I (Gary Roberts) recently wrote an article in Computers In Libraries (See reference below) magazine about combining the testing and registration features of TILT with the interactive IL content of TILT (Texas Information Literacy Tutorial). In the article, I discussed the process of importing TILT into the Blackboard course management system. One of the greatest challenges of our TILT/Blackboard integration was the fact that Blackboard 5.5 does not provide for durable hyperlinks, meaning that it is impossible to directly-link end-users from the TILT content to the Blackboard assessment. In the article, I discuss how I fashioned a work-around to the problem of getting an end-user from the tutorial to the actual Blackboard assessment. Unfortunately, this solution is somewhat convoluted and requires some Web trickery. Paul Pival at the University Of Calgary pointed out that durable links do, in fact, work in BB 6.0. As a result, librarians who are working on importing TILT into Blackboard 6.0 can direct-link end-users to the assessment (without convoluted Web trickery). A big thank you goes to Paul for spotting this new Blackboard feature.
Roberts, Gary. The Yin and Yang of Integrating TILT with Blackboard. Computers in Libraries, Sept. 2003, v.23, no. 8, page 10. (link goes to Academic Search Premier) (originally posted October 19, 2003)
