What is Blackboard?
Blackboard Learn is a customizable web-based virtual learning environment and learning management system (LMS). It features course management, open architecture, and scalable design that allows for integration with student information systems and authentication protocols. Educators using Blackboard benefit from the ability to:
- Deliver content to students from a central location
- Easily and quickly communicate with students
- Build a community around knowledge sharing
- Develop tests and quizzes, and deliver grades electronically
What is Blackboard Integration?
Blackboard integration through Accredible allows issuers to deliver digital certificates and digital badges to their students directly from Blackboard. Using the Blackboard integration, issuers can:
The benefits of using Blackboard Integration
Blackboard offers issuers the ability to create ‘achievements’ to send to students. These are badge and certificate images chosen from the Blackboard library that are generated based on the issuer set course criteria. There are a number of restrictions with Blackboard achievements:
- Certificates are difficult to verify
- Certificates don’t support offline or hard-copy verification
- Designs are limited to available templates
- Achievements don’t offer built-in sharing
- No dedicated credential webpage restricts level of detail
Digital credentials issued using Accredible’s Blackboard LMS integration benefit from:
- One-click verification of authenticity
- Retained control for issuers over the validity, design, and details
- QR-codes to support offline/hard-copy verification
- Dedicated webpage to provide comprehensive program details
- Built-in sharing to over 20 social media platforms
- Bank-level, enterprise ready platform encryption
- Optional blockchain protection for additional security
Feature-rich digital credentials provide more control for issuers and the ability to create fully-branded certificates and badges that stand-out against their competitors. They deliver an enhanced recipient experience for students, with ease of sharing and embedding, and provide a clearer picture around their competencies.
Issuer Control
Digital credentials issued through Accredible exist in real-time. In comparison, issuers lose control over traditional, physical certificates and PDFs once they have been issued. Using digital credentials, issuers retain control over the validity and appearance and can expire, revoke, or update credentials at any time, even once they have been delivered to recipients.
Recipient Experience
For Blackboard students, digital credentials can be shared in one-click to their preferred social media platforms, or embedded into email signatures and on webpages. This helps students to showcase their skills, knowledge, and abilities with easy to verify credentials while increasing online visibility for the issuing brand. Students have no need to create an account to view or verify their credentials, and can upload their awards to smartphone digital wallet cards for use on-the-go. Issuers can add a QR-code to their certificate designs to allow their recipients to print a hard-copy for their portfolio which once scanned, leads to the online hosted credential for ease of verification.
How to set-up Blackboard integration
Comprehensive instructions for setting up the Blackboard integration are available in the Accredible knowledge base:
How to use the Blackboard integration
After successfully setting up the Blackboard integration, issuers first need to set-up their digital credential via the ACMS (Accredible Credential Management System). Then in Blackboard, issuers choose the grade column from their gradebook, select which students will receive digital credentials, and choose the digital credential they should receive.
Creating a Digital Badge or Certificate
Designs for digital certificates and digital badges are created, managed, and updated from the Accredible platform (ACMS).
Detailed guidance for how to create digital credentials can be found in our knowledgebase. Follow the links to our help articles below:
Issuing Digital Credentials from Blackboard
To issue digital credentials to Blackboard students, issuers need to set-up a digital credential group from the Accredible platform. Learn how to do this in our knowledge base article below:
After the group has been created, issuers navigate back to the Blackboard gradebook to select the column that they want to use their credentials.
Then click ‘View Students List’ and select the students to issue the credential to.
Once the students have been selected, click ‘Issue’ and then confirm by clicking ‘Issue Credential’.
Finally, select the credential group from the drop-down that will be issued to and click ‘Save’.
In Summary
Accredible’s Blackboard integration enables organizations to deliver feature-rich digital credentials to their students with ease. Integrate Accredible into your Blackboard LMS today and start delivering secure, portable, and shareable digital credentials to your learners, that will enable them to present a verifiable portfolio of their certifications, knowledge, and skills on-the-go.
For more information about Accredible, digital credentials, or integrating with Blackboard, book a platform demo or contact the sales team.
