LMS: Blackboard Integration Setup – Visible Body

This article is for any academic institution using Blackboard that is interested in integrating with Visible Body Courseware. There are two integrations available:

LTI 1.3 is preferred and is covered at the beginning of this article. Use this version if you need SSO and are at an institution with a Site License.
Legacy LTI 1.1 is still supported. Schools already integrated with this version can refer to the information below to make new courses. Schools using student purchases or codes need to use this version of the integration.

Blackboard LTI 1.3 integration with Courseware is available for site license customers. If you are a customer interested in trying out this integration, first email

implementation@visiblebody.com and ask to be added to the integration list. Then, follow the steps below. These steps can be completed by anyone with administrator access to both Courseware and Blackboard.

If at any point you need assistance during this setup, contact us at support@visiblebody.com.

Administrator Setup (1.3)

Part 1: Register Visible Body LTI 1.3 as a tool in Blackboard

You will need a Visible Body Admin account to complete the steps in this section. To get a Visible Body Admin account, please email implementation@visiblebody.com.

There are two ways to register Visible Body LTI 1.3 as a tool in Blackboard.

Option 1 (Recommended): Simple integration

Register Visible Body LTI 1.3 with Blackboard.
Select Visible Body from the App Center.
On the Visible Body LTI 1.3 page, select Install LTI 1.3 App.
Continue to Administrator Part 2 below.

Option 2: Customized integration

If a custom integration is preferred, follow these steps to manually set up the integration.

Log into Blackboard and navigate to the Admin panel.
In Admin Tools, select “Integrations” and then select “LTI Tool Providers.” 3. Select “Register LTI 1.3/Advantage Tool”.
Copy the ID provided by Visible Body, paste it into “Client ID” field, and select Submit. 5. On the “Modify LTI 1.3 Tool” confirmation page, make these changes: Under “Tool Status,” select “Approved.”
- In the institution Policies section, under “User Fields to Send,” check the following items:
  - Role in Course
  - Name
  - Email Address
  - Select “Yes” for “Allow grade service access.”
  - Select “Yes” for “Allow Membership Service Access.”
Click “Submit” to complete the setup of Visible Body LTI 1.3 as an external tool provider.

Administrator Part 2: Manage Placement and Confirm Setup

You can now manage the placement of the newly added Visible Body tool. We recommend adding Visible Body LTI 1.3 Course Home directly into a course.

Blackboard Ultra Setup

Navigate to a course where you would like to add Visible Body LTI 1.3.
Click on the "Content" tab and select the option to "Add Content."
In the dropdown menu, select "Content Market."
Select the plus icon next to Visible Body LTI 1.3 Home to add to your course. (It may be called something else if you’ve added it manually.)
Place the Visible Body tool wherever you’d like in the course.
In course content, select "Visible Body LTI 1.3 Home" and make it visible to students.
Select "Visible Body LTI 1.3 Home" as an administrator and log in with a Visible Body Administrator account:
- Confirm that you have set up this integration as a site license.
- Read through the information to agree.
- Select “Connect” when done.
A notice will appear that confirms a successful integration between your institution and Visible Body.

To finish setup:

You will need to link a Courseware course to a Blackboard course to complete the integration. If you don’t have one, you can choose or create a sample course from the course linking page. Select Manage Sync Options from the Course Home, or select the settings icon within the Assignment Library to link a course. Once any course has been linked, this integration is ready to go. Note, your instructors can link their own Courseware courses to Blackboard.

Blackboard Learn Setup

Navigate to a course where you would like to add Visible Body LTI 1.3.
In the left hand navigation, select “Content.”
Under the “Build Content” dropdown, select Visible Body LTI 1.3 Home.
Name the tool “Visible Body LTI 1.3”
For the description, we recommend using: Interactive health and life science teaching made easy! Visible Body Courseware does the assignment and assessment work for you and gives students everything they need to succeed, all in one place! Pick from our huge collection of visual life science assignments and easily edit to suit your needs. Instructors can manage their Courseware assignments and students can get to the complete reference app.
Select Submit.
Select "Courseware Home" as an administrator. You will be asked to log in with a Visible Body Administrator account and:
- Confirm that you have set up this integration as a site license.
- Read through the information to agree.
- Select “Connect” when done.
A notice will appear that confirms a successful integration between your institution and Visible Body.

To finish setup:

You will need to link a course to complete the integration. If you don’t have one, you can choose or create a sample course from the course linking page. Select Manage Sync Options from the Course Home, or select the settings icon within the Assignment Library to link a course. Once a course has been linked, this integration is ready to go. Note, your instructors will link their own courses.

After you have completed this process, any Visible Body administrator or instructor will be able to use Visible Body LTI 1.3 in this course, and any administrator can add Visible Body to other courses.

Instructors with the requisite Blackboard permissions can also add Visible Body LTI 1.3 to their Blackboard courses.

Instructor Setup (1.3)

These steps assume that (1) the Administrator integration described above has been successfully completed, (2) the instructor accessing the integrations has the requisite permissions in Blackboard, and (3) has a Courseware instructor account.

