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Blackboard and SoftChalk™ Cloud Integration Guide Updated February 15, 2022
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Introduction
Links to SoftChalk FAQs, System Specs and Guides
SoftChalk Cloud
Volume Purchase or Purchase Order
Enterprise SoftChalk Cloud
Individual Purchase on the SoftChalk Cloud Website
Trial SoftChalk Cloud Account
SoftChalk Lessons in Blackboard
Blackboard and SoftChalk Cloud Integration Guide Web Link
SoftChalk Cloud Users
Overview: How SoftChalk Cloud Content Works with Blackboard
Adding Scored Lessons using Link Selector
Adding Scored Lessons using Copy and Paste
Adding Scored Lessons in Blackboard Ultra
SoftChalk ScoreCenter in Blackboard
Overview
Accessing SoftChalk ScoreCenter in Blackboard
Class Average
Set the Scoring Method and Maximum Attempts
Preview the Lesson
View or Change Scores
Complete All Attempts for All Students for a Lesson
Essays
View Grades from SoftChalk Lessons in the Blackboard Gradebook
Print or Email Scores
Adding Non-Scored Lessons Using Link Selector
Adding a Non-Scored Lesson using the Blackboard Rich Text Editor
Adding Non-Scored Lessons in Blackboard Ultra
Managing your SoftChalk Lessons with Blackboard
Edit a SoftChalk Cloud Lesson
Link to a Discussion Forum within a Lesson
In Blackboard: LTI Links and Course Copy
Blackboard Administrator
LTI 1.3 Tool Provider setup
Add a new LTI 1.3 tool provider
Manage placements
LTI 1.0/1.1 Tool Provider Setup
Troubleshooting
Help
Copyright Information
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A SoftChalk Cloud account is available as a yearly subscription. You can purchase a SoftChalk Cloud account on our Buy Now page. Fill out the information and submit your credit card information.
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Try out a SoftChalk Cloud account for 30 days. Click the Free Trial button (see below) and fill out the information.
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- Create Content: you will use a SoftChalk Cloud account to create and save your lesson in the Cloud (see the SoftChalk Cloud User Guide for additional information about this). After creating and saving a lesson in SoftChalk Cloud, your lesson will be assigned a unique hyperlink that you can use to share your lesson with your students in Blackboard.
- Link Your Lesson: you will use the SoftChalk Link Selector app to link your lessons into your Blackboard course(s). Additional step-by-step instructions for the SoftChalk Link Selector are provided below. A single SoftChalk lesson can be linked into as many Blackboard courses as you wish. If you wish to collect scores in your Blackboard gradebook, student scores for your lesson will pass into each individual course gradebook.
- Update Content: if you should need to update your lesson, you will login to SoftChalk Cloud, edit your lesson, and save it. Immediately and simultaneously, all courses in Blackboard that are using that lesson will be automatically updated.
- Student Access: your students do not need to have accounts on SoftChalk Cloud to use your SoftChalk content in Blackboard. Students will login to your Blackboard course and click on your SoftChalk lesson links to view your content. To the student, the content is seamless with Blackboard and appears to be native Blackboard content. If you are tracking student scores, the SoftChalk lesson scores will pass directly into the Blackboard gradebook for students to view the same way they view native Blackboard gradebook information.
- Collect Scores: Before linking your SoftChalk lessons into your Blackboard course, you will decide if you want to collect scores from your students or if you want your lessons to be "practice" lessons and you don't need to collect scores. Each time you link a lesson into Blackboard, you can decide whether or not to collect scores. Many instructors use both "scored" and "practice" lessons within a course. NOTE: a single SoftChalk lesson can be linked into multiple Blackboard courses simultaneously and can be set to report scores in some courses and set to not report courses in other courses. In other words, the same lesson can be used simultaneously in different ways in different courses.
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- Enter a name for your lesson and for the URL paste the LTI hyperlink (see below). (Notice that lti is included in the path that you pasted.)
IMPORTANT: Be sure to select This link is to a Tool Provider. Leave the Tool Provider XML field blank.
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- Under Description, you can enter a description if you like.
IMPORTANT: We have identified a few Blackboard errors that occur with certain formatting in the description area. Please click on a link below to see the FAQ explaining the error:
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- Use the drop-down menu to make the lesson Visible to students.
- For Configuration URL, paste the LTI hyperlink (see below). (Notice that scorecenter/lti is included in the path that you pasted.)
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- Select Create gradebook entry for this item.
IMPORTANT: A 24-hour default Due date will automatically appear. You can remove or edit the default date/time.
