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Thursday, 7/16/2009
DevCon '09: Demonstration and Technical Overview of the Blackboard LEC for Sakai
2:45 PM - 3:30 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - Chesapeake J/K

Speakers:
James M. Pease, Web Application Developer, Syracuse University

Jim Pease from Syracuse University will present his implementation of the Learning Environment Connector API to integrate the Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment with Blackboard Learn Release 9. His presentation will include a demonstration of the connector followed by a technical overview of the API and the Sakai implementation. Attendees will see features of the connector in action, learn about it's setup and configuration, and hear about implementation challenges and future direction.

DevCon '09: Developing for Blackboard Learn, Release 9 - Lessons Learned from the BETADEV Process
2:45 PM - 3:30 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - Chesapeake G/H

Speakers:
Malcolm R. Murray, LTT Leader, Durham University

Blackboard Learn, Release 9 sees significant changes for the developer, new tag libraries exposing the Ajax interface, stricter JSP checks by Apache/Tomcat 6. Dilemna: should you patch an existing version 6/7/8 building block and stick with the bbUI tags or convert/rewrite it for version 9 using only bbNG tags? This presentation follows my decision to take the purist route and "rewrite them for bbNG" informed and supported by my participation in the NG beta developer programme.

DevCon '09: Getting Started with Blackboard Building Blocks (Part I)
2:45 PM - 3:30 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - National Harbor 10/11

Speakers:
Rusty Klophaus, Product Manager, Blackboard

Learn the nuts & bolts of getting started with Blackboard Building Blocks including where to find relevant documentation and how to start and structure your project using an IDE.

Topics
Blackboard Led

DevCon '09: Oracle data recovery -or- "Sherman, set the WABAC machine to ..."
2:45 PM - 3:30 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - National Harbor 6

Speakers:
Glen Parker, System Administrator, University of South Florida
Scott Wurzel, System Administrator/DBA, University of South Florida

Flashback queries can be used to seamlessly bring back Oracle database data that is otherwise irretrievably deleted. Recover deleted tests, recover recycled courses, rebuild an accidentally deleted Guest user. This talk will go over the prerequisites to using Flashback, and then cover scenarios that the author has encountered in day to day operations. Also, we'll setup a simple backup and recovery system using RMAN, the Oracle Recovery Manager.

Topics
Disaster Preparedness

DevCon '09: Student Identity Verification - Best Practices and Practical Experience
2:45 PM - 3:30 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - National Harbor 7

Speakers:
Michael Jortberg, Education Industry Leader, Acxiom Corporation

This presentation will describe and demonstrate how to verify a student's identity.

Rather than relying on proctored exams and/or passwords that can be shared, this approach ensures a student taking an online assessment is who they say they are.

Attendees will learn from experiences at National American University and several others how a simple implementation will increase integrity in your online program. We will demonstrate to give the audience a first hand view of a faculty and student's identity verification experience, as well as plenty of time for Q&A.

Presentation Topics will include: Costs and Benefits to ensuring Student Identity
Assessment and Authentication Strategies
Reporting and analysis of Student Identity
Fraud and academic integrity
Privacy

This is designed for customers using Angel, Blackboard Learn, Release 8 and 9 and Blackboard Learning System Vista and CE Licenses, Release 8.

Topics
Partner Led

DevCon '09: An Open Source Google Apps Integration from Northwestern University
4:00 PM - 4:45 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - Chesapeake J/K

Speakers:
Patricia Goldweic, Senior Software Engineer, Northwestern University

In an effort to leverage the collaboration features provided by the Google Apps platform, Academic and Research Technologies at Northwestern is developing a building block and related software components that enable the easy access and sharing of Google content from within Blackboard. Features include single sign on, automated account provisioning, and automated sharing of Google content through an instructors' linking/book marking tool. We plan to describe the technical components and demonstrate its use at Northwestern.