When you link one or more Visible Body assignments, one column in your Blackboard gradebook will be added for each link. Scores from your students will automatically update in the gradebook as your students work on those activities. You can edit the activity points as you add the links, or you can set activities not to count toward your grades. You can edit any Visible Body scores in the Blackboard gradebook, but the results shown in Courseware will not reflect those edits until you change them there, too.

Link an Assignment and Give Your Students Access

With the tool set up in Blackboard, you can now link your Visible Body assignments directly in your Blackboard course and have scores report automatically to your gradebook. To link to assignments, follow these steps:

In Content navigate to the “+” and select Content Market
Find Visible Body’s 1.3 Assignment Library and select it. If you haven’t signed in and linked your Visible Body course yet you will now be prompted to do so.
Back in the Assignment Library, check off the assignments and activities you want to link.
Select Link Assignment and a deep link to your assignment will appear in your course! These assignments will be automatically added to your gradebook, but will need to be edited to count as a graded assignment.

Log into Courseware and Link Your Courses

Once you’ve placed Visible Body (LTI 1.3) in your course navbar or deep linked an assignment, select the Visible Body material to log into Courseware to Visible Body and complete the setup.

Once you’ve chosen Visible Body, you’ll be prompted to sign in using your Visible Body account email and password. You’ll only have to do this once in Blackboard.
Choose the Visible Body course you want to associate with your Blackboard course. If you don’t have one set up yet, you can create one.
Click Link Course. There will be a confirmation message asking if you are sure. Click OK.
Your course is now linked. From the Visible Body (LTI 1.3) homepage, by selecting Go To Courseware, this will take you and your students to the associated course in Courseware.

Add Course Home

When using the assignment library, you will be prompted to link your Courseware course. If you haven’t used the assignment library yet or are using this integration without it, you can also sign in and access Courseware through our course home. To add course home:

1. In the dropdown menu, select "Content Market."
2. Select the plus icon next to Visible Body LTI 1.3 Home to add to your course.
3. Place it wherever you like in your course.

Adding and Transferring Students

To ensure students or co-instructors can access the Visible Body materials in your course, simply have them added to your Blackboard course or section. You no longer need to use the Invite People feature in the Courseware platform to do this. Once you or your administrator adds a student to your course in Blackboard, and they can see the Visible Body (LTI 1.3) homepage, they’re ready for immediate access!

To transfer your students, make sure that you first transfer them to the correct course in Courseware and then to the corresponding course in the LMS. They will still have automatic access.

If you transfer your students in the LMS before doing so in Courseware, they will need to be dropped from the initial course in Courseware to ensure they’re only in the course you intend.

Unlink a Courseware and Blackboard Course

If you've accidentally linked the wrong Courseware course to your Blackboard course, you can follow these steps to unlink your courses:

Navigate to your Visible Body LTI 1.3 homepage and select "Manage Sync Options." Alternatively, navigate to the Visible Body (LTI 1.3) assignment library and click the settings icon.
On this subpage, find the course that is currently connected and select "Unlink Course."
There will be a confirmation message asking if you are sure. Review the course and click yes.

Repeat the Link Your Courses instructions above to link a new course. Your unlinked Courseware course can also be relinked to a different Blackboard course.

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LTI 1.1 Older Integration (admin)

This section is for administrators and instructors at school's using Visible Body's Blackboard LTI 1.1 integration who want Visible Body Courseware to appear in their Blackboard courses.

Request a secret and key

To complete institutional setup successfully, your administrator will need the secret and key supplied by Visible Body. If you don’t have a secret and key from a Visible Body representative, please request one.

Complete Administrator setup

Watch this video to begin setting up your Blackboard Courseware integration or follow the steps below.

Administrator Step 1: Register Courseware as an LTI tool

Log in to your Blackboard admin account and navigate to the “System Admin” page and then the “Administrator Panel” page.
To add Courseware as a tool, navigate to “LTI Tool Providers” under the “Integrations” heading and select the “LTI Tool Providers” link.
On the “LTI Tool Providers” page, select “Register LTI 1.1 Provider” under the “LTI Tool Providers” heading text.
From the “Register Provider Domain” page, follow these steps:
- Under “Provider Domain Status”, navigate to the “Provider Domain” text field and enter: courseware.visiblebody.com
- Next, make sure “Provider Domain Status” is set to the “Approved” option.
- In the “Secondary Hostnames” text field, enter courseware.visiblebody on one line, then select enter to begin a new line and enter visiblebody.com on the second line. Note: These entries must be on separate lines.
- Navigate to the fields under the “Default Configuration” section. Set the “Default Configuration” option to Set Globally.
- In the “Tool Provider Key” field, enter your institution's key that was given to you by Visible Body.
- In the “Tool Provider Secret” field, enter your institution's secret that was given to you by Visible Body.
- In the “Tool Provider Custom Parameters” text field, enter: blackboard_course_id=@X@course.pk_string@X@
  This custom parameter is used by Courseware to give a unique identifier to Blackboard courses for use in our system so that we can properly link a Blackboard course to a Courseware course.
- Next, move on to the fields under the “Institution Policies” section. Set the “Send User Data” option to Send user data over any connection or Send user data only over SSL, depending on your preference.
- Check off all boxes for the “User Fields to Send” option. These include “Role in Course”, “Name”, and “Email Address”. This allows us to bring over student information when they create their Courseware accounts.
- Next, set the Allow Membership Service Access option to “Yes” if that is your preference.
- Finally, at the bottom right corner of the web page, scroll all the way down and select the “Submit” button to register Courseware as an LTI Tool Provider. After submitting, you will be sent back to the LTI Tool Providers page.

