the specific Sphere Engine configuration data necessary to integrate it with Blackboard Learn LMS.

Important: For full access to Sphere Engine APIs and configuration options please register for a Sphere Engine account by filling in the sign-up form. After completing the registration form, please activate your account using the link sent to your email.

Once you complete the registration process and sign in to the Sphere Engine client panel, please click on the Education tab on the left-hand side menu and follow the steps in the LMS Integration article.

After doing so, please go back to your Blackboard panel and LTI Tool Providers > Edit Provider section and enter sphere-engine.com in the Provider Domain field.

Blackboard - LTI Tool Providers - Edit Provider — Fig. 5. Blackboard admin panel - LTI Tools Providers - Edit Provider section

From your newly created LMS configuration inside the Sphere Engine panel copy the Tool URL value without the https:// part and paste it as the Secondary Hostnames value inside Blackboard's LTI Tool Providers > Edit Provider section.

Fig. 6. Sphere Engine - LMS Configuration - Tool URL

Fig. 7. Blackboard - LTI Tool Providers - Edit Provider - Secondary Hostnames

Copy the Consumer Key and Shared Secret values from the newly created configuration inside Sphere Engine panel and paste them inside the relevant fields in Blackboard as follows:

Sphere Engine Consumer Key - Blackboard Tool Provider Key
Sphere Engine Shared Secret - Blackboard Tool Provider Secret

Sphere Engine - LMS Configuration - Keys/Secrets — Fig. 8. Sphere Engine - LMS Configuration - Consumer Key / Shared Secret

Fig. 9. Blackboard - LTI Tool Providers - Edit Provider - Keys and Secrets

Leave the Role in Course field checked. However, it is up to you if you want to additionally send student names or email addresses. After deciding which data you will be passing to Sphere Engine, you can finally hit the Submit button.

Fig. 10. Blackboard - LTI Tool Providers - Edit Provider - Institution Policies

Adding a programming problem to the course

Once you have configured the Sphere Engine Problems LTI tool inside Blackboard Learn, it is time to add your first programming problem to the course.

Go to the Integrations > LTI Tool providers section of the Blackboard admin panel and find your newly added Sphere Engine LTI tool. Hover over it and click on the drop-down grey arrow that showed up next to the tool's name. Click on the Manage Placements element of the list that you can find in the context menu.

Fig. 11. Blackboard - LTI Tool Providers - Manage Placements

On the Manage Placements screen click on the Create Placement button.

Fig. 12. Blackboard - LTI Tool Providers - Manage Placements - Create Placement

This takes you to a new section and a form which you have to fill with the following data:

Label: Sphere Engine
Handle: sphere-engine
Course content tool: Allows grading checked
Tool Provider URL: sphere-engine.com

Note: Leave the Tool Provider section as it is. It will load data automatically.

Once you have entered the above data click the Submit button.

Fig. 13. Blackboard - LTI Tool Providers - Manage Placements - Create Placement - Placement form

Now you can go back to the Courses section to create an assignment with the use of the tool that you have just configured.

Note: In order to follow the next steps you need to have the Instructor credentials. You can specify user roles inside the course by going to Users and Groups > Users section.

Enter the course in which you want to display your programming challenge and click the Content section.

Click on the Build Content button and choose Sphere Engine (the name of the provider's tool).

Fig. 16. Blackboard - Courses - Content - Build Content

You enter another form. Here you have to specify the name of the information (ie. Coding Assignment).

Fig. 17. Blackboard - Courses - Content - Build Content - Name

Scroll down and make sure that you enable grading evaluation. It is up to you what would be the scale that you will use to grade your students (here 100 serves only as an example). You can also specify all the available options according to your needs.

Once you have configured this section properly, click the Submit button.

Fig. 18. Blackboard - Courses - Content - Build Content - Grading Evaluation

This will take you back to the content elements list. Click on the one that you have just built.

Fig. 19. Blackboard - Courses - Content - Elements

If you have completed all the steps properly, you should be able to see the list of the programming problems located in the Sphere Engine editor library. You create, manage, import, and export all the programming challenges inside the Sphere Engine Problems Editor. Choose one of the available problems or the one that you have previously created and click the Next Step button.

Fig. 20. Blackboard - Courses - Content - Sphere Engine - Choose problem

Finally, you can configure your assignment and publish it so that your students can start solving it. Remember that you need to specify your default programming language first (it does not mean that you can only use one - choose any number of languages from 80+ available).

Fig. 21. Blackboard - Courses - Content - Sphere Engine - Choose language

You can now go to the problem, preview it and make the final adjustments. Remember - all the tabs that have the Padlock icon are invisible to the student unless we specify otherwise in the settings tab.

Fig. 22. Blackboard - Courses - Content - Sphere Engine - Final view