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Learning Object Repository and Institutional Hierarchy

The Learning Object Repository (LOR) gives institutions a centralized way to create, manage, and distribute materials across thousands of courses with consistency and efficiency. By supporting native Blackboard objects and not just files, the LOR improves accessibility, reduces duplicate content, and automatically delivers updates to every course using material from the LOR. At the same time, it preserves the integrity of past courses.

With support for Institutional Hierarchy, the LOR becomes even more powerful. Each node in your hierarchy—such as a college, school, or department—has its own dedicated repository. This model supports delegated ownership, clearer governance, and granular control over who can create and manage shared content. Institutions can scale their content strategy and empower the right teams at the right levels across the entire organization.

The Relationship Between Institutional Hierarchy and the Learning Object Repository

When you structure your Institution using Institutional Hierarchy (IH), each node in the hierarchy directly influences how repositories are created, named, and organized in the Learning Object Repository (LOR). The behaviors below describe how nodes and their corresponding repositories stay in sync.

  1. Creating nodes

    • When a new node is created in Institutional Hierarchy, the system automatically sets up a repository with the exact same name.

    • This ensures that every college, school, department, or unit has its own dedicated space for creating and managing LOR objects.

  2. Editing node names

    • Renaming a node will automatically rename its corresponding repository.

    • This keeps naming consistent between the hierarchy structure and the LOR, preventing confusion or mismatched references.

  3. Deleting nodes

    • When a node is deleted, its corresponding repository is deleted as well.

    • All objects within that repository become orphaned:

      • They remain in the courses and organizations where they were used.

      • They no longer stay in sync with the LOR.

      • Instructors and course owners gain full editing control over those orphaned objects.

  4. Moving nodes

    • Moving a node to a new location within the Institutional Hierarchy updates the breadcrumb path displayed for that repository in the LOR Management View.

    • This ensures that the visual structure in the LOR always reflects the institution’s actual hierarchy.

Grant a user the ability to manage objects for a specific node

Administrators can delegate the management of the Learning Object Repository by assigning users with the necessary privileges to specific nodes. This can be achieved by creating a custom role that includes the necessary privileges (or adding those privileges to an existing role), and giving that role to a user.

  1. On the Admin Panel, in the Communities module, select Institutional Hierarchy.

  2. Select the node you want to add the user to.

  3. Select the Administrators tab.

  4. Select Add Administrator.

  5. Select Browse.

  6. Select the user you want to add.

  7. Select Submit.

  8. Under Roles, select your custom role with the necessary privileges.

  9. Select Submit.