Connect a Blackboard course as a data source so a mentor can read course content and attached files, cite them, and answer questions from that material.
In the Blackboard Developer Panel, create (or use) an application and copy its Application ID (this ID will be shared for installations).
In your Blackboard instance, open the Admin Panel → search REST API Integrations.
Click Create Integration and paste the Application ID.
Choose a user to link to the application (pick one who has access to the course).
Permissions noted in the demo:
- Authorized to act as user: Not needed
- Any user access: Yes
Submit. The test application shows as integrated.
- In Blackboard, open the target course and copy the course URL from your browser.
- In the mentor’s Datasets, choose Blackboard as the data source.
- Paste the course URL and click Submit.
- The document queues for training; once trained, it appears in the list.
- (Optional) Mark it Visible so you can see cited content.
- The mentor can answer questions from the course’s text content and attached files (e.g., PDFs).
- Source snippets appear, showing exactly where the answer was drawn from.
Example (from the demo):
A question about Las Casas’s writing returns an answer about Spanish colonists’ treatment of Indigenous people, with snippets pointing to the relevant attached documents/sections.
- By default, the Blackboard content is set to auto-retrain every 7 days.
- You can reschedule this to any number of days.
Your mentor now ingests the specified Blackboard course and its attachments, cites where answers come from, and stays up to date via scheduled retraining.