Many academic textbook publishers now promote their own
web-based services to accompany the use of their textbooks. The IDT team typically refers to these tools as third-party integrations with our learning management system.
So–what exactly is a third-party integration?
Such integration
tools enable third-party developers (commonly publishers) to
build added capabilities that can be added to the learning management system (currently Blackboard) and used within LMS shells/courses. Some examples of
commonly used integrations at UHCL include SafeAssign, Pearson’s MyLab and Mastering, McGraw-Hill, Perusall, and Cengage.
Faculty using these materials can create links within their Blackboard course(s) that connect to the publishers’ websites and provide students with access to additional resources such as quizzes, assignments, videos, interactive demonstrations, or additional readings.
Unfortunately, support for both faculty and students who use publisher contents that have been integrated with Blackboard is extremely limited. Our team does NOT have access to the publishers’ systems from which integrated contents are linked. Therefore, our support is largely limited to ensuring that the integrations are deployed and that the tools are active and available to instructors within their Blackboard courses.
For this reason, we recommend that faculty work with their publisher representative to obtain support instructions, links, and resources for students and post that information in their courses. Because the vendors/publishers frequently change their support resources, it's best to check with your publisher representative at least once per year to ensure that you provide students with the latest information for any integration(s) you use.
