Forum .LRN Q&A: Blackboard building blocks

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1: Blackboard building blocks
Posted by Nima Mazloumi on 10/04/05 09:53 AM
Hey all,
I think you all know the building blocks initiative of blackboard.

For me there are some lessons to learn here:

- it is a great marketing idea
- it tells me which direction customers want blackboard to go
- what features blackboard was lacking of

The list of extensions are a useful pool for those of us interested in extending .LRN.

Also I wonder if we cannot provide something similar to "building blocks" that allows users to extend the toolkit more easily. Any idea?

Besides not even moodle has something similar. But they have at least a roadmap for those interested to participate. Stuff like i18n, templates, new authentication methods, new DB schemas, learning activities, new communication methods (like chat)...

Greetings,
Nima

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2: Re: Blackboard building blocks (response to 1)
Posted by Dave Bauer on 10/04/05 04:23 PM
Nima,

I am aware there is something called building blocks for Blackboard, but not what the signifigance is. What are they and how can a user create one to extend the toolkit?

Obviously OpenACS/.LRN is an extendable toolkit so what is better or different about Blackboard's approach?

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3: Re: Re: Blackboard building blocks (response to 2)
Posted by Ernie Ghiglione on 10/04/05 11:42 PM

Hi Nima, Dave,

About three months ago we started working on an integration with Blackboard using their building blocks. First it took quite a while to get around the limitations of Bbs API. Then we discovered that in different platforms (Windows, Solaris, etc) the API behaved a bit differently, which added quite a bit of pain to the process.

Additionally, if you require a simple data table to store whatever variables you need, guess what?, you can't use the same datamodel as Bb! So you have to resource to quite a few shortcuts and workarounds.

Comparing between Bbs building blocks and .LRN, I would prefer .LRN's /api-doc any day as it wins hands down.

.LRN is simple, robust, scalable and very extendable. Where as Bbs, well...

Ernie