Publishing H5P in Blackboard

The following article covers how to publish a H5P interactive so that students are able to interact with it.

Before you publish a H5P 

It is a good idea to test your H5P functions as intended and to double-check that any answers are correct. Once you are sure that the H5P is ready for student use you can also check the following elements.

You should not use H5P for summative assessment 

It is critical to be aware that H5P is currently not suited for examination purposes as it is possible for students to cheat. This may be fixed in future revisions of the software, in which case this page will be updated. 

Adding Metadata 

If you intend to share the H5P with others in the future, it is useful to add Metadata information. Metadata provides information only available to editors about the H5P author, license, edits and comments.  The following article provides more information: Metadata in H5P. 

  1. Open the H5P and click the Edit button.
  2. Click the Metadata tag  near the H5P title to open the Metadata screen. 
  3. From this screen, you can enter the license information, data source, author details, and other license information. 
  4. Click Save metadata to commit the changes.

Turning off the Toolbar 

It is highly recommended to turn off the options to Allow users to Download the content and the Display Embed button as these allow students access to the H5P file.

  1. Open the H5P and click the Edit button.
  2. Scroll down to the Display Options tab located at the bottom of the H5P authoring screen.
  3. Uncheck the Toolbar Below Content option and Allow users to download the content.
  4. Make sure to click Save to commit the changes.

Publishing Options 

Once you are ready to publish your H5P, there are three publishing options available: 

  • Unpublished: Content can't be inserted into LMS. Students are unable to view the H5P.
  • Protected: Content can be inserted into LMS, and student results are tracked. 
  • Public: Visible to the public using a content link. Content can be inserted into LMS and embedded, Student results are not tracked. 

Protected mode is highly recommended when adding the H5P to a Blackboard unit site and it supports tracking student progress. Where sharing H5P content outside a Blackboard learning site or there is a requirement not to track student results, use the Public publishing option. Public publishing does not require a login to access, but it doesn’t mean that the content is made available on a public repository. The use of public publishing is not generally recommended for unit learning sites. 

  1. To change the publishing option, open the H5P and click Edit (note: you can also access a publish option from the ... menu at the top right)
  2. Navigate to the Publish tab located at the bottom of the H5P authoring screen. Select the publishing option you wish to use.
  3. Make sure to click Save to commit the changes.

Public H5Ps are not tracked 

Only Protected content will interact with the Blackboard Grade Centre. Public H5Ps do not register results in the Grade Centre, and H5P reports cannot be generated. 

Saving student progress in a H5P 

For some H5P content, students' progress can be saved. If a student's internet drops out while interacting with the H5P, it will resume from where they were up to when the page is reloaded. This option is currently available for interactive videos, course presentations, the documentation tool and quizzes. The data is only retained for 30 days. If the H5P is edited any associated autosave data is deleted. It is a good idea to ensure students are aware of these limitations.

Where the option to save progress is available it will be located under LTI Settings, which is located at the bottom of the H5P editor.

  1. Open the H5P and click on Edit. Scroll down to the LTI settings tab.
  2. Select the tick box Allow logged-in users to resume content. If it is not available, then saving progress is not currently possible.
  3. Make sure to click Save to commit the changes.

Publishing a H5P using the + plus button 

The easiest and most effective way to add a H5P interactive to a learning site is using the + plus button to add the H5P to an item in your Blackboard (Bb) learning site. This method provides easy-to-view Reports of student achievement for graded H5P interactives, and an Edit button that allows quick changes later. These buttons will appear at the top of the H5P when a tutor or lecturer accesses the Blackboard page. These options will be hidden from students.

A note about H5P sizing and white space 

By default, a H5P added to a Blackboard Item using the + Plus button has a width of 779px and a height of 600px, which can't be easily modified. On occasion, this may result in noticeable white space being shown below the H5P. 

There are three possible solutions:

  1. Live with it. Where the white space becomes a major issue you can contact the Centre for Teaching and Learning who may be able to provide a solution.
  2. Use embed code to make the H5P responsively fill the entire width of the browser window and remove the white space below. However, you will lose the ability to track student results and generate H5P reports. Follow the process outlined in the following article: Advanced: Publishing a H5P with embed code.
  3. Add custom H5P sizing using HTML and the Blackboard <> code editor however, this is beyond the scope of this article. 

Check Grade Centre after publishing a H5P

After you have published your H5P it is important to check the impact this has on the Blackboard Grade Center. Make sure that the H5P is not included in any grade centre calculations.

Check scores in Grade Centre

When you add H5P's to a Blackboard site, remember to double-check your Grade Centre! If the H5P is integrated into Grade Centre, make sure the column is not ticked to"Include this column in Grade Center calculations". Otherwise, the H5P results will be used to calculate running totals. For more information on how to setup your Grade Centre, please see the Knowledge Base articles on the Grade Centre. 

Generating a public link

Alternatively, H5Ps can be shared using external links instead of within a Blackboard site. These can be useful for sharing during online classes or through emails.

Using the Public publishing option will allow the H5P content to be viewed without requiring a login. Public doesn’t mean that the content will be available on a public repository.

Public H5Ps are not tracked

Only Protected content interacts with the Blackboard Grade Centre. When setting a H5P to Public, no results will register in the Grade Centre and no H5P reports can be generated. Anyone with the link will be able to open the H5P.

  1. Open the H5P and click on Edit. Scroll down to the Publish tab.
  2. Under the Publish tab, click the Public option and then click on the External Link to copy the link to the clipboard.
  3. Click Save to apply the permission changes.
  4. Right-click and choose paste to insert the copied link into webpages, emails or other places (or use the shortcut Ctrl + V). When students click on the link it will open the H5P in a browser window.


(Please note - it's better to refer to the Online version rather than export, as it's always up to date)