READSPEAKER BLACKBOARD BUILDING BLOCK System Administrator Guide Version 1.0.4 This guide is intended for Blackboard System Administrators and describes how to install and configure the ReadSpeaker. This guide is intended for use with Blackboard Learn Release 9.1. Note that the installation screens may appear slightly different from your instance, depending on browser, Service Pack and theme. Installation Those familiar with installing Building Blocks should simply upload the.war file and make it available and then proceed to the Configuration section of this document. Uploading the.war file ReadSpeaker distributes a Blackboard Building Block using the same packaging as all other Building Blocks. The first step is for a Blackboard System Administrator to upload the.war file. From the System Admin tab, select Building Blocks from the Building Blocks section. ReadSpeaker, The Voice of the Web! Page 1 of 5
This selection brings up the Building Blocks menu, from which select Installed Tools. This menu brings up a list of installed tools. From the upper left, click on Upload Building Blocks. This selection brings up a file browser. Choose the ReadSpeakerBb9 1.0.X.war file you received or downloaded. ReadSpeaker, The Voice of the Web! Page 2 of 5
Once the upload is complete, locate the row in the Installed Tools list with the ReadSpeaker for Blackboard entry and make the Building Block available by selecting Available from the drop down list in the Availability column or from the context menu. Note that the workflow and user interface for making a building block available has been changing in recent service packs. Blackboard will display a list of the privileges the Building Block is requesting. To make a Building Block available, select Approve. ReadSpeaker, The Voice of the Web! Page 3 of 5
Configuration The Building Block must be installed before it can be configured and it must be configured before it will display the ReadSpeaker control. Begin configuration by locating the row in the Installed Tools list with the ReadSpeaker for Blackboard entry and clicking on the Settings button (or from the context menu). This selection will bring up the settings page. On this page select whether the ReadSpeaker control will appear in on all pages, only in selected courses, or nowhere. When choosing the Selected courses option, the courses it will appear in can be changed through the Courses setting in the ReadSpeaker Building Block. You must also enter the URL to the ReadSpeaker Java Script that supports the control. This URL is provided to you by ReadSpeaker. Lastly, you can enter JavaScript that will be placed immediately before the ReadSpeaker.js code in order to customize the control. Note, the building block will place anything you enter inside a script element tags, like such: <script type="text/javascript"> <!-- EXTRA CODE GOES HERE //--> </script> In the screen shot above, the control is being enabled for all pages and the URL is simply an example. Note that the [CUSTOMERID] would be replaced by an integer. Submit this form to save the settings. ReadSpeaker, The Voice of the Web! Page 4 of 5
Below is an example of the control visible in a course page. Note that when you first enable the control, it will not appear until Blackboard refreshes the page. By default it will appear in the lower left corner. ReadSpeaker, The Voice of the Web! Page 5 of 5