Courses is available in Element Success. See our packages overview for details.

Overview

The Blackboard LMS integration seamlessly syncs real-time academic and enrollment data from Blackboard into Element451. This guide will walk you through the setup process, from configuring Blackboard settings to completing the integration within Element451.

📌 Note: This is a one-way integration. Element451 reads data from Blackboard but does not write back any data.

Overview of the Setup Process

To get started, you'll work through three main steps:

Set Up OAuth Authentication in Blackboard
Provide Credentials to Element451
Authenticate the Integration

Step 1: Set Up OAuth Authentication in Blackboard

To allow secure communication between Blackboard and Element451, you'll first need to register a REST API application in Blackboard. This generates a Client ID and Client Secret you'll use later in the setup.

Log in to your Blackboard account as a System Administrator.
Navigate to System Admin > Integrations > REST API Integrations.
Click Create Integration.
Fill in the required information:
- Application ID: f7835300-48bb-4051-b8a8-e43af1c7edc0
- Learn User: Select a user account with sufficient read permissions (usually an admin-level service account)
- End User Access: Set to No
- Authorized To Act As User?: Set to No
- Set the following Redirect URI: https://api.451.io/clients/integrations/blackboard/oauth2
Enable the following permission sets:
- Courses
- Users
- Memberships
- Organizations
- Grades

🔗 For more detailed instructions, see Blackboard's guide on Registering an Application.

Step 2: Authenticate the Integration in Element451

Once you have registered your application in Blackboard, you'll need to authorize Element451 to access your Blackboard data using OAuth.

🚨 Important: The user performing the authentication must be a Blackboard System Administrator and have read access to: Courses, Users, Memberships, Organizations, and Grades.

Click on your avatar/profile picture in the top right corner of the orange navigation menu.
Navigate to Settings > Integrations.
From the left-hand menu, select Blackboard LMS.
Click the Authenticate button and follow the prompts.

You'll need your Blackboard Instance URL (typically something like https://youruniversity.blackboard.com).

Step 3: Configure Preferences

Once you've authenticated your integration, you can access the LMS integration settings.

To review and adjust your preferences, click the pencil icon in the top right corner of your LMS integration card.

Data Sync Preferences

Courses¹: Import course information from Blackboard, including course name, code, department, and other relevant details.
Sections¹: Import individual course section information from Blackboard, including dates, instructor names, etc.
Enrollments: Import student enrollment records from Blackboard, including student grades
- Match Student Contacts²: Add enrollments for students already in the Element451 database
- Insert Student Contacts: Create new contacts for students previously not found in Element451, and add their enrollments
- Update Student Contacts: Overwrite existing contact data with data found in Blackboard, such as name and email

¹Setting is required and cannot be disabled.

²Setting is required when Enrollments is enabled.

Settings

Target Semesters: Only data from courses with a section within the selected semesters will be imported.
Auto Import Semesters: When enabled, Element451 will automatically sync the selected resources (courses, sections, or enrollments) for new semesters that are added to the LMS.
Target Teacher Roles: Blackboard supports multiple roles for teachers. Select the roles you use for teachers in your Blackboard instance.
Target Student Roles: Blackboard supports multiple roles for students. Select the roles you use for students in your Blackboard instance.

Next Steps

Once authentication is complete, Element451 will begin syncing data from Blackboard. This data lives in Courses (Data + Automation > Courses), where you can view course records from your LMS.

Now that your course data is flowing into Element, you can begin using it to: