The University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff has strengthened its position as a leader in digital learning by becoming one of the first institutions to test Coursera Inc.’s natively built, 1EdTech-certified LTI 1.3 integration — a secure, industry-approved technology standard that allows external learning platforms to connect directly inside a university’s learning management system, enabling single sign-on access and automatic grade-sharing.
As a result, UAPB is the first institution within the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Career Readiness Program to adopt this advanced integration.
This milestone reflects the leadership of Dora Sanders, director of the Center for Excellence in Innovative Teaching and Learning, who guided UAPB through the initial testing of the Blackboard integration with Coursera, according to a news release.
Blackboard is a learning management system used by students and faculty. At UAPB, Blackboard had previously been upgraded to Blackboard Ultra, which is a new, cleaner, more user-friendly platform, Sanders said.
Coursera is a global open online course provider that works with universities, corporations and organizations to offer online courses, certifications and degrees in a variety of subjects.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
UAPB students have a unique opportunity to enhance their academic journey with the resources provided by Coursera. This partnership, which aligns with UAPB’s focus on career readiness, allows students to earn industry-recognized credentials while pursuing their UAPB degree, according to the release.
Coursera for Campus is a career readiness program that connects HBCUs and Tribal Colleges and Universities with industry content from Coursera partners, including Google, IBM, Meta and Microsoft, according to Coursera’s fact sheet on the program.
“Participating institutions will integrate this content into curricula, measure student learning outcomes and employability (through pre- and post-testing) and participate in national research and publication opportunities highlighting their impact,” the fact sheet read.
Jennifer Campbell, higher education partnerships senior adviser for the Career Academy|Coursera for Campus, commended Sanders on her leadership.
“Dora’s leadership was critical in making UAPB a trailblazer for this new era of integration being offered by Coursera,” Campbell said. “By positioning UAPB as one of the very first institutions to test the Native LTI 1.3 with Blackboard, she didn’t just solve a technical challenge; she opened a doorway for students and faculty to access world-class industry credentials more effortlessly than ever before. Her commitment to excellence is what makes transformative partnerships like this possible.”
Sanders was introduced to Campbell and UAPB’s partnership with Coursera through Trina Fletcher, interim vice chancellor for research, innovation and economic development. Sanders told Fletcher that she would be attending the EDUCAUSE Annual Conference, which was held in October 2025 in Nashville, Tenn. Fletcher suggested that she connect with Campbell, who would also be attending EDUCAUSE.
“After meeting with Campbell, we discussed our partnership and how we were doing things. I told them that I was a learning management administrator and we were talking about how Coursera was going to integrate with the system,” Sanders said.
At the heart of the integration is LTI 1.3, a secure technology standard that allows Blackboard and Coursera to work together. For students, this means Coursera content appears directly inside Blackboard without requiring a separate login. For faculty, student progress and assignment grades flow automatically into the Blackboard gradebook.
“I recommended the integration because if a student is using Coursera materials, they shouldn’t have to log out of one system to log into another system. So just with the single sign-on, if you’re in Blackboard, you can go to the Coursera material inside of Blackboard,” Sanders said.
The process moved forward rather quickly after the team met with Nazish Ansari, a lead member of Coursera’s integration team, to discuss best practices and how UAPB would incorporate the technology into the system. The implementation occurred Jan. 8 as an in-kind service valued at approximately $10,000.
“We completed the integration so that they could see our side, the Blackboard side and their side actually meeting together. So we went into a course to make sure that we could actually see that everything was working properly, and how to get to the Coursera information and how to make it applicable in the grade book. … If a student submitted an assignment in the grade book, we could automatically see that in the grade book,” Sanders said.
“After doing our test run, we saw that we had successfully integrated our learning management system with Coursera. And UAPB is not only the first HBCU to integrate the LTI 1.3 tool, but we are the first school period who has integrated the LTI 1.3 tool into the learning management system,” Sanders said.
“I think that working with Coursera was very eye-opening to the fact that you know sometimes we think that we’re behind, but yet we are actually above the curve when it comes to technology and innovation.
“It just makes me feel good that we are more advance than what people really give us credit for,” Sanders said.