BlackBoard Course Migration To Moodle

Step-by-Step guide for migrating courses from the Blackboard standard version to moodle version > 1.9.

Table Of Contents

Black Board Categorisation
Objective
Solution
Download

Black Board Categorisation

For the purpose of course migration to Moodle, Blackboard can be categorised into 3 different systems, each with a different migration procedure.

CE 4.0/CE 4.1 (rebranded WebCT) [ can use the webctimport tool with the “IMS Content Migration Utility”]
Standard Blackboard (5.5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9.1) [ Follow the mentioned Process in this article]
Vista3/Vista4/Vista8 and CE 6/CE 8 (rebranded WebCT) [ backup files are encrypted so can not import that ]

“The following process tested on a standard blackboard 9.1 Q4 course export file and importing that into moodle 2.7 LTS after following below steps”

Objective

Migrating courses from blackboard Standard 9.1 Q4 version to Moodle 2.7, via exporting from Blackboard and importing that into Moodle.

** The reason to say moodle version > 1.9 is , all the versions utilise the moodle2 process to import and before moodle 2.0 (i.e moodle 1.9 and before) the process was different. However “ > moodle 2.0” was supplied with an inbuilt converter, which supports but upto a limit and without any assurity.

Solution

To achieve the target , you need to follow the below steps:

1 . Setup the Conversion Tool #step-1

2. Convert the exported BB (blackboard file) to Moodle 1.9 zip file via conversion tool #step-2

3 . Make some mentioned changes in moodle code and DB for moodle version > 1.9 #step-3

You can import it in moodle 1.9 and then upgrade moodle to 2.0 and export it to moodle 2 compatible import

4 . Import the Converted file into Moodle version > 1.9 #step-4

Step-1

Conversion Tool can be download from here or https://github.com/adamzap/reteach

or update version is available at : https://github.com/developerck/bb2moodle
Assuming that you are using linux environment.

Pre-requisite : python2 and pip is installed

If not , then install python 2 and pip first, steps are –

Check for python

>>> python --version

If python not found : https://www.python.org/downloads/

Install pip and setup tools

>>> sudo apt-get install python-setuptools

For PIP

>>> curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py -o get-pip.py

>>> python get-pip.py

Now you have installed Python and pip and I assume that you have downloaded the conversion tool zip file. Let’s say you are under the directory /var/www/html and conversion tool is present at /var/www/html/retach.zip

Unzip that file , the directory reteach should be created.
Go inside that directory , location /var/www/html/retach
Setup.py file will be there
Run following command >>> pip install .
Package has been installed, you can cross check via typing reteach >>> reteach
If reteach is not found than please try python reteach and try after running following command export PATH=$PATH:~/.local/bin

Step-2

You just need to run this command

>>> reteach bb-sample.zip -o moodle-file.zip

bb-sample.zip is then name of bb course zip file name . I assume that you are currently present under the directory where bb-sample.zip is present

moodle-file.zip will be converted zip file that will be used to import in moodle.

Step-3

If you are utilising moodle > 1.9, Update the following code

Line number 1257 File: backup/converter/moodle1/handlerlib.php

// replay the upgrade step 2011060301 – Rename field defaultgrade on table question to defaultmark
$data[‘defaultmark’] = $data[‘defaultgrade’];


       // code to add for for blackboard course
        $data['generalfeedbackformat'] = '1';
        $data['createdby'] = '2'; // can be change
        $data['modifiedby'] = '2'; // can be change
// END

And run the query: ALTER TABLE `mdl_qtype_match_subquestions` CHANGE `answertext` `answertext` TEXT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci NULL DEFAULT NULL;

Step-4

Import that moodle-file.zip into Moodle setup , and you are done.

Notes By DeveloperCK