Blackboard Learn is a learning management system (LMS) used by colleges, universities, and K-12 districts to deliver and administer online and blended courses. The Blackboard Learn public REST API exposes courses, users, enrollments, gradebook columns and grades, rubrics and rubric evaluations, attendance meetings, calendar items, course content, announcements, groups, terms, data sources, and institution and course roles. Use this connector to ingest learner activity, grade, and rubric data for cohort and at-risk analytics, AI grading models, and SIS reconciliation, and to write grades, enrollments, users, courses, and announcements back into Learn from upstream systems.
Power end-to-end data operations for your Blackboard LMS API with Nexla. Our bi-directional Blackboard LMS connector is purpose-built for Blackboard LMS, making it simple to ingest data, sync it across systems, and deliver it anywhere — all with no coding required. Nexla turns API-sourced data into ready-to-use, reusable data products and makes it easy to send data to Blackboard LMS or any other destination. With comprehensive monitoring, lineage tracking, and access controls, Nexla keeps your Blackboard LMS workflows fast, secure, and fully governed.
Features
Type: API
SourceDestination
Seamless API Integration: Connect to any endpoint as source or destination without coding, with automatic data product creation
Visual Composition & Chaining: Build complex integrations using visual templates, chain API calls, and compose workflows with data validation and filtering
API Proxy: Expose curated slices of your data securely with a secure and customizable API proxy that validates and transforms data on the fly
Request optimization with intelligent batching, retry, and caching to minimize API calls and costs
The Blackboard Learn connector authenticates using the OAuth 2.0 client credentials (2-legged) flow defined by the Learn REST API framework. Each registered application is assigned an Application Key and Application Secret on the Anthology (Blackboard) Developer Portal, and a Learn administrator must explicitly enable the application on the institution's Learn instance before the API will issue access tokens. Tokens returned by the /learn/api/public/v1/oauth2/token endpoint are bearer tokens valid for one hour, and Nexla automatically refreshes them as needed.
Three pieces of information are required to create the credential:
Learn Instance Base URL — the full URL of your Blackboard Learn instance (for example, https://yourinstitution.blackboard.com).
Application Key — the OAuth2 client ID issued when the application is registered on the Developer Portal.
Application Secret — the OAuth2 client secret issued at registration time. The secret is shown only at registration and cannot be retrieved later.
The Anthology (Blackboard) Developer Portal is the system of record for REST applications. A developer creates one or more applications there, and each application receives the credentials Nexla will use.
Sign in to the Anthology Developer Portal at https://developer.blackboard.com/. If you do not yet have a developer account, complete the registration process before continuing.
From the portal navigation, open My applications, and click the + (Register your application) button.
Select Manual registration, and complete the application registration form with the following details:
Application name: Enter a descriptive name (for example, "Nexla Integration").
Description: Briefly describe the integration purpose so Learn administrators can identify it during approval.
Domain: Enter your organization's domain.
Group: Select the appropriate group for the application.
Click Register application to create the registration.
On the application detail screen, copy the following values and store them securely:
Application ID — required by the Learn administrator to enable the application on the Learn instance (not entered into Nexla).
Application Key — the OAuth2 client ID entered into Nexla.
Application Secret — the OAuth2 client secret entered into Nexla. This value is displayed only at registration time; if it is lost, a new secret must be generated.
By default, no REST application has access to a Learn instance. A Learn administrator must explicitly approve the registered application's Application ID before token requests will succeed.
Sign in to the target Blackboard Learn instance as an administrator.
From the Administrator panel, under Integrations, select REST API integrations.
Click Create integration.
In the Application ID field, enter the Application ID copied from the Developer Portal registration.
In the Learn User field, select the Learn user account that the integration will run as. The application's API calls execute with this user's effective permissions, so the user must have the entitlements required by the endpoints in scope (for example, course read, gradebook write, user provisioning).
Set End User Access and Authorized To Act As User according to your institutional policy:
End User Access: Set to Yes to allow three-legged user-context calls. For the Nexla client-credentials flow, this can typically be left at the default.
Authorized To Act As User: Set to Yes only if the integration should be allowed to impersonate other users; leave at No otherwise.
