Forum .LRN Q&A: Re: importing Blackboard

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3: Re: importing Blackboard (response to 1)
Posted by Michael Garrett on 11/11/03 01:23 AM
This is Michael Garrett, a colleague of Steve Kindel, who posted the original question. I manage our installation of Blackboard.

We are running Blackboard version 5.5.1, so we can export courses in the following formats:

- Blackboard 5.5 package format (IMS 1.1 compatible)
- Previous Blackboard package format (IMS 1.0 compatible)

So, it sounds like we might be able to import our courses into the OpenACS/.LRN system.

Can you provide us with more information on what kind of coding changes need to be made in order for these course packages to be imported, including a sense of how easy it might be for us to make such a modification? Also, you mentioned that these courses could be imported "without many problems" -- could you be more specific about what problems you've encountered?

Thanks,
Michael Garrett

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4: Re: importing Blackboard (response to 3)
Posted by Ernie Ghiglione on 11/11/03 02:34 AM
Hi Michael,

Well, let me tell you a bit what I have done and the reason that I've done it. For the past few months (on and off) I've been working on implementing SCORM within OpenACS. SCORM includes several standard such IMS metadata and IMS content packaging.

On IMS CP, I have managed to extract content from a SCORM course into the .LRN content repository. Now, SCORM uses IMS CP to fullfil its needs, and that means: SCORM packs content in a 'SCORM type of way'.

IMS CP basically tells you how to organize and wrap up content to exchange between different systems... but -and this is the tricky part- both systems need to know how the "packaging" has be made.

So take this example, if I'd like to export a .LRN class, I would have to export all its files in the file-storage, all their threads in its forums, news, etc. So most likely the imsmanifest.xml file (which contains the structure and organization of the course package) would look something like (note, this has not been done yet, but on top of my head, I'd do it this way):

<manifest>
<organizations>
  <organization>forums
    <item identifierref="forum_resource1">
      <title>Forum thread 1</title>
    </item>
    <item identifierref="forum_resource2">
    ....
    </item>
  </organization>
  <organization>files
    <item identifierref="file_resource1">
      <title>Syllabus</title>
    </item>
  </organization>
  <organization>news
    ...
  </organization>
</organizations>
<resources>
  <resource identifier="forum_resource1" type="webcontent" href="forum1.html">
    <file href="forum/forum1.html"/>
  </resource>
  <resource identifier="forum_resource2" type="webcontent" href="forum2.htm">
    <file href="forum/forum2.html"/>
  </resource>
  <resource identifier="file_resource1" type="webcontent" href="syllabus.html">
    <file href="files/syllabus.html"/>
  </resource>
</resources>
</manifest>

[Note: I have simplified this greatly such for the sake of an example]

So, that's the imsmanifest.xml and once I zip all the files and include in one file (including the imsmanifest.xml), voila: we have an IMS Content Packaging .LNR course.

Now, can we import this course into Blackboard?

Most likely not... since the organizations we have defined correspond to .LRN applications (forums, news, files, etc)... maybe, however, we can import those similar applications like forums, but if the other LMS doesn't have news?...

So what I was saying before is that, even if your LMS says that exports stuff as IMS CP, it doesn't mean that the transition to another LMS is easy or seamlessly. Unfortunately, you don't get to read this on the LMS marketing materials 😉

If you are willing to explore this option, I volunteer to work with you to determine how much work it would take to do a Blackboard to .LRN script. Let me know if you are interested.

Take care,

Ernie