02 October 2019 - Code released for integrating with REST and SIS using Python and Flask

DevCon 19

Tom Salyers supports and develops integrations for the University of Sheffield’s Blackboard Learn System. He attended the DevCon 19 in Austin, Texas through the ucisa bursary where he presented ‘Integrating with REST and SIS using Python and Flask’ and talked about some of the work he had been doing using Python and the Flask web framework to integrate with the Learn SIS framework and REST APIs in their system.

Following on from this, Tom has released some of the code https://github.com/SheffieldUni/bb_rest_integration

Tom adds, “This is an Experimental Flask integration layer between Blackboard and systems that can't handle OAuth2 token generation/caching or emitting JSON. Translates XML into JSON and transparently handles OAuth2 authorization.

It runs under Python 3.5+.

It currently requires a separate Redis installation for caching OAuth2 access tokens, but other caches are supported by the underlying Flask code. This is very much a work in progress, and only my second Flask app. Pull requests and improvements are very welcome.”