Click Submit to save the integration. The application is now permitted to obtain tokens against this Learn instance.
The Learn user that the integration runs as governs what data the connector can read or write. Use a service-account user with the minimum entitlements required, rather than a personal account.
Important
The Application Secret grants access to your Blackboard Learn instance via the registered application. Store it in a secure secret manager, never commit it to source control, and rotate it immediately if you suspect it has been exposed. Tokens issued by Learn are short-lived (one hour), but the secret itself does not expire until it is regenerated.
After selecting the data source/destination type, click the Add Credential tile to open the Add New Credential overlay.
Enter a name for the credential in the Credential Name field and a short, meaningful description in the Credential Description field.
Enter the full URL of your Blackboard Learn instance in the Learn Instance Base URL field (for example, https://yourinstitution.blackboard.com). This value is used as the base URL for all Learn REST API calls and for the OAuth2 token endpoint at <base-url>/learn/api/public/v1/oauth2/token. Do not include a trailing slash.
Enter the Application Key issued for your registered Blackboard application in the Application Key (Client ID) field. This value acts as the OAuth2 client_id and is obtained from the application detail screen on the Anthology Developer Portal.
Enter the Application Secret issued for your registered Blackboard application in the Application Secret (Client Secret) field. This value acts as the OAuth2 client_secret and is treated as a password — the field is masked on entry.
Nexla exchanges the Application Key and Application Secret for an access token by calling POST <base-url>/learn/api/public/v1/oauth2/token with grant_type=client_credentials. The returned bearer token is automatically applied to subsequent Learn REST API calls and refreshed on expiry.
Click the Save button at the bottom of the overlay to save the configured credential. Nexla will issue a test token request against the Learn instance to verify that the application is registered, enabled on the instance, and that the supplied key and secret are correct. The newly added credential will now appear in a tile on the Authenticate screen during data source/destination creation.
To create a new data flow, navigate to the Integrate section, and click the New Data Flow button. Select the Blackboard LMS connector tile, then select the credential that will be used to connect to the Blackboard Learn instance, and click Next; or, create a new Blackboard LMS credential for use in this flow.
Nexla provides pre-built templates that can be used to rapidly configure data sources to ingest data from common Blackboard Learn endpoints. Select the endpoint from which this source will fetch data from the Endpoint pulldown menu. Available endpoint templates are listed in the expandable boxes below. Click on an endpoint to see more information about it and how to configure your data source for this endpoint.
Get Courses
This endpoint retrieves all courses from the Learn instance using GET /learn/api/public/v3/courses. It is the typical entry point for cohort, enrollment, and content pipelines because the returned id, courseId, and externalId values are used to drive most other course-scoped endpoints.
The Page Size field controls the number of records returned per page (Learn maximum is 200). The default value is 100.
The Availability Filter field restricts the result set to courses with the selected availability. Select Yes for active courses only, No for unavailable courses, or Disabled for disabled courses. The default value is Yes.
This endpoint is paginated via $.paging.nextPage, and Nexla automatically advances through pages to retrieve all matching courses. The response is fielded down to id, courseId, externalId, name, created, modified, availability, hasChildren, dataSourceId to keep payloads compact.
Get Users
This endpoint retrieves all user accounts from the Learn instance using GET /learn/api/public/v1/users, including profile, contact information, institution roles, and system roles. Use it as the core source for learner identity, SIS reconciliation, and access-control pipelines.
The Page Size field controls the number of user records returned per page (Learn maximum is 200). The default value is 100.
The response is fielded down to id, uuid, externalId, userName, name, contact, institutionRoleIds, systemRoleIds, availability, created, modified. Combine this endpoint with Get Institution Roles and Get Course Roles to resolve role IDs to display names.
Get Course Enrollments
This endpoint retrieves all user enrollments (memberships) for a specific course using GET /learn/api/public/v1/courses/{courseId}/users, including the course role, availability, child course ID, and the expanded user profile. Use it to build per-course rosters for enrollment and cohort analytics.
