Blackbeard

How to make your Blackboard talk like a pirate

Damian SweeneySenior Learning and Teaching Consultant

University of MelbourneBlackboard Learning and Teaching Conference 2014

The view from the crow’s nest

• Themes, brands and palettes• Language packs• JS hacks• Their use at UniMelb• Demonstration (this is where I walk the plank)• #piratepuns• #pirateselfie

Gettin’ our bearin’s

• Blackboard since 2005• Subject presence is mandated• I work in academic support• But with a technical background

Themes and palettes

• Used for institutional branding• More complicated since course themes• Other uses are available

Themes @ UniMelb

Themes @ UniMelb

Themes @ UniMelb

Themes @ UniMelb

Themes @ UniMelb

Themes @ UniMelb

Themes @ UniMelb

Language packs

• We prefer Australian spelling• Use local terms (Subject not Course,

Community not Organization) • Implement policy

Language packs @ UniMelb

Language packs @ UniMelb

Language packs @ UniMelb

Language packs @ UniMelb

Language packs @ UniMelb

Language packs @ UniMelb

Language packs

• Creating our own language pack is a manual, time-consuming and error-prone task (either offline or through the GUI)

• We have to do it a lot more now that building blocks have their own language variables

Language packs @ UniMelb

Language packs @ UniMelb

• We wrote a tool in Python to make us a language pack

• Reduced time to generate language pack files to less than 10 minutes

• Allows better tracking of changes and devolved editing and creation

• Allows us to be frivolous

Language packs @ UniMelb

Language packs@ UniMelb

JS Hacks

• Written by All the Ducks (Shane Argo and Wiley Fuller)

• Allows injection of code in different places in Blackboard based on a series of rules

• Can change the interface to make settings more obvious

JS Hacks @ UniMelb

• Change defaults you can't set through the GUI• Fix bugs before Blackboard does• Fix building blocks that won’t be updated

JS Hacks @ UniMelb

JS Hacks @ UniMelb

JS Hacks @ UniMelb

JS Hacks @ UniMelb

JS Hacks @ UniMelb

JS Hacks @ UniMelb

Blackboard to Blackbeard

• Get the palette right first• Ensure your defaults for the brand are part of

the theme and palette properties• Create a new theme each time so you can roll

back if necessary• Avoid editing brands to fix colours (watch out

for brand.css)

Palette

Palette

theme.css

Language pack creation

• Install and configure all your B2s• Download the en_US language pack• Edit the text files• Run the script• Check for new/changed fields• Modify the text files• Rinse and repeat

Text files with changes

Blackboard to Blackbeard

Blackboard to Blackbeard

Demo time

Acknowledgements

• Capt’n Travis Cox – who used to do this by hand

• First mate David Edquist – original author of the language pack script

• The rest of the swarthy crew at UniMelb• All o’ the Ducks (JS Hack B2):

http://www.alltheducks.com/

Questions

• dsweeney@unimelb.edu.au• Language pack script available upon request