The following are TECHNICAL questions and issues that administrators and users have raised with Blackboard about the Scholar service. (>>View Admin USER Rollout Questions)
Q: Please explain the Scholar infrastructure.
A: Scholar consists of two parts:
- a Building Block or PowerLink which is installed on the Blackboard Learning System server by the system administrator.
- Scholar, a centralized, web-based application hosted by Blackboard.
The Building Block and Powerlink allow Blackboard users to create accounts on the Scholar service, manage single sign-on between the Blackboard system and the Scholar service, and embed the integration points for Scholar (e.g. course tools) in the Blackboard Learning System.
After the end user has created an account on the Scholar service, which must be done from the Blackboard Learning System, single sign-on between the the Blackboard Learning System and the Scholar service is enabled and login occurs seamlessly.
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Q: What are the performance/technical impact on our Blackboard Learning System server?
A: Minimal. Fundamentally, the building Block or PowerLink is simply providing authentication from the Blackboard Learning System to the Scholar service. Once the user has been authenticated into Scholar, the load is handled by the Scholar service, not the local Blackboard Learning System installation. Usage of Scholar service by your institution's Blackboard users should have negligible impact on the operation of your Blackboard Learning System.
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Q: Does single sign-on to Scholar depend upon our existing Blackboard Learning System authentication? Does it matter what authentication approach we are using?
A: Single sign-on into Scholar does not rely upon the local Blackboard Learning System's authentication mechanism. Instead, the Building Block or PowerLink uses a shared secret mechanism to establish a trust relationship between the local Blackboard Learning System server and the Scholar service, and uses this to manage single sign-on. This approach is independent of any authentication mechanism on the local Blackboard Learning System installation.
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Q: What user-specific data is stored in Scholar?
A: Scholar requests data from the Blackboard Learning System as needed for each session, and does not store Blackboard Learning System data in the Scholar database. For example, when the user is authenticated into Scholar, the Scholar service requests course and enrollment information from their Blackboard Learning System account(s). This information is used to generate Course Tags, unique to that user's enrollments, which the user can use to categorize their resources for user in courses. Only users enrolled in a course can see and use the Course Tag for that course. The only user-specific data stored in Scholar is an encoded version of Blackboard Learning System database primary key for a Blackboard user. This information is not human-readable. The Scholar service's database does not store individual Blackboard Learning System usernames, nor does it store user's course enrollment data.
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Q: How secure is communication between our Blackboard Learning System and the Scholar service?
A: Blackboard has endeavored to make communication between your Blackboard Learning System and Scholar as secure as possible. Authentication, single sign-on, and any other communication between Scholar and the Blackboard Learning System server that contains user-identifiable information, such as course enrollments, is encrypted using a shared secret mechanism. Multiple measures have been employed to prevent attackers from sniffing network traffic to spoof requests between Scholar and the Blackboard Learning System.
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