DevCon '09: Blackboard Learn, Release 9 Technical Architecture
4:00 PM - 4:45 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - National Harbor 6

Speakers:
John Fontaine, Senior Director, Technology Evangelism, Blackboard

Blackboard Learning System - CE & Vista License administrators take note - attend this session to get an overview of the product architecture for Blackboard Learn, Release 9. We'll show you how to take advantage of the changes, enhancements, and new functionality.


IT Scalability and Strategies

Topics
Blackboard Learn, Release 9, Blackboard Led, Openness and Extending Blackboard Software

DevCon '09: Getting Started with Blackboard Building Blocks (Part II)
4:00 PM - 4:45 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - National Harbor 10/11

Speakers:
Priyanka Gupta, Principal Software Engineer, Blackboard

Continue your investigation of Building Blocks with exposure to additional Blackboard APIs and instruction on how to leverage the Blackboard look & feel in your application.

Topics
Blackboard Led

DevCon '09: Navigating the Path from Deployable Components to Blackboard Building Blocks
4:00 PM - 4:45 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - Chesapeake G/H

Speakers:
Stephen P. Vickers, eLearning, The University of Edinburgh

This presentation seeks to describe the issues arising for developers seeking to migrate outbound authentication deployable components to Building Blocks to work under the new Learn 9 environment. Whilst there is a challenge for developers to acquire new skills and experience, there are also new opportunities to take advantage of the more extensive integration points offered by the building block technology.

DevCon '09: Advanced System Administration Topics Roundtable
5:00 PM - 5:45 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - Chesapeake G/H

Speakers:
Curtis Lane, Client Support Engineer, Blackboard
Sherryl Meads, Client Support Engineer, Blackboard
John Porter, Manager, Client Support, Blackboard
Matt Saltzman, Client Support Engineer, Blackboard

Topics
Blackboard Led

DevCon '09: Blackboard Building Blocks Best Practices
5:00 PM - 5:45 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - National Harbor 10/11

Speakers:
Heather Natour, Development Manager, Blackboard

Taking advantage of industry best practices is a proven way to improve the quality of your development and deployment of new applications. Without doubt, proven best practices can improve your users' experiences. In this session we'll cover best practices that Blackboard has compiled for building, testing and deploying Building Blocks.

Topics
Blackboard Led

DevCon '09: Developer Focus Group
5:00 PM - 5:45 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - National Harbor 7

Speakers:
Bob Alcorn, Chief Architect, Blackboard
Rusty Klophaus, Product Manager, Blackboard
George K. Kroner, Developer Relations Engineer, Blackboard
Barry Lind, Chief Architect, Blackboard Learn, Blackboard
Dan Rinzel, Senior Technical Product Designer, Blackboard

Virtual developer environments? Web APIs? Better standards compliance or support for industry-transforming technologies? Tell the Blackboard Developers Network team what you need and help shape the future API and developer program roadmap.

Topics
Blackboard Led

DevCon '09: Performance Optimization of Blackboard Learn
5:00 PM - 5:45 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - National Harbor 6

Speakers:
Mesfin Mulugeta, Principal Software Engineer, Blackboard
Pengfei Wu, Software Performance Engineer, Blackboard

Join us as we review the critical areas to optimize in Blackboard Learn from a configuration standpoint. This session covers not just where to optimize, but how to determine that you need to optimize.


IT Scalability and Strategies

Topics
Blackboard Led

DevCon '09: The "My Courses" Module - An Enhanced Design
5:00 PM - 5:45 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - Chesapeake J/K

Speakers:
Ashraf Amrou, Tech Lead, e-Learning Systems, Old Dominion University

This presentation introduces an enhanced 'My Courses' module. The main enhancements this module provides are ease-of-use, in-place configuration, and grouping of courses. The courses are organized into a collapsible four-level tree structure (Level 1 represents user roles, level 2 represents semesters, level 3 represents individual courses, and level 4 provides additional details such as listing the instructor names). The user can expand/hide any portion of the tree with a single mouse click.



