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The web link for this guide is below. As we update this guide,
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the URL will remain thesame.
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For your instructors, you may want to post the URLs for our guides (see below). As we update the guides, the URLs will remain the same.
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Description and URL
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Search our FAQs
https://softchalk.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/SKB/pages/196182576/SoftChalk+FAQs
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Blackboard and SoftChalk Cloud Integration Guide
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(You may want to bookmark this guide link in your web browser.)
https://softchalk.atlassian.net/wiki/download/attachments/121929729/lms_blackboardcloud
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This Student Guide includes a Troubleshooting section.
https://softchalk.atlassian.net/wiki/download/attachments/200114368/studentguide.pdf?api=v2
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SofChalk Create is SoftChalk's content authoring program. It is available in both a web launch version (as part of a SoftChalk Cloud Account - see the section SoftChalk Cloud) and in a desktop version.
https://softchalk.atlassian.net/wiki/download/attachments/129532299/createguide.pdf?api=v2
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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 above below) and fill out the information.
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- Scored lessons, see the section Scored Lessons. (While your preferred method would probably be to collect student scores in the Blackboard gradebook, you can also collect emails from students and have students print certificates. See the section Print or Email Scores.)
- If you plan to copy a course with LTI links, see the section In Blackboard: LTI Links and Course Copy.
- Non scored lessons, see the section Non Scored Lessons.
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When you view your SoftChalk lesson scores within the Blackboard gradebook, you are using a SoftChalk feature called the ScoreCenter. In other words, you click on the name for your lesson in the assignments area of Blackboard and you see the SoftChalk ScoreCenter interface but all the scores are also "plugged into" the Blackboard gradebook. (In Blackboard, students will also see their grades from SoftChalk lessons as well.)
IMPORTANT: To use the ScoreCenter feature, your Blackboard administrator needs to configure your system to use this feature. See the section Blackboard Administrator.
With the ScoreCenter feature, you can:
- Determine which score is the grade for the student (i.e. first, highest, most recent or average score). (Attempts for all scores are viewable.)
- Determine how many times a student can go into a lesson (unlimited times or a specific number of times).
- Get detailed scoring information for individual students (i.e. what a student did on an activity and or quiz items).
- Change scores.
- Update your lesson in one place (SoftChalk Cloud) and link to it in multiple sections or courses.
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IMPORTANT: Within your lesson in SoftChalk Create, be sure to assign points to each QuizPopper and Activity. (In the main editing window of your SoftChalk lesson, right-click on the QuizPopper or Activity and choose Modify QuizPopper or Modify Activity to assign points.)
To have your student scores appear within the Blackboard gradebook area (i.e. ScoreCenter interface), you need to:
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See the section Copy the LTI Link for Your Lesson in the SoftChalk Cloud Guide. IMPORTANT: As mentioned previously, be sure to copy the LTI Link and NOT the Hyperlink for the lesson.
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- After copying the LTI Link for your lesson (see the section Copy the LTI Link for Your Lesson in the SoftChalk Cloud Guide.), log into your Blackboard account. At the top of your screen, click the Courses tab.
- Within the Course List, click on your course to select it.
- At the top left, select Content (see below). In case you don't see the left panel below, click the expand arrow
or 
at the left of the screen to see the panel.
- Under the Build Content menu, select Web Link (see below). (If you don't see the menu below, be sure to turn on your Edit Mode in the upper right hand corner of your screen.)
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IMPORTANT: Be sure to select This link is to a Tool Provider. Leave the Tool Provider XML field blank.
- For Enable Evaluation, select Yes. Enter the points possible for your SoftChalk lesson. (The value does not have to be 100, but it should match the number of points for your lesson.) For Visible to Students, select Yes (see below).
- 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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- Under Standard Options, for Permit Users to View this Content, leave Yes selected.
- Scroll to the bottom and click Submit (see below).
IMPORTANT: Be sure to see the next section Set the Scoring Method and Maximum Attempts.
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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 (see below).
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- Select the number of maximum attempts from the drop-down menu and be sure to click Save changes (see below).
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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 (see below).
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- Click on an attempt (see below).
- Notice you can view detailed information about this attempt at the bottom.
- If you need to change the score for an attempt, use the Actions menu to select Change Score from the dropdown.
- Enter a new score and click Change Score (see below). IMPORTANT: An attempt has to be complete before you can change the score.
- Notice that you also have the option to Clear an attempt (see below). If you clear an attempt, it will not count as part of the grade calculation. If needed, you can also Restore the attempt.
- Notice that you also have the option to Complete an attempt (see below). If a student starts a lesson but neglects to click the Finish button at the end of the lesson, then that attempt is incomplete. An incomplete attempt does not count as part of the grade calculation. You can cause the attempt to be completed so that the score for the attempt is part of the grade calculation.
