When you configure or provide support for a Blackboard activity monitored with SMOWL, you sometimes need to unambiguously identify that specific activity: its Activity ID (Content ID) within Blackboard. This guide explains how to get it using the public REST API (Application Programming Interface) of Blackboard Learn.
Why do you need this ID?
The Activity ID uniquely identifies a test or quiz within a Blackboard course. It comes in useful when you need to:
Confirm with the Smowltech support team exactly which activity has, or should have, SMOWL enabled, when a course includes several similarly named activities.
Provide precise context when opening a ticket about a specific activity.
Check that the activity is of a type SMOWL supports in Blackboard.
Important: In Blackboard, SMOWL can only monitor tests and quizzes created with Blackboard's native assessment tool (contentHandler: resource/x-bb-asmt-test-link). It cannot monitor Assignments or external tools.
Before you start
You need an active session in your Blackboard instance (
https://your-domain.blackboard.com).You need to know the course where the activity is located.
You don't need to register an application: you can open these endpoints directly in your browser, in the same tab where your Blackboard session is active. If your institution adds extra security restrictions, you may need a registered OAuth 2.0 integration (Application Key/Secret); if so, check with your Blackboard administrator.
You can run these queries as any Blackboard user: administrator, instructor, or even a student. The API always respects the permissions of whoever is logged in. An administrator sees every course; an instructor or student only sees the courses they're enrolled in. We recommend using an administrator account, or the course instructor's account, to see all the information.
Step 1. Get the course's internal ID
Open this URL in your browser. Replace {your-domain} with your Blackboard instance's domain and {course-UUID} with the course's UUID (Universally Unique Identifier):
https://{your-domain}.blackboard.com/learn/api/public/v1/courses/uuid:{course-UUID}
The response is a JSON object (structured text data) with the course's information. The id field — formatted similarly to _133_1 — is the course's internal ID, which you'll need for the next step.
Don't have the course UUID on hand? Blackboard also lets you reference the course by its Course ID, the code visible in the course settings within Blackboard's own interface. Replace uuid:{course-UUID} with courseId:{Course-ID-visible-in-Blackboard} in the same URL.
Sample response:
Step 2. Check the course's activities and locate the ID
Using the course id from the previous step, open this URL:
https://{your-domain}.blackboard.com/learn/api/public/v1/courses/uuid:{course-UUID}/contents?recursive=true&contentHandler=resource/x-bb-asmt-test-link
Parameter | What it does |
| Tells the API to also search inside every folder and subfolder in the course, not just its top level. |
| Filters the results to show only tests and quizzes native to Blackboard: the only activity type SMOWL can monitor on this platform. |
How to read the response
The response includes a list (results) of every gradable activity in the course. Each item includes:
id: the Activity ID you're looking for, the unique identifier for that activity in Blackboard (for example,_500_1).title: the activity's name, useful for identifying it visually.contentHandler.assessmentId: the identifier of the associated assessment. It's different from the Activity ID and isn't the one you need for SMOWL.contentHandler.gradeColumnId: the identifier of the linked grade column.
Always use the content item's id field, never the assessmentId, as the Activity ID when talking to the Smowltech support team or configuring the activity.
Identify a specific user (optional)
If you need to confirm the internal identifier of a specific student or instructor, for example to review a particular case, check:
https://{your-domain}.blackboard.com/learn/api/public/v1/users/uuid:{user-UUID}
The id field in the response is that user's internal ID in Blackboard. If you query this endpoint as a non-administrator user, the information returned will be limited to that user's permissions.
What do I do with this ID?
Share the Activity ID, and the Course ID if relevant, with the Smowltech support team when opening a ticket about that activity. It's also useful if you manage SMOWL's settings through the SMOWL public API or mySmowltech, where you can configure several activities across different courses at once.
Do you have more questions? Browse our related articles or contact our support team via chat. You can open it by clicking the owl in the bottom right corner of this page.