Introduction

In this guide, you will be instructed on how to add Zoom meeting links inside of Blackboard using the Blackboard Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI). During the process, you will learn how to schedule repeating meetings weekly, as well as adding the link to the left navigation pane (if deleted by mistake).

What is the Blackboard Zoom LTI?

The Blackboard Zoom LTI creates a seamless connection between both Blackboard and Zoom, which allows Instructors to easily create weekly Zoom meetings from within the Blackboard Interface. It also helps manage and make class recordings easily available to students. 

Experience and feedback has shown that students prefer consistency from course to course and adding the Blackboard Zoom LTI creates familiarity for students. They know each week where to click to join the Zoom meeting. This process removes additional work for the Instructor by having to send out repeated Zoom invitations and reduces the number of emails prior to a zoom session where students cannot access the link. 

Accessing the Zoom LTI

Each course has a Zoom Meetings link created and embedded in the left hand navigation pane in Blackboard. (see below if your course does not have a link present).

Clicking the Zoom Meeting(s) link will launch the Zoom LTI, which automatically logs you into Zoom from Blackboard, and provides an interface to schedule meetings for your class.

Blackboard Integration - Left Navigation

Zoom is added automatically to each course, however, sometimes the zoom link is removed by mistake. 

If it is deleted and you want to re-add it to your left navigation, here's how to do so:

1. Click the +  icon in the upper left and go to Tool Link

2. Choose Zoom Meeting from the Type dropdown menu and provide a name, like Zoom Meeting

3. Check the Available to Users box and click Submit.

4. Your link will appear at the very bottom. Mouse over and click the left side with the up/down arrows to drag and drop it up in the Communication area

Zoom Meetings Not Showing for Students

You may run into occasions where you can see the Zoom meeting link but students can not. This is because the Zoom meeting link is hidden. To unhide the Zoom meeting link, click the down arrow to the right of the link and select Show Link.

Blackboard Integration - Content Area

In addition to having a Zoom link on the left navigation, there is also a Zoom tool integration in Blackboard under the Tools menu > More Tools:

This allows you a convenient way to place multiple Zoom links across your course which then in turn provides multiple means of entry into a Zoom room for students which will ultimately provide less frantic telephone calls or emails from students not knowing how to access the class.

Scheduling a Meeting

The Schedule Wizard in the Blackboard LTI performs very similarly to how you would schedule a meeting using the UMB Zoom Portal.

Clicking any of the Zoom LTI links will launch a new tab with the Zoom interface. 

Click the Schedule a New Meeting button in the top right hand corner to schedule your class meetings.

The Schedule Meeting window appears. Complete the steps as you would normally to schedule a meeting and click Save when complete. 

Repeated Meetings/Classes

The Zoom LTI is one of the quickest and easiest ways to set up a semester's worth of meetings for your class. You can set up 1 recurring meeting that lasts until a particular date, or repeats 15 weeks, to keep it simple, and keep reusing the same link whenever you need it, with the same link/URL every time. We recommend setting 1 up and posting the invite information (URL, password, phone number dial in info) into an item in your Blackboard course and/or your syllabus, so that students can go there every week to join your session with ease. Students and instructors can also simply click on the Zoom Meetings link to join and enter all Zoom sessions.

It is not possible to host multiple meetings at once using your one account. 

Note that the Zoom LTI link in Bb will show students only the sessions you set up for your class  - not all of your sessions in your own Zoom account. The same is true for recordings. 

Starting a Meeting

This process is made easier by the use of the LTI. You and students will both go to the Zoom Link in Blackboard. As the instructor, you will get a button to start the meeting. Students will get a button to Join the meeting.

Zoom Links - for Students or Guests

The image above shows what the Zoom Meetings LTI looks like to faculty - a Start and Delete icon for each meeting instance. Students will instead only see  a "Join" link there. The image also depicts the Meeting ID for the meetings. The meeting ID can be used to generate a direct URL link for students or a guest speaker to join your Zoom session. Such a URL looks like: https://umaryland.zoom.us/j/meetingID (the meeting ID is all numeric and does not contain any spaces or other characters). If, when you set up the Meeting, you chose to include a passcode, students or guests would need that separately in order to enter (and students can always enter from within Blackboard by just clicking Join - without needing the passcode). If you did not include a passcode when setting up the meeting, students (or guests) can enter with only that URL. 

Class Recordings

The Zoom Blackboard LTI makes it easy to record your classes to the cloud and make the recordings avaiable to students. If you record your live class to the cloud, the recordings will automatically become available to students in the Cloud Recordings tab of the Blackboard Zoom LTI. Please note that according to UMB CITS policy, recordings are deleted after 365 days. You will receive multiple emails alerting you that the recordings are becoming unavailable and then deleted.

For longer term storage, the IDEA Team recommends downloading the MP4 of the recording you'd like to save, and then uploading that using Add Media into a Voicethread. This will create closed captions for the video as well as make it accessible to students. (Also note that Voicethreads become inactive if a user does not log into Voicethread for 2 years. All you need to do to keep everything in VT active is to log in once every 2 years.) More info on the Recordings page listed below.

Related Pages

Zoom for Students 

Recordings 

Online Meetings