Classroom management

When a Blackboard Collaborate session is created with the admin interface or the API, any user with the URL can access the session. This is normal behavior as no restrictions beyond the guest URL have been set. Users can freely add a name before joining the session.

Restrict access

You can restrict access to your session. Here's how.

  1. Remove user permissions in Session Settings. User permissions can be enabled by the moderator in-session. Limited permissions stop disruptive users since they won't be able to do anything when joining.

    The permissions are turned off for every participant in the session. If you want to let one participant talk or chat in the session, promote the participant to a presenter.

  2. Use the invitation feature from the admin scheduler. This involves manual work, but ensures that only authenticated users join the session.

    This isn't available to instructors who want to schedule sessions in their online course. Everyone in the course has secure access to the session that can't be shared.

  3. Leverage the Learning Management System (LMS) integration. From the LMS, users join the session using SSO, with their full name and picture. If students try to share the URL with an external, unauthenticated user, the external user gets an error when they try to access the session.
  4. Evolve the current portal to allow the following:
    1. Add users with the API. Collaborate users can be created from a form and validated against your records to make sure that only valid users access the sessions.
    2. Add enrollments with the API. Make sure only the required users can access the right sessions.