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- Under Description, you can enter a description if you like.
IMPORTANT: We have identified a few Blackboard errors that occur with certain formatting in the description area. Please click on a link below to see the FAQ explaining the error:
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- Scroll to the bottom and click Save (see below).
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When a SoftChalk Cloud lesson is linked into a Blackboard course as a scored lesson, the instructor can use SoftChalk ScoreCenter to view detailed student score results, as well as configure various scoring options for the lesson. Instructors access the SoftChalk ScoreCenter directly in Blackboard.
Note that although you can view student scores via the SoftChalk ScoreCenter, the student's grades are also passed directly into the Blackboard course gradebook, where the instructor also has access to view and edit individual student grades.
The SoftChalk ScoreCenter serves a variety of functions that allow the instructor to:
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| The Learner made the correct answer choice and obtained full credit for the Activity, Quiz Popper, or Quiz Group. |
| The Learner made the incorrect answer choice and did not obtain any score for the Activity, Quiz Popper, or Quiz Group. |
| The Learner obtained a partial score for the Activity, Quiz Popper, or Quiz Group by making correct and incorrect answer selections. |
| The Learner did not make or 'Complete' an attempt on the Activity, Quiz Popper, or Quiz Group. |
IMPORTANT: Be sure to see the next section Set the Scoring Method and Maximum Attempts
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You will need to set
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All the student attempts will be collected, and you can view all the attempts for each student for each lesson. You can change
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- Log into your Blackboard account and choose your course from the Courses dropdown menu at the top. At the top left, select Content.
- Click on name of your lesson.
Anchor _Hlk29460367Hlk26875290 _Hlk29460367Hlk26875290 Anchor _Hlk26875290Hlk29445216 _Hlk26875290Hlk29445216
The SoftChalk ScoreCenter screen appears. Use the Actions drop-down menu to select Change Scoring Method.Anchor _Hlk29445216Hlk29460367 _Hlk29445216Hlk29460367
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To test the lesson, you need to be logged into your course as an enrolled student or impersonate an enrolled student in the course.
IMPORTANT: Be sure to LOG OUT of your SoftChalk Cloud account when you are taking your lesson as a student to test the ScoreCenter feature. If you are logged into your SoftChalk Cloud account while logged into Blackboard and taking a lesson, then the scores won't be recorded.
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| Completed Attempt |
| Incomplete Attempt |
| Changed Score |
| Cleared Attempt |
- IMPORTANT: Instructors can manually 'Complete' individual and/or all incomplete attempts using the Actions menu. See the section Complete All Attempts for All Students for a Lesson below.
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- Enter a new score and click Change Score (see below). IMPORTANT: An attempt has to be complete before you can change the score.
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You have the option to complete all attempts for all students for a lesson. You may find that your students have neglected to complete their attempts (i.e. they have neglected to click Finish on the last page of the lesson – clicking Finish sends a completion status to the gradebook).
IMPORTANT: You may want to do this procedure after the availability of your lesson has expired.
IMPORTANT: This procedure cannot be undone. (You can change individual scores or re-open individual attempts if you need to.)
- Log into your Blackboard account and choose your course.
- Go to the area where you have your content or assignments.
- Click on the name of your lesson.
Use the Actions drop-down menu to select Complete All Attempts.Anchor _Hlk27462492 _Hlk27462492
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If you use essays in your lesson, you can view the essays within the ScoreCenter area (see the previous section View or Change Scores). Please note the following important information.
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Essays that you have assigned points to must be manually scored for each student's attempt.
Please read the important information below:
You will go into the gradebook (i.e. ScoreCenter) and evaluate and score the essay. You can also provide feedback to the student on the essay.
For example, you may have a lesson worth 100 points including one essay worth 10 points. (You assigned the points for the essay and other items.) Let's say a student completes everything correctly, completes the essay, clicks the Finish button for the essay and then clicks the Finish button on the last page of the lesson to submit his or her score. At this stage, the student has a score of 90 out of 100 because you will need to evaluate the essay and assign points.
(You may want to explain the above process to your students; as mentioned, you also have the option to assign 0 points to an essay if you like.)
In ScoreCenter, click on a student's name to view a list of attempts they've made on the lesson link. Select one of the attempts to view the Learner Details page. (See the View or Change Scores section above.)
Scroll down and click on an Essay QuizPopper and choose to Grade Essay. Here you can evaluate and score the essay. You can also add feedback for that Essay question here.
When you launch ScoreCenter, a scored Essay will appear with a yellow 'partial credit' icon until graded. A non-scored Essay will immediately appear with the green 'check mark' icon.