Be sure to click Complete Attempt.
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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.)
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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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You can modify the score for the lesson based on the points you decide to give to 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 can go into the gradebook (i.e. ScoreCenter) and evaluate the essay and modify the score. You may want to provide feedback to the student on the essay by clicking the Feedback button within the attempt.
(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.)
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We recommend the use of the ScoreCenter feature mentioned previously (see the section ScoreCenter Overview) to collect scores but if you want to have students print certificates or email you their scores, please see the basic steps below:
- Create scored quiz questions and/or activities within your SoftChalk lesson and assign points or each quiz question or activity.
- Add the email feature within your SoftChalk lesson. For SoftChalk Create, choose Properties/Lesson Certificates.
- Make the appropriate selections under Properties/Lesson Certificates.
- On the last page of your lesson within the web browser (e.g. Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari), is an area for students to type their name or identifier and then click Email Score, Print Certificate and/or Print Score Summary. (You can preview your lesson on your local computer to see how this works.)
- For more details, please search on Options for Tracking Scores within the SoftChalk Create Guide.
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This section explains how to have your students access "practice" SoftChalk lessons. In other words, you don't plan to collect student scores from these lessons. [You can have items that have points assigned to them within your lesson, but if you want to collect the scores, see the section Scored Lessons (Cloud Users).]
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- Under the Build Content menu, select Web Link or URL (older service packs) (see below). (If you don't see the menu below, be sure to turn on your Edit Mode in the upper right hand corner of your screen.)
- Type a name for your Lesson. Paste the hyperlink you copied from your lesson in SoftChalk Cloud into the URL area. Leave the checkbox de-selected. (see below). (Again, be sure to copy and paste the hyperlink and NOT the LTI hyperlink.) (see below).
- Scroll to the bottom and click Submit (see below).
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- If you are not already there, go into a course and select the Content area where you put your hyperlink to your SoftChalk lesson (see below).
- If necessary, turn editing off by clicking on the Edit Mode button in the upper right corner of your screen Then click on the link for your lesson (see above).
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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 edit a lesson that has scored items and you have pasted an LTI Link for this lesson into Blackboard, we recommend the scoring for your lesson remain the same if students have 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.
- 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).
- 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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When copying a course that has LTI links in Blackboard, be sure to select the Results Center Columns and Settings option (see below). (To copy a course in Blackboard, log into Blackboard and select the course you want to copy. At the left, choose Packages and Utilities/Course Copy.)
(Otherwise, there are no Blackboard gradebook columns for the LTI links. Scores from LTI lessons would not pass to the Blackboard gradebook unless the Results Center Columns and Settings option is selected before the course copy.)
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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).
(If you already have a SoftChalk Publish with ScoreCenter building block installed in your Blackboard server, you can still configure your system to use the LTI feature as well. You may have some instructors who use the File/Save to LMS (or File/Publish Lesson to Blackboard) feature within SoftChalk while other instructors update their content once in SoftChalk Cloud and link to it in many places. The latter instructors may want to use the LTI feature for grading.)
As a Blackboard administrator to use the ScoreCenter feature, you need to register with SoftChalk and configure the ScoreCenter for your system.
If you have a test server that is a different physical server from your production server, you'll need to register each server separately.
- If you have already registered with SoftChalk for a consumer key and secret for your SoftChalk Publish with ScoreCenter building block, you may use the same key and secret for your LTI configuration and skip step 2 below.
- 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).
- For the Provider Domain, enter www.softchalkcloud.com (see below).
- For the Default Configuration, select Set globally (otherwise instructors would have to enter the key and secret information). Paste in the Key and Secret information that you received in an email when you registered with SoftChalk (see below).
(The instructions continue on the next page.)
- Click Submit (see below).
- Select Manage Global Properties (see below).
- 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.
- Click the Administrator Panel link at the top left of your screen (see below).
- Under Tools and Utilities, select Tools (see below).
- Scroll down to LTI and select Always on for every item (see below).
- Later service packs may have an On/Off feature. Be sure On is selected under Availability for each item (see below). (You want On to be set for new and existing classes, courses and organizations.)
- Scroll to the top or bottom of your page and click Submit (see below).
- Check that the LTI tool is available in all courses. Click your System Admin tab if it is not already selected. From the Administrator Panel, under Courses select Course Settings (see below).
- Click Course Tools (see below).
- Scroll down to view the LTI tool and make sure it is turned on and the lock appears as closed (see below).
- Scroll to the top or bottom of your page and click Submit (see below).
- 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.
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