Enter the course identifier in the Course ID field. This field is required. Use the Learn internal course ID (for example, _123_1) or the SIS-style externalId:COURSECODE format. Course IDs can be obtained from the Get Courses endpoint.
The Page Size field controls the number of enrollment records returned per page (Learn maximum is 200). The default value is 100.
This endpoint uses expand=user, so each enrollment record includes the user's userName and name without an extra lookup against the Get Users endpoint.
Get Gradebook Columns
This endpoint retrieves all gradebook columns for a course using GET /learn/api/public/v2/courses/{courseId}/gradebook/columns, including possible score, due date, grading type, category ID, availability, and rubric associations. Use it to discover the column IDs needed by the grade and attempt endpoints.
Enter the course identifier in the Course ID field. This field is required. Use the Learn internal course ID (for example, _123_1) or the externalId:COURSECODE format.
The Page Size field controls the number of column records returned per page (Learn maximum is 200). The default value is 100.
The rubricAssociations field on each column links the column to the rubrics used to score it. Use it together with the Get Course Rubrics and Get Rubric Evaluations endpoints to assemble a complete graded-assessment dataset.
Get Column Grades
This endpoint retrieves all student grades for a specific gradebook column using GET /learn/api/public/v2/courses/{courseId}/gradebook/columns/{columnId}/users, including the score, status, feedback, and a changeIndex value that can drive incremental sync.
Enter the course identifier in the Course ID field. This field is required. Use the Learn internal course ID (for example, _123_1) or the externalId:COURSECODE format.
Enter the gradebook column identifier in the Column ID field. This field is required (for example, _456_1). Column IDs can be obtained from the Get Gradebook Columns endpoint.
The Page Size field controls the number of grade records returned per page (Learn maximum is 200). The default value is 100.
The changeIndex field on each grade is monotonically increasing on grade changes within Learn. Persist the highest changeIndex seen in your warehouse to perform efficient incremental refreshes against this endpoint.
Get Column Attempts
This endpoint retrieves all student submission attempts for a specific gradebook column using GET /learn/api/public/v2/courses/{courseId}/gradebook/columns/{columnId}/attempts. This is the entry point for retrieving per-attempt rubric evaluations.
Enter the course identifier in the Course ID field. This field is required. Use the Learn internal course ID (for example, _123_1) or the externalId:COURSECODE format.
Enter the gradebook column identifier in the Column ID field. This field is required (for example, _456_1).
The Page Size field controls the number of attempt records returned per page (Learn maximum is 200). The default value is 100.
Each attempt record carries a unique id (for example, _844981_1) that is used as the Attempt ID input to the Get Rubric Evaluations endpoint.
Get Course Rubrics
This endpoint retrieves all rubrics in a course using GET /learn/api/public/v1/courses/{courseId}/rubrics with expand=cells,columns,rows, returning the complete rubric definition. Use it to power AI grading consistency checks and rubric quality analytics.
Enter the course identifier in the Course ID field. This field is required. Use the Learn internal course ID (for example, _123_1) or the externalId:COURSECODE format.
The Page Size field controls the number of rubric records returned per page. The default value is 100.
Because cells, columns, and rows are expanded inline, rubric responses can be large. Reduce the Page Size if you observe timeouts or memory pressure during ingestion.
Get Rubric Evaluations
This endpoint retrieves rubric cell-level evaluations for a single submission attempt using GET /learn/api/public/v1/courses/{courseId}/gradebook/columns/{columnId}/attempts/{attemptId}/rubric/evaluations, including per-criterion scores and feedback. It is critical for training and validating AI grading models.
Enter the course identifier in the Course ID field. This field is required (for example, _123_1).
Enter the gradebook column identifier for the rubric-graded assessment in the Column ID field. This field is required (for example, _456_1).
Enter the submission attempt identifier in the Attempt ID field. This field is required (for example, _844981_1). Attempt IDs can be obtained from the Get Column Attempts endpoint.
The Page Size field controls the number of evaluation records returned per page. The default value is 100.
Use a Nexla lookup over the Get Column Attempts output to drive this endpoint across all attempts for a column, rather than configuring a separate source per attempt.
