Education IT Reporter

Blackboard Inc. has announced the availability of its Blackboard Data developer tier, giving eligible institutions direct access to information to help manage and differentiate their learning ecosystem. Blackboard worked with more than 130 client developers at more than 75 institutions through global engagement events to co-develop the first Blackboard Data platform release.

The announcement was made at BbWorld 2019, Blackboard’s annual users conference that brings together educators, administrators and thought leaders, taking place July 23 through 25 in Austin, Texas.

The first release on the Blackboard Data platform, known as the Blackboard Reporting Stack Developer Tier, will provide clients with direct access to data sets through a Snowflake data warehouse integration. Clients will also have access to the Blackboard Data User Interface, which includes a comprehensive data dictionary and integrated privacy guidance.

The goal, the company said, is to help developers and researchers answer questions to support common educational business goals. Data and tools in the Reporting Stack are now available for eligible clients using the Software as a Service (SaaS) deployment of Blackboard Learn at no additional fee.

“We have placed Blackboard Data right in the heart of our platform both architecturally and operationally,” said Rachel Scherer, senior director of analytics at Blackboard. “This means that not only can we pull data together in one single place, but we can also push it back into the learning ecosystem to make it richer with reliable in-workflow insights. Altogether, the Blackboard Data approach lets us contextualize information and provide insights to the right stakeholders at the right time.”

Blackboard Data is architected to combine activity and usage data across Blackboard’s Teaching and Learning solutions within its SaaS EdTech platform including cloud deployments of Learn, Open LMS, Collaborate, Safe Assign, Ally and the Blackboard app, with more to follow. The data is optimized for reporting and stored in a cloud data warehouse. Customers benefit from an industry-leading interface and simple integration with common business intelligence tools.

This is the first release for the Blackboard Data platform and over time the company will roll out more solutions, it said in the state announcing the launch. Following a SaaS continuous delivery model, Blackboard will expand eligibility across the company’s suite of SaaS-based products and add capabilities for more personas.

To introduce clients to Blackboard Data, Blackboard is launching the 21 Days of Blackboard Data challenge and encouraging all clients to join. Participants will have access to a demo data set with the same user interface as the Developer Tier. Interested clients may learn more and register at https://21days.blackboard.com/.