What is Lynda.com?

Lynda.com is a leading online learning platform that helps people learn business, software, technology and creative skills to achieve personal and professional goals. Through the University of North Texas subscription, UNT students and employees have access to the Lynda.com video library of engaging, top-quality courses taught by recognized industry experts. An integration with Blackboard enables instructors to link directly to Lynda.com content in their courses. Prior to linking any Lynda.com content into your Blackboard course you must authenticate your account.

Instructions to authenticate your UNT account with Lynda.com can be found here:

http://it.unt.edu/lynda

 If you are unable to get logged into Lynda.com at this point please contact the UIT Helpdesk at 940-565-2324.

Linking to Lynda.com Materials in Blackboard

In order to link Lynda.com materials to your Blackboard course, you will create a playlist.

• Navigate to your course where you want to add your Lynda.com playlist.
• From the Build Content menu select the Web Link option.

• Enter a name for the link in the Name blank.
• Enter this URL in the blank provided: https://www.lynda.com/portal/lti/playlist
• Place a check-mark in the checkbox for This link is a Tool Provider.
• Click Submit.

• Click the new link you have created. This will launch your Lynda.com account.

• From this screen you can create new playlists or select from playlists you have already created to link to your course site. (See the next section Creating Playlists for detailed instructions or click the Take the Guided Tour link to the left of Create a new playlist in Lynda.com in order to view a brief video.)

• Once you have selected playlists, you can return to your course and test your new playlist link.

Creating Playlists

To complete the process of using lynda.com videos in a Blackboard course, you need to create a playlist, add videos to the playlist, and link the playlist to the LMS (i.e., your Blackboard course). Do the following:

• Log in to Lynda.com
• Select Playlists from the drop down menu next to your name.

• Click Create new Playlist.
• Enter the Name as you would like it to appear in your My Playlist listing.
• Enter a Description if desired.
• Click Create to save your Playlist.

Now that you have created a blank playlist, you will need to search for videos to add to it.

• Scroll down and enter a word or phrase into the “Add to your playlist” search box.
• When you have found a video you would like to add to your playlist, click the + symbol to the right of the video title. Continue this process until you have added all of the videos you want to include in your playlist.

NOTE: If you like, you can select a subset of video lessons. If you only want particular videos in the playlist, you will need to “edit the playlist” to remove the unwanted video lessons, see below:

Editing a Playlist

• Select the playlist you want to edit.
• Click Edit Playlist to enter the playlist.
• Select the small drop down arrow to the left of the course name to expand the course components.
• Click each “-” minus-sign for a video you want to remove from your “customized” course. (HINT: lynda.com automatically saves your changes.) Continue this process until you have finished editing your playlist.

IMPORTANT: You must test this using the “Student Preview” feature, otherwise, clicking the link will launch you right back into your account.