Get Calendar Items
This endpoint retrieves course, institutional, and gradebook calendar items within a date window using GET /learn/api/public/v1/calendars/items. Use it for schedule analytics, deadline tracking, and notification pipelines.
The Course ID field is optional. Provide a course ID (for example, _123_1) to filter calendar items to a single course, or leave it blank to include institution-wide items.
Enter the start of the date range in ISO-8601 format in the Since (Start Date) field (for example, 2024-01-01T00:00:00.000Z). The default value is {'{now-30}'}, which selects 30 time units before now once the date macro settings are applied.
Enter the end of the date range in ISO-8601 format in the Until (End Date) field (for example, 2024-04-01T00:00:00.000Z). The default value is {'{now+80}'}. The maximum supported window between Since and Until is 16 weeks.
The Page Size field controls the number of calendar item records returned per page. The default value is 100.
Use the date/time macros described under Manual configuration to keep the Since and Until values rolling forward on each ingestion run.
Get Course Contents
This endpoint retrieves content items in a course using GET /learn/api/public/v1/courses/{courseId}/contents, including folders, documents, assessments, and links. It is the foundation for retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and content indexing pipelines built on Blackboard course material.
Enter the course identifier in the Course ID field. This field is required. Use the Learn internal course ID (for example, _123_1) or the externalId:COURSECODE format.
The Page Size field controls the number of content items returned per page (Learn maximum is 200). The default value is 100.
Set the Recursive field to true to recursively return child content items within folders, or leave it as false to return only the top-level items. The default value is false.
The response is fielded down to id, title, body, created, modified, availability, position, contentHandler, reviewable. The contentHandler.id value identifies the content type (for example, document, link, assessment) and is useful for filtering downstream.
Get Announcements
This endpoint retrieves course announcements using GET /learn/api/public/v1/courses/{courseId}/announcements, including title, body text, and availability windows. Use it for natural language processing, sentiment analysis, and communication analytics over instructor-to-student messages.
Enter the course identifier in the Course ID field. This field is required (for example, _123_1).
The Page Size field controls the number of announcement records returned per page (Learn maximum is 200). The default value is 100.
Announcement bodies are returned as HTML. Apply a Nexla transform to strip HTML tags if downstream models require plain text.
Get Attendance Meetings
This endpoint retrieves all attendance meeting sessions for a course using GET /learn/api/public/v1/courses/{courseId}/meetings. Each meeting record is the entry point for retrieving per-user attendance status, which is a key feature for at-risk and engagement models.
Enter the course identifier in the Course ID field. This field is required (for example, _123_1).
The Page Size field controls the number of meeting records returned per page. The default value is 100.
Use the meeting id values returned here as the Meeting ID input to the Get Meeting Attendance Records endpoint.
Get Meeting Attendance Records
This endpoint retrieves per-user attendance status (Present, Absent, Late, Excused) for a single meeting session using GET /learn/api/public/v1/courses/{courseId}/meetings/{meetingId}/users. It is a key signal for at-risk student detection.
Enter the course identifier in the Course ID field. This field is required (for example, _123_1).
Enter the meeting identifier in the Meeting ID field. This field is required (for example, 465). Meeting IDs can be obtained from the Get Attendance Meetings endpoint.
The Page Size field controls the number of attendance records returned per page. The default value is 100.
Get Course Groups
This endpoint retrieves all groups and group sets within a course using GET /learn/api/public/v2/courses/{courseId}/groups. Use it for collaborative learning analytics and group performance modeling.
Enter the course identifier in the Course ID field. This field is required. Use the Learn internal course ID (for example, _123_1) or the externalId:COURSECODE format.
The Page Size field controls the number of group records returned per page (Learn maximum is 200). The default value is 100.
The response is fielded down to id, externalId, name, description, availability, enrollment, uuid, created, modified.
Get Gradebook Categories
This endpoint retrieves all gradebook categories for a course using GET /learn/api/public/v1/courses/{courseId}/gradebook/categories. Use it to map columns to categories for weighted grade analytics and category-level reporting.
Enter the course identifier in the Course ID field. This field is required (for example, _123_1).
The Page Size field controls the number of category records returned per page. The default value is 100.