Students can launch the lesson link and click on the Feedback and previous revisionPrevious Attempts link available in the initial popup to view the score and any feedback received for each Essay question from their previous attempt.
Here students can view the Feedback from instructors of their overall lesson feedback (from the Actions menu Give Feedback option) or the individual Essay feedback.
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If you go to the Gradebook area in Blackboard, you can see that the scores from your lessons appear in your Blackboard Gradebook. (If you want to view or change scores for individual student attempts, see the section View or Change Scores.)
IMPORTANT: As previously mentioned, be sure to LOG OUT of your SoftChalk Cloud account when you are taking your lesson as a student to test the ScoreCenter feature. (If you are logged into your SoftChalk Cloud account while logged into Blackboard and taking a lesson, then the scores won't be recorded.)
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The Link Selector application dialog will display. NOTE: If this is the first time you are accessing the SoftChalk Link Selector from Blackboard, you will be prompted to enter your SoftChalk Cloud username and password. After successfully entering this information, a secure connection is established between your Blackboard account and your SoftChalk Cloud account.
Thereafter, when you use the SoftChalk Link Selector tool in Blackboard, you will be automatically logged into your SoftChalk account and will not be prompted for this information again.
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- Use the drop-down menu to make the lesson Visible to students.
- For Link URL, paste the hyperlink (see below).
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- Under Description, you can enter a description if you like.
- Scroll to the bottom and click Save (see below).
IMPORTANT: Be sure to see the next section Set the Scoring Method and Maximum Attempts
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If you used the LTI Link or Hyperlink to your SoftChalk Cloud lesson, then you can easily edit your lesson within your SoftChalk Cloud account. (You don't have to paste in a new LTI Link or Hyperlink; simply edit your current lesson in SoftChalk Cloud and the LTI Link or Hyperlink for this lesson will still work.)
IMPORTANT: If you wish to edit a lesson for which you are tracking scores within Blackboard. we recommend that you do not make scoring changes to the lesson if students have already started taking this lesson.
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(The following instructions assume you already have a forum set up under the Discussion Board.)
- IMPORTANT: Log into your Blackboard account as a student (rather than as the instructor).
- At the top of your screen, click the Courses tab.
- Within the Course List, click on your course to select it.
- On the left sidebar, select Tools.
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- Within the Tools area, select Discussion Board (see below).
- Right-click on the name of your forum and choose Copy Link Location (Firefox) or Copy shortcut (Internet Explorer) (see below).
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- Start SoftChalk and open your lesson.
- Select some text in your lesson.
- Choose Insert/Hyperlink.
- In the URL or Selected file area, use Ctrl+V to paste the link (or right-click and choose Paste.)
- Click OK.
- Save your lesson.
IMPORTANT: The link will only work when you're in Blackboard (not if you preview your lesson on your local computer). If you get an Access Denied Error, then you may have neglected to log in as a student. See step #1 above.
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The steps below are for your Blackboard administrator to enable the LTI/ScoreCenter feature for your Blackboard server. For details on the LTI/ScoreCenter feature, see the section Scored Lessons (Cloud Users).
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- Finally, send an email to help@softchalk.com with the subject line Blackboard LTI 1.3 Registration and provide the Blackboard system URL and the 'Deployment ID'; we will perform the final registration to enable the Tool Provider's connection with SoftChalk ScoreCenter.
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- Leave the option to Launch in New Window deselected.
- Fill in the Target Link URI with: https://www.softchalkcloud.com/lti/content
- Select Submit.
IMPORTANT: Once you have created the LTI 1.3 SoftChalk Tool Provider, you do not want to delete the tool provider.
If the LTI 1.3 Tool Provider is deleted and re-created in the LMS, a new key/secret is generated. Since the key/secret is different, all content published using the prior key/secret will break. Faculty will need to re-create the assignments.
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- To register with SoftChalk for a consumer key and secret, if you have not registered with SoftChalk for a consumer key and secret (or you cannot find your previous key and secret), please contact help@softchalk.com and provide the following information to register with SoftChalk and receive authentication credentials (i.e. an OAuth Consumer Key and an OAuth Consumer Secret). If you have a test server and a production server, you may send us two LMS URLs and we will register both of them. (You will receive a separate email with a unique key and secret for each registered URL.)
