Blackboard Building Block

BSI is offered as a Blackboard Building Block

Experts have predicted that by 2015, there will be 25 million post-secondary students in the US taking classes online. While this growth is good news for students and online colleges, the need to manage the verification process of their students as required by federal law can be costly. Adding BSI as a technology partner will help Blackboardcustomers keep administrative tasks associated with their growth to a minimum and provide a transparent solution to students that is low-cost and easy to use while maintaining the highest level of student integrity.

BioSig-ID is a software-only multi-factor authentication process that provides institutions with a compliance solution to meet federal regulations requiring institutions to verify the identify of every online student for accreditation purposes. BSI’s Authenticate Student Identity Building Block solution can also help reduce helpdesk and proctoring costs.

Anyone can be verified using login credentials, BSI authenticates who is using those credentials.

BSI’s Identity Management software does not require any additional hardware or software downloads, can be used on any PC, tablet or smart phone device anywhere, anytime, does not collect personal identifying information, and tracks and reports all interactions. The cost for this technology is capped per student, which saves institutions and students money on additional examination proctoring fees while enabling them to verify the student’s identity at different times during the course.

How it Works

The typical use case for this Building Block is an instructor who wishes to verify a student’s identity before they are able to submit an assignment.  The workflow for implementing this would be as follows:

• Create the assignment to be released to students (but do not release it)
• On the same content page as the assignment, create an instance of the Biometric Signature ID tool
• Set the adaptive release rule for the assignment so that it is only released when an attempt has been made for the Grade Center column associated with the Biometric Signature ID tool instance
• Make the assignment available to students
• For students only the Biometric Signature ID tool will be visible; clicking on this item will redirect them to the BSI BioSig-ID identity verification system
• When the student has verified their identity the date and time are entered in their Grade Center column, thereby automatically making the assignment visible to them

The Building Block may be used with any content item, not just assignments.  It may also be used to release more than one content item by setting the same adaptive release rule for each one.