In recent months, many folks (myself included) have been frustrated by a sudden incompatibility between SNAPP and the latest version of popular browsers and Java. SNAPP (Social Networks Adapting Pedagogical Practice) is a highly useful tool for visualizing discussion board activity in Blackboard, Moodle, and Sakai. I have wanted to use it, and to recommend it to others. With this work around, I can do both.

I should note up front, that I have only successfully implemented this work around on my own desktop environment, and have not tested it on other platforms or using other versions. If this works for you under other conditions, or if you find other more versatile work arounds, please post to the comments.

The environment in which I have been able to successfully launch SNAPP is as follows:

• OS X version 10.9
• Safari 7.0 (I still cannot get SNAPP to function in Firefox [which is famously incompatible with bookmarklets since version 21] or Chrome [which is 32 bit, and so is incompatible with my 64 bit Java environment)
• Java version 7 update 15
• Blackboard Learn Release 9.1 service pack 11

Under these conditions, getting SNAPP to work is actually…well, a snap!

1. In the Java Control Panel (System Preferences –> Java), go to the Security tab and edit the Site List to include both the code source and the base url from which you expect to launch the SNAPP applet. (If you point to http://www.snappvis.org, then Java will yell at you for not using https. You’ll have to accept, or else host the code in some other more secure location. So it goes.)

2. Click OK to commit the changes.

3. Hurray!!!

In addition to the primary website for the SNAPP tool (http://www.snappvis.org), Sandeep Jayaprakash from Marist College has provided some excellent documentation on installing SNAPP to work on a local machine. well worth checking out: https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=84902193