Get Institution Roles
This endpoint retrieves all institution-level roles defined on the Learn instance using GET /learn/api/public/v1/institutionRoles. Use it for user segmentation, access-control analytics, and to resolve the institutionRoleIds values returned by the Get Users endpoint.
The Page Size field controls the number of role records returned per page. The default value is 100.
Get Course Roles
This endpoint retrieves all course-level roles on the Learn instance using GET /learn/api/public/v1/courseRoles (for example, Instructor, Student, TA). Use it for role-based access analytics and to resolve the courseRoleId values returned by the Get Course Enrollments endpoint.
The Page Size field controls the number of role records returned per page. The default value is 100.
Get Terms
This endpoint retrieves all academic terms on the Learn instance using GET /learn/api/public/v1/terms. Use it for time-bound cohort analysis and to align performance metrics with the academic calendar.
The Page Size field controls the number of term records returned per page (Learn maximum is 200). The default value is 100.
The response is fielded down to id, externalId, name, description, availability, dataSourceId.
Get Data Sources
This endpoint retrieves data source keys used to tag and track the origin of courses, users, and enrollments using GET /learn/api/public/v1/dataSources. Use it for SIS reconciliation and to map records back to their source feeds.
The Page Size field controls the number of data source records returned per page. The default value is 100.
Once the selected endpoint template has been configured, click the Test button to the right of the endpoint selection menu to retrieve a sample of the data that will be fetched. Sample data will be displayed in the Endpoint Test Result panel on the right, allowing you to verify that the source is configured correctly before saving.
Blackboard LMS data sources can also be manually configured to ingest data from any valid Blackboard Learn REST API endpoint not covered by the pre-built templates — for example, the Course Analytics, Discussion, or LTI endpoints — or when chained API calls and custom request parameters are required. Select the Advanced tab at the top of the configuration screen, and follow the instructions in Connect to Any API to configure the API method, endpoint URL, date/time and lookup macros, path to data, metadata, and request headers.
Blackboard Learn endpoints follow the format https://<your-learn-instance>/learn/api/public/v<n>/<resource> (for example, https://yourinstitution.blackboard.com/learn/api/public/v3/courses). The same endpoint may exist under multiple version prefixes (v1, v2, v3) — use the highest version that exposes the fields you need. List endpoints wrap records in a top-level results array alongside a paging object, so set the path to data to $.results[*]. The Authorization: Bearer ... header is applied automatically from your credential and does not need to be added manually.
Once all of the relevant settings have been configured, click the Create button in the upper right corner of the screen to save and create the new Blackboard LMS data source. Nexla will now begin ingesting data from the configured endpoint and will organize any data that it finds into one or more Nexsets.
Click the + icon on the Nexset that will be sent to the Blackboard LMS destination, and select the Send to Destination option from the menu. Select the Blackboard LMS connector from the list of available destination connectors, then select the credential that will be used to connect to the Blackboard Learn instance, and click Next; or, create a new Blackboard LMS credential for use in this flow.
Nexla provides pre-built templates that can be used to rapidly configure destinations to send data to common Blackboard Learn endpoints. Select the endpoint to which data will be sent from the Endpoint pulldown menu. Then, click on the template in the list below to expand it, and follow the instructions to configure additional endpoint settings.
Create or Update Grade
This endpoint writes or updates a single student grade on a specific gradebook column using PATCH /learn/api/public/v2/courses/{courseId}/gradebook/columns/{columnId}/users/{userId}. Use it for AI-driven score passback from external assessment, proctoring, or auto-grading systems.
Enter the course identifier in the Course ID field. This field is required. Use the Learn internal course ID (for example, _123_1). To drive the destination dynamically from the upstream Nexset, map an upstream attribute into this field.
Enter the gradebook column identifier in the Column ID field. This field is required (for example, _456_1). Column IDs can be obtained from the Get Gradebook Columns source endpoint.
Enter the user identifier in the User ID field. This field is required (for example, _789_1). Map this from the upstream Nexset to write grades for different users per record.
Each upstream record is sent as the JSON body of the PATCH call. Shape the upstream attributes to match the Learn grade schema, typically score, text, notes, and feedback.
