Prepara and Blackboard

For instructors: start without IT

You can teach with Prepara today, with no Blackboard connection and no IT request.

1. Create an instructor account at app.preparacourse.com, or email admin@preparacourse.com and we set it up for you.
2. Create your Prepara section in the app (one section is one group of students).
3. Get your students in without any codes: import your roster (paste or drop the email list from your registrar export and everyone is matched by email, even students who sign up later), or turn on student self-registration so students find your section by your course number at the book's Get Access page. The setup gives you a short block of instructions to paste into your syllabus.

Everything then runs on Prepara itself: reading, lessons, checkpoint questions, and a gradebook you can download as a spreadsheet. More detail for instructors is on the instructors page.

Put Prepara inside Blackboard

If you want Prepara inside Blackboard with automatic grade sync, your school's Blackboard administrator registers it once.

You do not need to know anything technical: copy the email below and send it to your IT department. It has everything they need, including how to get the one Client ID the register screen asks for.

Copy the email for ITCopy the email for IT

Subject: LTI 1.3 registration request: Prepara courseware

Dear IT,

My course uses Prepara (app.preparacourse.com), a courseware platform, and I would like to request its registration in Blackboard Learn as an LTI 1.3 tool so students can open it from their course and grades can sync to the gradebook.

Prepara is registered centrally with the Anthology developer portal, so the setup on your side is entering one Client ID. Email admin@preparacourse.com and Prepara replies with the Client ID for Blackboard; then in the Administrator Panel, under Integrations, open LTI Tool Providers, press Register LTI 1.3/Advantage Tool, paste the Client ID, and press Submit. The URLs fill themselves. On the settings screen set Tool Status to Approved, tick the three User Fields to Send, and set Allow grade service access and Allow membership service access to Yes.

Requested services and why: Assignment and Grade Services (the tool creates its own gradebook columns and posts scores back, which is how students' work in the courseware reaches the gradebook) and Names and Role Provisioning Services (roster read, names and roles only, used to match enrolled students to their section). The tool needs each launch to include the student's name and email for that matching. Student records are handled under a standard FERPA school-official posture (https://preparacourse.com/privacy).

Once it is set up, could you send me two values so I can complete the link on my side: our Blackboard web address and the Deployment ID (shown on the tool's row in LTI Tool Providers)?

Thank you!

When IT finishes, they send back your Blackboard web address and the Deployment ID (the identifier on the tool's row in LTI Tool Providers). Email those to admin@preparacourse.com if IT has not already; we complete the registration on our side and confirm.

After that, open Prepara from your Blackboard course once. A chooser opens and asks you to pick which of your Prepara sections this Blackboard course should connect to; pick it, and the roster and the gradebook columns follow on their own.

For Blackboard administrators: the install

Prepara connects to Blackboard Learn through LTI 1.3, the standard connector for teaching tools. Blackboard splits the work in two on purpose: the tool's maker registers once with the Anthology developer portal (Anthology is the company behind Blackboard) and receives a Client ID, a long identifier for the tool.

Your side then registers that Client ID, and Blackboard fills the URLs itself from the central registry. Email admin@preparacourse.com and we reply with the Client ID for Blackboard.

1. Email admin@preparacourse.com for Prepara's Blackboard Client ID, the long identifier the register screen asks for.
2. Sign in to Blackboard Learn as an administrator and open the Administrator Panel.
3. Under Integrations, press LTI Tool Providers. This page is where Blackboard keeps its connections to outside tools.
4. Press Register LTI 1.3/Advantage Tool, paste the Client ID, and press Submit. The URLs fill themselves.
5. On the settings screen, set Tool Status to Approved, tick all three User Fields to Send (role, name, email address), set Allow grade service access and Allow membership service access to Yes, and press Submit.
6. Open the tool's row again and copy the Deployment ID, the identifier Blackboard assigns to your school's install.
7. Send the instructor (or admin@preparacourse.com directly) two values: your Blackboard web address and the Deployment ID.

That is the whole install. There is no server work on your side and no student accounts to create. Instructors then add Prepara to a course from the course's Content area (Build Content or the tools list, where approved LTI tools appear).

What the connection reads and writes

• Assignment and Grade Services: Prepara creates its own gradebook columns in Blackboard and posts scores into them, and any grade an instructor changes in Blackboard wins.
• Names and Role Provisioning Services: Prepara reads the course roster, names and roles only, to match students to their Prepara section.

Paid access is separate: each student's own Prepara account governs what they can read, and connecting Blackboard never changes who has paid access. Student records are handled under a FERPA school-official posture; the details are in the privacy policy. Questions from IT or from instructors both reach a person at admin@preparacourse.com.

Setup values

Blackboard fills these from the central registration when your administrator enters the Client ID, so they are here for reference only. There is no one-URL configuration for Blackboard; the register screen takes the Client ID instead. Nothing extra is needed for section matching: a Blackboard course connects to one Prepara section, picked the first time the instructor opens Prepara from the course.

OIDC initiation URL	https://preparacourse.com/api/lti/login (where Blackboard starts a sign-in)
Target link / redirect URI	https://preparacourse.com/api/lti/launch (what Blackboard opens)
JWKS URL	https://preparacourse.com/api/lti/jwks (our public keys, used to check signatures)
Permissions	Assignment and Grade Services (line items, scores, results) and Names and Role Provisioning Services (roster read)