- Your institution name
- LMS URL
- First Name (optional) of the person registering with us
- Last Name (optional) of the person registering with us
- Email for this registration (the email can be a specific person's email or a generic email such as lmsadmin@myinstitution.edu)
- It is okay to use a different key and secret for your LTI configuration from your SoftChalk Publish with ScoreCenter building block. IMPORTANT: Please keep the SAME key and secret once you have started collecting scores for your LTI configuration or SoftChalk Publish with ScoreCenter building block.
- After registering, you will receive an email from SoftChalk with information to enter into your Blackboard system (see the steps below).
- Log into Blackboard. Click System Admin tab. Under the Building Blocks area, click Building Blocks.
- Click LTI Tool Providers.
- Click Register Provider Domain (see below).
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- For Feature Availability, make the following selections including Allow configured tool providers to post grade (see below).
- Click Submit (see below). IMPORTANT: Be sure to see the next steps on setting the LTI tool to Always On.
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- Test the LTI integration by uploading a lesson and taking it as a student. See the section Scored Lessons.
IMPORTANT: If you get the error message Error Submitting to ScoreCenter and your test server is NOT available to the public, then you probably have a firewall issue. Please see our FAQ I think my institution has a firewall that is preventing me from saving content to SoftChalk Cloud. What should I do?
IMPORTANT: If multiple students will be using the same computer, please ask students to close their browser before logging into Blackboard. Otherwise, a score may be recorded to the wrong student.
- If individual students report that they do not see the Finish button at the end of their lesson or the Finish button is disabled, see the Troubleshooting section of the Student Guide to SoftChalk Lessons. Test an LTI Link to see that grades go into the Blackboard gradebook by following the steps in the section Scored Lessons (Cloud Users). IMPORTANT: As previously mentioned, be sure to LOG OUT of your SoftChalk Cloud account when you are taking your lesson as a student to test the ScoreCenter feature. (If you are logged into your SoftChalk Cloud account while logged into Blackboard and taking a lesson, then the scores won't be recorded.)
- If you plan to copy courses that have LTI links, be sure to see the section In Blackboard: LTI Links and Course Copy.
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Issue | Description/Resolution |
I am the Blackboard administrator. The SoftChalk Link Selector does NOT appear under the 'Build Content' menu. How can I enable the SoftChalk Link Selector? | Please see the LTI 1.3 Tool Provider setup section of the Blackboard and SoftChalk Cloud Integration Guide and send the 'Deployment ID' and your LMS URL to help@softchalk.com. |
I am the Blackboard administrator. The SoftChalk Link Selector appears under the 'Build Content' menu. Once the SoftChalk Link Selector is clicked, I receive a 404 error. What could be wrong? | SoftChalk may need to finalize the LTI 1.3 integration. Please send SoftChalk support the 'Deployment ID' and your LMS URL at help@softchalk.com. |
I am the Blackboard administrator. The SoftChalk Link Selector is not available in all courses. How do I enable the SoftChalk Link Selector for all courses? | Confirm LTI settings apply to 'existing and new' courses. (System Admin>Tools>LTI)
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I am the instructor. I used the SoftChalk Link Selector to add my lesson, but scores are not collected in ScoreCenter or Blackboard gradebook. What could be wrong? | When using the SoftChalk Link Selector Submission Type, be sure to select LTI to add your SoftChalk lesson. Selecting the Hyperlink will not capture scores in ScoreCenter or the Blackboard gradebook. |
I am the instructor. I don't see a 'Finish' button on the last page. What should I do? | When testing scored LTI linked lessons in an LMS to confirm the gradebook connectivity, there are a couple of things to be aware of as the Cloud account owner/course instructor:
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Some students report they do not see a 'Finish' button on the last page. What can I do? | If there is a record for a student's attempt in ScoreCenter, the course instructor can 'Complete' a student's attempt and push the score to the grade book. |
Students report they receive a spinning icon when clicking on the 'Finish' button on the last page. What could cause this? | If your Blackboard administrator has updated to LTI 1.3, then faculty may receive the spinning icon if there are no points associated with the lesson.
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A student's name is not listed in ScoreCenter. What should I do? | If a student is not showing in the ScoreCenter gradebook, their submissions to ScoreCenter did not come across and SoftChalk does not have a record of their work. |
Some students receive an Empty Attempt ID error when accessing the lesson. What should I do? | This error is intended to display when there is an issue detected during the LTI launch, a missing Attempt ID value, which would prevent the student from successfully completing the ScoreCenter attempt and posting a score to the LMS gradebook.
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I am an instructor. I receive an error message when accessing my SoftChalk assignment in Blackboard. What could be wrong? | We have identified a few Blackboard errors that occur with certain formatting in the description area. Please click on a link below to see the FAQ explaining the error: |
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