bb

bb is a command-line tool for interacting with a Blackboard Learn installation. With bb you can submit labs and projects from the comfort of your terminal. Currently it can be used with http://my.rochester.edu/ but it could have support added for other schools' installations.

bb is not affiliated with or endorsed by Blackboard Inc. or the University of Rochester. bb is made available under the terms of the MIT License.

Requirements

Most Linux or Mac OS X machines have these.

• bash
• curl
• sed
• openssl or python

Usage

$ bb <command> <args>

To test out that you can log in with bb, try this one:

bb courses

Querying grades

Get your grades for a course.

$ bb grades 280
Found CSC280 2014SPRING 29543 COMPUTER MODELS &LIMITATIONS.

1/27 Quiz
Jan 27, 2014 5:13 PM
Grade: 100.00/100
Average: 95.11
Median: 100

...

Downloading assignment files

bb materials [-v] [<course>] [<assignment_name>]

Check what materials have been uploaded for a course. Select and download one of those materials. Materials can be searched by assignment name, or partial matches, such as bb materials 245 lecture, which will return a list of documents that have lecture in their name.

$ bb materials 245 lab 2
Found ECE245 2014FALL 33530 WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS.
Target material: Lab 2
Downloaded Lab_2.pdf

Submitting an assignment

bb submit [<course> [<assignment>]] [-f <submission_file>] [-t <submission_text>] [-c <comments>]

The program reads your login info from ~/.netrc or prompts you to enter it.

$ bb submit csc172 sorts -f my_sorts.zip
Net ID: clehner
Password:

Then bb logs in with the given credentials. If login succeeds, it tries to find a course with a name matching what you gave it in the course argument.

Logged in as clehner.
Found CSC172 2012FALL 77613 THE SCI OF DATA STRUCTURES

bb then examines the course's Course Materials and looks for an assignment whose title matches the string given in the assignment argument.

Found 2 assignments.
1) Lab of 10/18: Sorts
2) Lab of 10/23: More Sorts
Choose an assignment: 1

bb then prompts you for a file if you didn't specify a submission in the arguments. Then the submission is sent.

Submission accepted.

You can also specify a plain text submission with -t, and submission comments with -c. The submission text can be instead of or in addition to a file. If you do not specify a submission file but you specify a submission text, you will not be prompted for the file.

Checking declining/Uros balance

bb balance [-d] [-u] [-v]

This command prints your account balances. For example:

$ bb balance
decl:   $ 516.42
uros:   $ 100.07

To specify either declining or Uros, Use the option -d or -u:

$ bb balance -d
516.42

Looking up tuition information

Get your current tuition statement:

$ bb bill

Get a PDF of your current statement:

$ bb bill --pdf my-statement.pdf

Get your history of tuition payments (in CSV format):

$ bb history

Making tuition payments

bb pay [-m <method>] [<amount>]

Example:

$ bb pay -m coop
Found Genesee Coop FCU (CHECKING XXXX)
Payment amount: 100 <---- user input

...

Confirm this payment? [y/n] n
Payment cancelled

Verbose mode

If bb has not been run recently, it will have to log in to Blackboard (and to the Sequoia system for the balance command). This may take a while.

To get a better idea of what is happening, you can use the -v option to increase verbosity. This is useful for debugging bb.

For example:

$ bb balance -d -v
Logged in.
Logged in to Sequoia.
516.42

To suppress the "Logged in..." messages, simply leave off the -v option.

Todo

• Allow specifying multiple files for submissions
• Add more commands
• Add help command for each command
• Allow fetching past tuition statements
• Show entire tuition statement (including charges)