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Friday, 7/17/2009
DevCon '09: Blackboard Learn and Virtualization
10:30 AM - 11:15 AM
Gaylord National Convention Center - National Harbor 6

Speakers:
Anand Gopinath, System Performance Engineer, Blackboard
Nakisa Shafiee, Senior Software Performance Engineer, Blackboard


IT Scalability and Strategies

Topics
Blackboard Led

DevCon '09: Implementing a Custom Authentication Method for publishing content to Blackboard
10:30 AM - 11:15 AM
Gaylord National Convention Center - Chesapeake G/H

Speakers:
Susan Evans, CEO, SoftChalk LLC
Jeffrey Kahn, President, Verbena Consulting

SoftChalk LessonBuilder is a desktop application that allows the easy creation of interactive lesson content for delivery in Blackboard. A new LessonBuilder feature allows users to "publish" their SoftChalk content directly into their Blackboard course. To facilitate this new functionality,SoftChalk designed a custom authentication method to allow users to connect to their Blackboard from the SoftChalk LessonBuilder GUI. In this session we will demonstrate the new feature and discuss how the custom authentication method operates.

DevCon '09: Integrating Microsoft Live@edu with Blackboard is easier than you think
10:30 AM - 11:15 AM
Gaylord National Convention Center - Chesapeake J/K

Speakers:
Karl Riddle, Information Tech Analyst, University of Cincinnati

Students at the University of Cincinnati have access to email, a 25Gb SkyDrive, and Windows Meeting Spaces, all via a single click in Blackboard. This session will provide an overview of Microsoft Live@edu and how easy it was to create a Blackboard Building Block that offered students one click access to some very powerful tools. Ideal for both executives and technical staff as well.

DevCon '09: The Blackboard Learn Developers Roadmap
10:30 AM - 11:15 AM
Gaylord National Convention Center - National Harbor 10/11

Speakers:
Bob Alcorn, Chief Architect, Blackboard

This session will present a roadmap for the technology innovations in upcoming releases resulting from Blackboard Learn, Release 9. From the new User Experience to Proxy Tools, Blackboard Sync, Web Services and the Learning Environment Connector API, see how our upcoming releases are defining a new Global e-Learning Architecture. Blackboard Learn's Chief Architect, Bob Alcorn will describe the technologies under development and how they fit together to create the most visionary, open, and extensible e-Learning platform on the market.

Topics
Blackboard Led

DevCon '09: Blackboard Learn Content Management APIs & Xythos Architecture
11:30 AM - 12:15 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - National Harbor 10/11

Speakers:
John Barone, Senior Architect, Blackboard

Learn how Xythos content solutions fit into your campus-wide architecture, and see how you can use APIs to import content, tag files with metadata, and support workflows within the Blackboard Learn Content Management Module.

Topics
Blackboard Led, Openness and Extending Blackboard Software

DevCon '09: Co-Production Capabilities: Upgrading from Blackboard Learning System - CE License, Release 8 to Blackboard Learn, Release 9
11:30 AM - 12:15 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - National Harbor 6

Speakers:
Matt Brady, Client Support Engineer, Blackboard

Thinking about your upgrade path to Blckboard Learn, Release 9 from CE or Vista, Release 8? Join us for this session as we show you how to setup and configure your implementation to run in co-production mode with Release 9. This includes moving users from Release 8 to Release 9 in co-production, moving Release 8 courses to Release 9 in co-production and setting up the integrated environment. Regardless of your operating system, you need a plan that allows users to seamlessly access and move between both systems - this session will show you how.

