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Developer Center Article

Timothy Chi
Senior Director
of Technology
Blackboard Inc

One of the key features of the Blackboard program is the ability to develop mini-applications called "Building Blocks." These Building Blocks can be used to replace or extend functionality within the Blackboard platform, as is the case with the Group Management Tool. The Group Management Tool is a core Blackboard feature that can be used by a variety of people in educational settings. For instance, a teaching assistant might find this group management tool quite handy for organizing and overseeing multiple student study groups.

Macromedia Flash MX: another choice for developing Blackboard front ends
The "standard" Blackboard method to create a group management tool produces an application based on dynamically-driven HTML pages. Although certainly useful, these pages have some inherent limitations (discussed in greater detail below). Now Blackboard developers have another option: enhancing building blocks with Macromedia Flash MX. When developers use this "enhanced" Macromedia technology to customize building blocks (such as a group management tool), they can add more functionality to the application, design more usable user interfaces, and, overall, create a better user experience.

Standard verses enhanced
This article offers a side-by-side comparison of two imaginary group management applications—the first created with the "standard" Blackboard methodology and the other with the "enhanced" capabilities that are possible when you develop a Blackboard building block using Macromedia Flash MX (as well as Macromedia Flash Remoting on the server-side). Focusing on differences in functionality and the user interface, the comparison walks through the main sections of the two applications, including the screen interfaces for:

Entering the application
Adding a group
Modifying a group
Removing a group
Assigning users

Entering the application
Standard version: In this version, the group management tool is accessed through the Control Panel within a Course. Clicking the Manage Groups link off the main control panel brings up the Manage Groups interface. This page displays a list of groups, including the group's name, description, and attributes (see Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1

On the standard Manage Groups page, the user can basically do three things:

	Add Group (button at the top of page)
	Modify (button for each group—this allows the user to modify a group)
	Remove (button for each group—this allows the user to remove a group)

Enhanced version: In the enhanced version, the initial entry page is labeled Group Manager (See Figure 1.2 below). You can see a listing of groups similar to the standard version above. The interface has the standard functionality of Add, Modify, and Remove. Other similarities include being able to modify the attributes of a Group and sending a Group Email, both with only one button click.

Figure 1.2

There are, however, some key differences between the entry view for these two tools. In the enhanced version, you can update a group’s availability by clicking the icon (this functionality is simply not possible in the standard version). Also, this group listing automatically shows how many members are in the group. An additional feature is the Show Members option which, when selected, displays the members of each group. In fact, a completely new feature, Assign, was added to this interface. All in all, this enhanced group “summary” view is much more interactive, provides more information, and has added features.

Adding a group
Standard version: The Add Group feature (see Figure 2.1) is simply an HTML form with required fields. There is nothing too special about this. Note that you can't assign users on this screen. After creating this group, you must then click “OK,” then click “Modify”, then click “Add Users to This Group,” and then “Search” or “List” in order to add any users. Lots of clicking.

Figure 2.1

Enhanced version: This display window shows the enhanced Add Group view (Figure 2.2). After clicking the Add Group button, a screen appears with all the same options as the standard version except for a new and important feature. This new feature allows the instructor to instantly add users to this new group—simply by dragging and dropping! So, the enhanced version has effectively reduced the flow of adding users from 5 clicks to 0. Another new feature on the Add Group interface is the Show Additional Info on Rollover option. When selected, you can view specific information about each user (including which other groups they belong to). Also, to make it easier to locate a specific user, User Box listings are sortable by each of the column headers.

Modifying a group
Standard version: Clicking on the Modify Group page (Figure 3.1) actually brings you to a submenu with 4 choices:

	Group Properties (this choices allows you to change the name, description, or attributes of the group)
	Add Users To Group (this option takes you to a page that has a search/list box, a search for individual users box, and interface items that allow you to add them 1 or more users at a time)
	List Users In Group (for this you get a search/list box which shows the users in the group)
	Remove Users From Group (this button takes you to a search/list box you can use to remove users from the group)

Figure 3.1

The search / list box described above (Figure 3.1.1) is an interface designed to allow flexibility in locating specific users. It is very robust and has a few options for locating users. The unfortunate side effect is that there are many clicks involved.

Figure 3.1.1

Enhanced version: The enhanced Modify Group interface looks just like the Add Group interface (Figure 3.2, displayed in this window). So, all the same benefits apply. You can change the group properties, view the current members of the group, and add and remove users by using the drag-and-drop feature. Basically, then, the enhanced version contains the entire submenu of the standard interface— encapsulated into one screen—which eliminates many clicks and avoids navigational twists and turns.

Removing groups
Both the standard and enhanced interfaces function in a similar manner with respect to the remove groups functionality.

Assigning users
Standard version: The standard version does not have this button or feature.

Enhanced version: The Assign users function was added to the enhanced interface (Figure 4.1) so multiple users could be assigned to multiple groups. In the standard interface, this would be accomplished by manually modifying each group and adding users individually. In the enhanced interface, we leverage the drag-and-drop capabilities and list all the users and all the groups. This allows the instructor to drop users into their destination groups. Another "bonus" feature that was added is Random Assign, which takes the selected users on the left and randomly assigns them to groups on the right, allowing for easy distribution by instructors. Many Blackboard users requested this feature.

Conclusion
As the side-by-side comparison shows, developers can now add new features and functionality to Blackboard building blocks (such as the group management tool) with Macromedia Flash MX and Flash Remoting. Even when new functionality is not added to the building block, Macromedia Flash MX developers will still find that their building block applications are more usable, provide more information, and generally make for a more pleasant user experience (not to mention less wasteful of precious mouse-clicks!).

About the author
As Blackboard's Senior Director of Technology, Timothy Chi is instrumental in guiding the company's product direction. He co-founded Blackboard in June of 1998 and has since headed up the Research and Development department, evaluating new technologies for the eLearning market, as well as establishing key strategic partnerships within the Internet industry. Timothy graduated from Cornell University with a Bachelors degree in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering.