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Blackboard integration and logout when viewing a problem

Blackboard integration and logout when viewing a problem

by Christopher Duke -
Number of replies: 3

Hi,

I'm just logging this here as an issue with a solution so that it may hopefully help out other people. We have Webwork 2.16 set up to authenticate via Blackboard. Homework links were working perfectly for most students but we had two or three who could authenticate fine from Blackboard to the homework but once they clicked on a problem it brought them to the Webwork login page. It turned out that these few students were accessing the homework via the auto-generated link on the Blackboard calendar. Once they clicked the direct link it worked fine. In the process of debugging this I also noticed the same issue would occur if the homework wasn't opened in a new window when the link was clicked in Blackboard. When creating the homework link we had to ensure that ‘Open in New Window’ is set to ‘Yes’ in Web Link Options.


TLDR: Tell students not to access Webwork homework sets via the Blackboard calendar. Make sure when you create a new homework link in Blackboard to ensure that ‘Open in New Window’ is set to ‘Yes’ in Web Link Options’


All the best

Chris


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In reply to Christopher Duke

Re: Blackboard integration and logout when viewing a problem

by Alex Jordan -

This is the same issue that is discussed here:

https://webwork.maa.org/moodle/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=5597

In reply to Alex Jordan

Re: Blackboard integration and logout when viewing a problem

by Christopher Duke -

Yeah, similar issue but not exactly the same. Mine is related to Blackboard and clicking links in the Blackboard calendar. Whatever way the link was generated in the calendar was the main problem for us.

In reply to Christopher Duke

Re: Blackboard integration and logout when viewing a problem

by Alex Jordan -

The way cookies are used for session management is the commonality. So when a user clicks that link in the calendar, something about Blackboard or the web browser is preventing the browser from writing new cookie data to that user's local disk. If you could force that link to open in a new tab this seems to circumvent whateer blocks that cookie data from being written.

But alternatives that I think are discussed in that other thread are to (a) change the cookie settings on the WW server or (b) stop using cookies for session management (reverting to the older method of using session keys). If you do one of those things, the links in the calendar will become usable by your users.