Topics
Blackboard Learn, Release 9, Blackboard Led

DevCon '09: Meet the Blackboard User Experience Team
11:30 AM - 12:15 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - National Harbor 7

Speakers:
Tom Brown, Senior User Interface Designer, Blackboard
Linas Laucys, Principal User Interface Design, Blackboard

Topics
Blackboard Led

DevCon '09: OSCELOT, Open Source, and You
11:30 AM - 12:15 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - Chesapeake G/H

Speakers:
Paul Erickson, Academic Technology & Middleware Coordinator, University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Malcolm R. Murray, LTT Leader, Durham University
Mark A. O'Neil, and Board of Directors, OSCELOT, Curricular Systems Engineer, Dartmouth College

Communities of open source developers are creating innovative and valuable tools to enhance students' learning experiences. The challenge for many institutions is discovering these tools, being able to evaluate their robustness, and understanding how to incorporate them into their eLearning strategy and technology platform. This panel session will highlight innovative tools, open source eLearning resources and how you can get involved with an open source community for educational learning objects and tools (OSCELOT).

Topics
Openness and Extending Blackboard Software

DevCon '09: Using .NET & Java with the Blackboard Web Services
11:30 AM - 12:15 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - Chesapeake J/K

Speakers:
Lance Neumann, Senior Software Architect, Blackboard

.NET developers (and developers using other languages as well) gain new capabilities to interconnect with their Blackboard Learn environment in Release 9. See how you can use Java and .NET to connect to the product's built-in Web Services to create, read, update and delete data.

Topics
Blackboard Led, Openness and Extending Blackboard Software

DevCon '09: Mobile Blackboard at University of Maryland, College Park
1:30 PM - 2:15 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - Chesapeake J/K

Speakers:
Tandeep Sidhu, Application Developer, University of Maryland, College Park

As more and more students are using web enabled devices, there is a demand for mobile access to Blackboard. Come and learn how University of Maryland, College Park built a mobile optimized version of Blackboard using Building Block Web Services. The students can view Course Announcements, Grades, Documents, and Discussion Board entries through this application.

DevCon '09: Monitoring Blackboard for Performance and Availability
1:30 PM - 2:15 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - National Harbor 6

Speakers:
Nick J. McClure, Lead Systems Programmer, University of Kentucky

Discuss different types of Application and Server monitoring that can be used to determine the uptime and performance of the Blackboard Application, Database Servers, and Network. We'll talk about the types of tools that can be used, and what information to provide to management, support staff and users.

DevCon '09: Proxy Tools & Web Services (Part I)
1:30 PM - 2:15 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - National Harbor 10/11

Speakers:
George K. Kroner, Developer Relations Engineer, Blackboard
Lance Neumann, Senior Software Architect, Blackboard

Investigate how to build the newest type of Blackboard plugin technology - the Blackboard Proxy Tool. Based on the IMS Learning Tools Interoperability 2.0 specification, Proxy Tools are interoperable learning applications that can be hosted externally to your Blackboard environment and accessed from multiple learning environments. See a working Proxy Tool running in the Google App Engine.

Topics
Openness and Extending Blackboard Software

DevCon '09: The Vanderbilt iTunes U Building Block v2
1:30 PM - 2:15 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - Chesapeake G/H

Speakers:
Cindy Franco, OAK Manager, Vanderbilt University
Gabor Pap, Senior Research Engineer, Vanderbilt University

Apple's iTunes U platform extends the iTunes Store to work for educational organizations, so users can easily search, download, and play educational content just like they do with music, movies, and TV shows. The iTunes U Building Block developed by Vanderbilt provides a secure gateway between these two powerful platforms.

