Blackboard Sync

General Information

Blackboard Sync will be available August 15, 2008

Blackboard Sync provides the Facebook user with the following information about each of their Blackboard courses:

• Announcements posted in the last 7 days
• Notifications about new content items
• Notifications about new Forum posts
• Notifications about new Grades
• The Course Roster
• The Course Map

Except for Announcements, none of the actual course content is pulled out of the Blackboard system. Facebook users just receive notifications about each new or updated piece of information, complete with a direct link to the item in their Blackboard course. So for example, if there is a new grade posted, Blackboard Sync will notify the student in Facebook that there is a new grade posted, and provide a link to their View My Grades page in the Blackboard Learning System™. The student will still need to log into Blackboard to see that grade. Similarly, assignments and other course materials, forum posts, etc. are not transmitted to the Blackboard Sync application in Facebook, just notifications about them.

The information which is transmitted over the Internet - the announcements, notification information, course content tree, etc. is encrypted until delivery to Blackboard Sync.

Additionally, each student can only see information specific to them for their own courses. They can't share that information with Facebook Friends or Networks and there is no way for other students to access their information through Blackboard Sync.

Professors have the option to turn individual areas off for the Course site. So for example, if the professor does not want the students to see the Roster they can disable the Roster in the Blackboard Course Site and so on.

Students can set their Privacy options in Blackboard so their email is not visible in Blackboard or the Blackboard Sync application. If the Roster is turned on and a student has downloaded the Blackboard Blackboard Sync application fellow students will be able to view another students Facebook page as if they were doing a normal search in Facebook. Students will still have the option in Facebook to set up their privacy settings.

Support Documentation:

	General Information This document will show Blackboard users the general functionality of Blackboard Sync.
	Video Overview This tutorial will walk Blackboard users through the general functionality of Blackboard Sync.
	Faculty Options This document will show Instructors the options that they have to prevent course information from displaying in Blackboard Sync.
	Student Privacy Options This document will show students how to modify their privacy options within Blackboard to display more or less information about them within Blackboard Sync.
	Maintenance Window Blackboard is backed up regularly every Sunday from 1:55am - 5:00am and will not be available at these times. Questions Not Listed? E-mail: blackboard@towson.edu