Administrator Step 2: Manage Placements

To manage the placement of the Courseware LTI Tool, select the dropdown arrow next to the “courseware.visiblebody.com” tool. Select the dropdown arrow, and then select the “Manage Placements” button in the dropdown menu.

You are now on the Manage Placements page for the “Courseware” tool. To create a new placement for our tool, select Create Placement under the Manage Placements: courseware.visiblebody.com heading.
Under the Placement Information heading, enter a title in the Label text field to give a name for Courseware in the Content section of the course. (We suggest using “Visible Body Courseware”. The name used in the label field is what students will see when they access Courseware from the Blackboard course.)
In the "Handle" text field, enter CW.
Set the Availability option to Yes.
Set the Type option to Course content tool only. Note: Do not select "Deep Linking content tool", "Course tool" or any other radio buttons in the Type options area.
You can decide if you’d like Courseware to launch in a new window or stay within Blackboard. If you would prefer it to launch from within Blackboard, be sure “Launch in New Window” is not checked off.
Next, go to the fields under the “Tool Provider Information” section. For the “Tool Provider URL” text field, enter:
https://courseware.visiblebody.com/blackboard
“Tool Provider Key” and “Tool Provider Secret” should already be filled out with the key and secret you entered during the registration process.
Finally, at the bottom right corner of the web page, scroll all the way down and select the “Submit” button.

Courseware is now accessible in the institution's Blackboard instance and is ready to be added to instructors’ courses.

LTI 1.1 Older Integration (instructor)

Instructor Step 1: Add Courseware to the Blackboard course

Once you are logged into your Blackboard instructor account, navigate to the Blackboard Course you would like to link to Courseware.

Inside your Blackboard course, select “Content” from the left navigation menu.
- If you don’t find Visible Body Courseware listed in the “Content” box, contact your institution’s IT administrator. Visible Body Courseware could also be built in another area on this left navigation menu, such as "Information".
On the Course Content page, select "Build Content" > “Courseware”, then enter “Visible Body Courseware” in the name field. “Permit Users to View this Content” should be checked. Then select “Submit” to add Visible Body Courseware to your course.

Instructor Step 2: Log in to Courseware and link your courses.

In your Blackboard course, select “Courseware” from the Content area on the left.

Sign in to link your Blackboard and Courseware accounts, or sign in with Google by entering your Google account information. You won't be asked to log into Courseware again when accessing it through Blackboard.
Next, you'll be prompted in your Courseware account to link a course from Courseware with your Blackboard course. Just select your course from the dropdown, or if you want to create a new course, select "Create One" below.
Look for the green confirmation message at the top of the screen to make sure your course has been linked successfully.
Each time you visit Courseware through Blackboard, it will bring you right to your course.

Some items to note:

Import Courseware grades into Blackboard more effectively with the CSV export function in the Gradebook. Now you can use the populated "Username" column to match up students before you import the grades.
Blackboard Courseware integration is available for schools that have a group license and for courses in which students purchase their own subscription.
You only need one secret and key for each instance of Blackboard. Most instructors at one campus can use the same secret and key to set up their courses. If your school has multiple campuses using different instances of Blackboard, you will need a secret and key for each.
If you make a master Blackboard course and make copies for other semesters or other instructors, you need to link to a unique Courseware course. The course syncing is 1:1.

Unlink your Courseware and Blackboard courses

If you've accidentally linked the wrong Courseware course to your Blackboard course or vice versa, you can follow these steps to unlink your courses.

On the LMS Integration page, navigate to the Blackboard subsection. You will see the listing of courses that are linked.
Check off the radio button next to the pairing you want to unlink.
Select the “Unlink Course” button, and confirm you want to unlink these courses by selecting “OK” in the pop-up. You will see a green confirmation message at the top of the screen that these two courses are now unlinked. Note: you can only unlink one set of courses at a time.

Now that your courses are unlinked, you may link a new Courseware course to your Blackboard course

Instructor Step 3: Invite your students

Now that your Blackboard and Courseware courses are linked, your students are ready to get signed into Courseware through Blackboard. See this article for more explicit steps you can share with students!

Simply prompt your students to log into their Blackboard course and select “Content” in the left-hand navigation bar.
They will then launch Courseware from the Content page.
Next, they’ll be prompted to create a new Courseware account or log in to their existing account.
They will be brought right to the Courseware course you linked.

NOTE: DO NOT use the "Invite People" link in your Courseware course to invite students to your course. This feature does not work with the Blackboard-Courseware integration.

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