Blackboard has always been known for being the one that helps schools bring their classrooms online. Now, they're giving their users the chance to be a part of its system updates.
Blackboard announced Monday it would host the first round of its inaugural "Hackboard" Hackathon online through June 19. The idea is to curate ideas from developers and college students in the United States for a "unique, user-friendly and impactful" application to integrate in Blackboard's Learn learning management system, according to a press release.
But "hackathon" might not be the best term for it. See, the edtech company is hosting something more in-line with an online contest: Developers and students can submit the code for their app along with a five-minute video demonstrating how their integration would work with Blackboard's management system. The first round will be judged by a panel of experts from Blackboard, IBM and Amazon Web Services to select one winning student and one winning developer to pitch their ideas at DevCon, Blackboard's annual developers conference at the end of July in New Orleans, to an audience, who will pick the official winner.
"Blackboard Learn is an open platform for building robust integrations. This openness has expanded exponentially with the release of REST APIs in April 2016," said Blackboard Senior Content Designer Scott Hurrey. "While we are continuing to expand the reach of the REST APIs, we are at a place now where there are a lot of exciting things that can be done with them. A hackathon is a great way to introduce these to a larger audience."
The company started thinking about the idea for the hackathon last year while planning DevCon 2016. APIs were live and available; Blackboard client and partner developers were eager to find a way to test them. A hackathon just seemed right, Hurrey said.
When all is said and done, we hope to see new, innovative solutions to problems in teaching and learning.
"At that time, however, we decided that we wanted to harden the APIs a bit, get them exposure and real-life usage before we opened them up to the world," Hurrey said. "We started to research the best way to host the hackathon immediately following DevCon 2016, and planning began in earnest in December."
In addition to being able to present at the annual conference, the winning developer will receive $2,000, a trophy and an additional 20-minute session at the conference to present their project. The student will just receive a trophy and the same additional 20-minute solo session at the conference, according to the release.
"This year’s Hackboard will be the first of many," Hurrey said. "The scope for this year is to allow individual developers located in the U.S. to be able to compete for prizes and recognition, as either a student of a U.S. higher education institution or a developer."
"When all is said and done, we hope to see new, innovative solutions to problems in teaching and learning."
