Deep linking for External users

A couple of years ago I created a simple tool to generate Deep Links into specific content areas of Blackboard courses or organisations. This works well for the majority of our Blackboard users who authenticate via Single Sign On.

Unfortunately this tool falls down when links are accessed by users with an ‘External’ account, typically students and staff outside of the university who need access to a course but do not have University accounts. Some work I’m currently supporting requires an easy way to signpost both UoB and External users from a website into related areas of a Blackboard course, so I’ve updated the tool to create an External User variant:

External Users Blackboard Deep Link Tool.

It’s quite niche, but I thought I’d share it in case it’s of use to University staff.