Blackboard Vista Developers Network Powerlinks

The following open source PowerLinks, developed by members of the Blackboard Vista Developers Network, are available for use by all Blackboard customers. If you are interested in customizing these PowerLinks or collaborating with other developers on your integrations and extensions, consider joining the Blackboard Vista Developers Network.

These PowerLinks are available as-is and are not supported by Blackboard. You do not need to license the Blackboard Vista PowerLinks Kit or belong to the Blackboard Vista Developers Network to use these open source PowerLinks. However, you do need the Blackboard Vista PowerLinks Kit for software development to be able to easily and securely customize these PowerLinks.

Gutenberg Book Search PowerLink

Allows instructors and designers to create custom searches on the Gutenberg collection that students can run with a single mouse-click from their Blackboard courses. Project Gutenberg is the oldest collection of free ebooks on the Internet, and instructors can make the books freely available to their students.

Download: Download PowerLink (ZIP)
Versions Supported: Blackboard Learning System - CE Enterprise License 6, Blackboard Learning System - Vista Enterprise License 3, Blackboard Learning System - Vista Enterprise License 4

Mobile Blackboard PowerLink

Allows students and instructors to read their Blackboard mail from their mobile phones. The PowerLink consists of a J2ME client application that can run on any J2ME CLDC 1.0 compliant phone and a Java servlet that translates requests from the J2ME client to Blackboard Vista Mail Web Services.

Download: Download PowerLink (ZIP; 4 MB)
Versions Supported: Blackboard Learning System - CE Enterprise License 6, Blackboard Learning System - Vista Enterprise License 3, Blackboard Learning System - Vista Enterprise License 4

OSPI 1.0 Integration PowerLink

The Blackboard PowerLink for the Open Source Portfolio Initiative (OSPI) allows institutions to integrate open source functionality into their Blackboard environments. The PowerLink enables single sign-on from Blackboard to the OSPI e-portfolio, providing users with easy one-click access to their e-portfolio content. Users will also be able to seamlessly transfer files from Blackboard to their OSPI e-portfolio.

Download: Download PowerLink (ZIP)
Versions Supported: Blackboard Learning System - Vista Enterprise License 3

PhpWiki Integration PowerLink

Lets instructors add the interactivity of PhpWiki, an open source wiki tool, to their Blackboard courses. When the PowerLink is installed, an instructor or designer can provide students in a Blackboard course seamless access to PhpWiki by adding a proxy tool from the Blackboard Course Menu. It can be configured so that only users who have been authenticated by Blackboard can access the Wiki, or so that all users can access it but only those authenticated by Blackboard can edit the Wiki pages.

Download: Download PowerLink (ZIP)
Versions Supported: Blackboard Learning System - CE Enterprise License 6, Blackboard Learning System - Vista Enterprise License 3, Blackboard Learning System - Vista Enterprise License 4

RSS Feed Integration PowerLink

Provides the capability to fetch RSS feeds from any Web site supporting RSS service from within a Blackboard course. Instructors and designers can easily add an RSS proxy tool to their course from the Blackboard Course Menu. The proxy tool transforms the RSS feed into HTML and displays it in a new window, giving students and instructors instant updates to any Web site that is an important resource for the course.

Download: Download PowerLink (ZIP)
Versions Supported: Blackboard Learning System - CE Enterprise License 6, Blackboard Learning System - Vista Enterprise License 3, Blackboard Learning System - Vista Enterprise License 4

ESUP Portal Integration PowerLink

The objective of this connector which has been developed by the University of Corsica is to simplify the data exchange between ESUP and WebCT Campus Edition version 6, now named Blackboard Learning System Campus Edition Enterprise (LS CE).

Download: Download Powerlink
Versions Supported: Blackboard Learning System - CE Enterprise License 6