DevCon '09: Debugging Building Blocks Issues
2:30 PM - 3:15 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - National Harbor 10/11

Speakers:
Kevin Borgeson, Services Consultant, Blackboard

Topics
Blackboard Led, Openness and Extending Blackboard Software

DevCon '09: Project NG: Exploring Mashup & Web 2.0 Content Capabilities
2:30 PM - 3:15 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - Chesapeake G/H

Speakers:
Dan Rinzel, Senior Technical Product Designer, Blackboard

Topics
Blackboard Led, Openness and Extending Blackboard Software

DevCon '09: Upgrading from Blackboard Learning System "Classic" to Blackboard Learn, Release 9
2:30 PM - 3:15 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - National Harbor 6

Speakers:
Volker Kleinschmidt, Senior Client Support Engineer, Blackboard

During the first half of 2009, Blackboard Client Support has been helping clients around the world upgrade their Testing and Production instances of Blackboard Learn Classic, Release 8 to Blackboard Learn Release 9.0. In this session, engineers from Blackboard Client Support will review best practices for upgrading, the order of upgrade steps, as well as any known obstacles that early adopters have already successfully overcome. Regardless of if your system runs on a Windows or a UNIX operating system, if you are planning to upgrade to Blackboard Learn Release 9.0 this session can help you understand how to prepare and execute a successful upgrade.

Topics
Blackboard Learn, Release 9, Blackboard Led

DevCon '09: Web Services: Approaches and Applications
2:30 PM - 3:15 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - Chesapeake J/K

Speakers:
George K. Kroner, Developer Relations Engineer, Blackboard
Andrew Martin, Computing Officer, Newcastle University
Mark A. O'Neil, and Board of Directors, OSCELOT, Curricular Systems Engineer, Dartmouth College

A discussion of the main two approaches to enabling deeper data integration of web service enabled applications to and from blackboard; including a brief look at the functionality of blackboard's officially provided webservices in v9, project oscelot's webservices project. This will be followed by a run through of possible and emerging applications of these technologies.

DevCon '09: AJAX + JSON Lessons Learned
3:30 PM - 4:15 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - Chesapeake G/H

Speakers:
Jim Riecken, Senior Software Engineer, Blackboard

Blackboard Learn, Release 9 uses a totally-redesigned Web 2.0 user interface. Come hear about our lessons learned and best practices if you plan to use similar technologies in your applications.

Topics
Blackboard Led

DevCon '09: DIY Suggstions Box
3:30 PM - 4:15 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - Chesapeake J/K

Speakers:
Glen Parker, System Administrator, University of South Florida

A suggestion box provides a voice to people and let you hear ideas you might otherwise have missed. We'll build a suggestion box in Blackboard from start to finish. We'll talk about the design, the data storage, the communications elements, the integration points, and the miscellany that goes into a finished project. If that's too much, the block is pure Blackboard, and can simply be downloaded.

DevCon '09: User Interface Customization Techniques
3:30 PM - 4:15 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - National Harbor 10/11

Speakers:
Linas Laucys, Principal User Interface Design, Blackboard
Dan Rinzel, Senior Technical Product Designer, Blackboard

Learn how to customize the Blackboard Learn GUI with the Theme and Branding capabilities built into Release 9. See how you can edit the product's CSS files and use the tag libraries to render a highly-tailored user experience.

Topics
Blackboard Led, Openness and Extending Blackboard Software

DevCon '09: Using MyEclipse for Custom Blackboard Reports
3:30 PM - 4:15 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - National Harbor 6

Speakers:
Celine Lemarinier, Web Application Developer, Innovative Technology Center - University of Knoxville Tennessee
Mark Spurlock, Technical Systems Development Manager, Innovative Technology Center - University of Knoxville Tennessee

An actively used Blackboard installation is a repository of information that could provide us with valuable insight into the behavior, habits, and needs of our institution's users. Campus leadership, therefore, desires reports that extract and present this information in a useful format. At UTK, we have developed a well presented and personalized solution for generating reporting templates with an easy-to-use interface. This session demonstrates how to build Blackboard-based reports using the 'MyEclipse' IDE.

DevCon '09: Web Services Brainstorming with Mark and Andrew
3:30 PM - 4:15 PM
Gaylord National Convention Center - National Harbor 7

Speakers:
Andrew Martin, Computing Officer, Newcastle University
Mark A. O'Neil, and Board of Directors, OSCELOT, Curricular Systems Engineer, Dartmouth College



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