1. Blackboard and Content Types John Knight Blackboard Inc.

2. And now a word from our lawyers... Any statements in this presentation about future expectations, plans and prospects for the Company, including statements about the Company, the Building Blocks Program and other statements containing the words “believes,” “anticipates,” “plans,” “expects,” “will,” and similar expressions, constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including: product development, and other factors discussed in our Registration Statement filed on Form S-1 with the SEC. In addition, the forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company’s views as of July 26, 2004. The Company anticipates that subsequent events and developments will cause the Company’s views to change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward- looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company’s views as of any date subsequent to July 26, 2004.

3. Overview Types of Content Oriented Building Block Integrations Look at Various Implementations Tips and Tricks Questions

4. Types of Integrations Content-Handlers which work with internal data structures and use Building Block persisters for data storage Content-Handlers which work with internal data structures and use other means for storage (XML, Java Property Files, etc) Content-Handlers which simply link to an external system

5. Before we look at differences… Let’s examine the commonalities…. Let’s quickly walk through our Building Block Planning Process (From the My First Building Block Presentation)

6. Planning Where are you going to hook your application into Blackboard?

7. User Interface Integration Content-Handlers appear under the “add other” pull down from the content areas.

8. Planning Which APIs are you going to use?

9. API Capabilities Building Blocks API –Announcement (read and write) –Calendar (read and write) –Content (read and write) –Gradebook (read and write) –Session (read and write) –File system (read and write) –*User (read) –*Course (read) –*Membership (read)

10. Structure of the Building Block It’s a standard JAVA Web Application (Webapp) with some additional descriptive data (XML Files) that is used by Blackboard to manage registration, deployment, security and management.

11. Directory Structure

12. Package Format A webapp is a zip file with a specific directory structure WinZip, PkZip, or Java’s Jar utility will all create the correct package Even though it is a zip file, the extension does not matter (.zip,.war,.bb will all work)

13. WEB-INF Hidden from web Contents –web.xml –bb-manifest.xml –Config directory –Classes directory –Lib directory

14. Config Directory Hidden from web Only directory that is owned by your building block Can contain anything (hint hint) No size limit (hint hint)

15. Custom Code and Libraries Classes –Stored in WEB-INF\classes Jars –Stored in WEB-INF\lib –Automatically on classpath via custom classloader

16. Manifest Structure Bb-manifest.xml –Set of directives the developer provides Building Blocks Configuration Application Definitions –Content Handlers –UI Links –Portal Modules Security Declarations Let’s Take a Look at one for content …

17. Bb-manifest.xml

18. Bb-manifest.xml...... Set Handler Set Create, Modify, and Remove handlers

19. Bb-manifest.xml...

20. Now we know the structure… Once we have decided our directory layout and created (customized) our bb-manifest.xml file, we are ready to look at the JSP pages which comprise our webapp.

21. With that… We need to setup a structure for our webapp

22. Deploy the skeleton It’s far easier to deploy the skeleton webapp and then make your changes directly on your DEVELOPMENT server. Files are located in blackboard/content/ci/bb_bb60/xxx-xxxx/webapp

23. Some good things to know… Course ID and Container ID are passed to pages If you use the taglibs (BbUI and BbData) you will always have access to the session data, user data, consistent UI widgets, etc. You have access to read/write files to your webapps config space –Good for configuration data or application data!

24. Create.jsp <% /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// // Filename: Create.jsp // Desc: Part of the sample content-handler, this file // is resonsible for displaying the form to gather // the data for the creation of the content object. /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// %> <%@ page import=" blackboard.platform.*, blackboard.platform.plugin.*" errorPage="/error.jsp" %> Page Imports Import Tag Libs Establish Context

25. Create.jsp <% if (!PlugInUtil.authorizeForCourseControlPanel(request, response)) return; %> "> "> SAMPLE CONTENT HANDLER Sample Content Handler - Create Check for Auth Doc and Course Taglibs Course and Content IDs are passed in Breadcrumb