Because this endpoint uses PATCH, only the fields included in the request body are modified; existing grade values on the column for the user are preserved.
Create Course Enrollment
This endpoint enrolls a user in a course with a specified role using PUT /learn/api/public/v1/courses/{courseId}/users/{userId}. Use it for SIS provisioning and automated onboarding workflows.
Enter the course identifier in the Course ID field. This field is required (for example, _123_1). Map this from the upstream Nexset to enroll into different courses per record.
Enter the user identifier in the User ID field. This field is required. Use the Learn internal user ID or the SIS-style externalId:NETID format.
Each upstream record is sent as the JSON body of the PUT call. Include the membership attributes expected by Learn, typically courseRoleId (such as Student, Instructor, TeachingAssistant), availability.available, and optionally childCourseId.
Use the Get Course Roles source endpoint to retrieve the canonical list of courseRoleId values supported on your Learn instance.
Create User
This endpoint provisions a new user account in Blackboard Learn using POST /learn/api/public/v1/users. Use it to onboard learners and staff from upstream SIS and HR systems.
No endpoint-specific parameters are required beyond selecting this template. Each upstream record is sent as the JSON body of the POST call.
Shape the upstream record to match the Learn user schema, typically including userName, password (or single sign-on configuration), externalId, studentId, name.given, name.family, contact.email, institutionRoleIds, and availability.available.
User provisioning typically requires the integration's Learn user to hold the System Administrator or equivalent entitlement. Confirm the entitlement assignment before activating this destination.
Create Course
This endpoint provisions a new course in Blackboard Learn using POST /learn/api/public/v3/courses. Use it for SIS-driven automated course creation each academic term.
No endpoint-specific parameters are required beyond selecting this template. Each upstream record is sent as the JSON body of the POST call.
Shape the upstream record to match the Learn course schema, typically including courseId (the institutional course code), externalId, name, description, termId, availability.available, and dataSourceId.
Use the Get Terms and Get Data Sources source endpoints to retrieve the termId and dataSourceId values that this endpoint expects.
Create Course Announcement
This endpoint posts a new announcement to a specific course using POST /learn/api/public/v1/courses/{courseId}/announcements. Use it for AI-generated notifications, deadline reminders, and other automated learner communications.
Enter the course identifier in the Course ID field. This field is required (for example, _123_1). Map this from the upstream Nexset to post announcements into different courses per record.
Each upstream record is sent as the JSON body of the POST call. Shape the upstream record to match the Learn announcement schema, typically including title, body (HTML), availability.duration.start, and availability.duration.end.
Announcement body values are stored as HTML. Wrap plain text from upstream sources in <p> tags so it renders correctly in the Blackboard Learn UI.
Blackboard LMS destinations can also be manually configured to send data to any valid Blackboard Learn REST API endpoint. Select the Advanced tab at the top of the configuration screen, and follow the instructions in Connect to Any API to configure the API method, data format, endpoint URL, request headers, attribute exclusions, record batching, and response webhooks.
Blackboard Learn accepts and returns application/json. Use the format https://<your-learn-instance>/learn/api/public/v<n>/<resource>, and for update or upsert operations include the ID of the object to be updated at the end of the URL (for example, the user ID for a PATCH grade update or a PUT enrollment call). The Authorization: Bearer ... and Content-Type: application/json headers are applied automatically from your credential and content-format configuration. Most Learn write endpoints accept a single record per call, so leave record batching disabled unless the target endpoint understands a custom batching algorithm. Enable the response webhook option to capture the Learn-assigned id returned by create endpoints and join it back to the originating upstream record.
Important
Manual endpoint tests will create, update, or delete real records on the target Blackboard Learn instance. Test against a sandbox or staging Learn instance when possible, or use throwaway data that can be safely removed.
Once all endpoint settings have been configured, click the Done button in the upper right corner of the screen to save and create the destination. To begin sending Nexset data to Blackboard Learn, open the destination resource menu, and select Activate.
The Nexset data will not be sent to Blackboard Learn until the destination is activated. Destinations can be activated immediately or at a later time, providing full control over data movement.