26. Create.jsp

27. Yes No Create.jsp

29. Create.jsp

30. Create_proc.jsp Just the Highlights! // retrieve the Db persistence manager from the persistence service BbPersistenceManager bbPm = BbServiceManager.getPersistenceService().getDbPersistenceManager(); // generate the internal IDs for the course and parent Id courseId = bbPm.generateId(Course.COURSE_DATA_TYPE,request.getParameter("course_id")); Id parentId = bbPm.generateId(CourseDocument.COURSE_DOCUMENT_DATA_TYPE,request.getParameter("parent_id")); // create a new content iteam Content courseDoc = new Content(); //set the title courseDoc.setTitle(request.getParameter("title"));

31. Create_proc.jsp // set the main data (as HTML data) String strMainData = request.getParameter("maindata"); FormattedText text = new FormattedText(strMainData,FormattedText.Type.HTML); courseDoc.setBody( text ); // set the parent ID courseDoc.setParentId(parentId); // set the content handler courseDoc.setContentHandler( "resource/x-bb-samplecontent" ); // set the course ID courseDoc.setCourseId( courseId ); // Set to Track the content or not String strTracked = request.getParameter("isTrack"); if (strTracked.equalsIgnoreCase("true")) { courseDoc.setIsTracked(true); } else { courseDoc.setIsTracked(false); }

32. Create_proc.jsp // validate the new content item courseDoc.validate(); // Persist the object ContentDbPersister contentPersister = (ContentDbPersister) bbPm.getPersister( ContentDbPersister.TYPE ); contentPersister.persist( courseDoc );

33. Modify and Modify_proc Almost identical to create process. See the sample Content Handler for details Remove is optional clean up

34. Demonstration

35. We covered the most basic… Let’s touch on more advanced topics: –Storing additional parameters –Relative Referencing of the content_id –Linking to external resources –Import/Export/Copy/Migration Issues

36. Storing additional parameters What types of data do you want to store? In what do you want to store it? –In JAVA property files –As XML? –As Serialized Java Objects? –In your own proprietary (and somewhat creative formats)

37. Where do you store the parameters? –In the webapp’s config directory? –In the content’s directory –In the content itself (hidden) –Externally Storing additional parameters

38. Using the webapps config dir // Get the Configuration Directory File dir = PlugInUtil.getConfigDirectory(“bb","sample-contenthandler"); // get the config file File cfg = new File(dir, “custom.properties"); // If it doesn't exist yet, create a blank one if (!cfg.exists()) { cfg.createNewFile(); FileOutputStream f = null; try { f = new FileOutputStream(cfg); } catch (FileNotFoundException e){ out.println("Can't find the file"); } Properties p = new Properties(); // Write them out to the conf file p.setProperty(“name",“value"); p.store(f,“My Configuration File"); f.close(); }

39. Using the content directory FileSystemService fileSysService; fileSysService = (FileSystemService)BbServiceManager. lookupService( FileSystemService.class ); java.io.File fileContentDirectory = fileSysService.getContentDirectory(course, courseDocId); Advantages –Content on file system in this directory is PORTABLE with import/export/copy/migration –Can be referenced with the @X@content.url@X@ syntax rather than hard coded

40. Storing Data in the Content Why not use the content item itself and store your other data in the MAIN DATA blob? Use comment blocks to mask your data Advantages: complete portability, no external dependencies Disadvantages: ALL Data in this field is rendered by the content engine in the user view.

41. Externally You can simply insert a URL to your own content engine in the Blackboard content item. Advantages: –Many to One relationship between content and raw data –Setup own system for management and deployment Disadvantages: –Content is ignorant of copy/import/export/migration and all copies will still point to the hard coded URL

42. Summary We’ve seen how to create a new content-handler from scratch We’ve seen the structure of the webapp and walked through an example of one. We talked about the various places, structures, and methods of storing content and the advantages and disadvantages of each.