What is an LTI component?

Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) facilitates seamless integration of remote learning tools into online courses, spanning interactive applications, digital textbooks, and more. Through LTI’s capabilities, instructors create dynamic and interactive learning environments surpassing traditional materials. This component empowers you to embed external resources like specialized apps, non-PDF textbooks, H5P components, BBB, BG, Blue Button, and Zoom directly into your course. LTI bridges the gap between your course system and remote tools for effortless content integration. Beyond passive delivery, LTI fosters interaction and participation. Some LTI-integrated tools elicit learner responses, enabling real-time engagement evaluated by providers for instant feedback, enhancing the learning process.

What are the benefits of using LTI components?

• Seamless Integration: LTI components allow for effortless integration of remote learning tools within your course, ensuring a smooth experience for both educators and learners.

• Diverse Content Inclusion: Through LTI, you can easily incorporate a variety of learning resources such as interactive content, third-party applications, and diverse formats of materials beyond just PDFs.

• Flexibility in Grading Systems: LTI components offer the flexibility to link with external grading systems, granting educators the freedom to use preferred evaluation mechanisms while maintaining course coherence.

How to implement LTI components?

Given your understanding of what an LTI component is and its benefits, it is important to note that when you integrate an LTI component into your course, the edX Learning Management System (LMS) functions as the LTI tool consumer, while the external tool or content serves as the LTI tool provider.

Prior to making these materials accessible in your course, make sure to thoroughly review all supplementary materials to ensure their accessibility.

Note

For more information about it, you may also visit Accessibility Best Practices for Developing Course Content

Once you have decided which LTI tool provider implement in your course, you must:

Step 1:

Go to Studio. Remember, you can access it through the link in your ECC account or by going to studio.edunext.co and signing in with your email and password.

Step 2:

Open the course where you will add the LTI component.

Step 3:

Click on the Settings tab and select the Advanced Settings option.

Step 4:

In the section Advanced Module List, add lti_consumer between the square brackets.

[
  "lti_consumer"
]

Note

Add the XBlock command with an indented space and without any space before or after quotation marks, as shown in the example above, to avoid execution errors.

Step 5:

Obtain LTI Information. Before you create an LTI component from an external LTI provider in a unit, you need the following information to implement it in your course correctly:

• The launch URL: (if the LTI component requires a student response that will be graded). You obtain the launch URL from the LTI provider. The launch URL is the URL that Studio sends to the external LTI provider so that the provider can send back students’ grades.

• The LTI Passports policy key: This policy key has three parts: an LTI ID, a client key, and a client secret.

  • The LTI ID: This is a value that you create to refer to the external LTI provider. You should create an LTI ID that you can remember easily. The LTI ID can contain uppercase and lowercase alphanumeric characters, as well as underscore characters (_). It can be any length. For example, you may create an LTI ID that is as simple as test_lti_id, or your LTI ID may be a string of numbers and letters such as id_21441 or book_lti_provider_from_new_york.

  • The client key: This value is a sequence of characters that you obtain from the LTI provider. The client key is used for authentication and can contain any number of characters. For example, your client key may be b289378-f88d-2929-ctools.school.edu.

  • The client secret: This value is a sequence of characters that you obtain from the LTI provider. The client secret is used for authentication and can contain any number of characters. For example, your client secret can be something as simple as secret, or it may be a string of numbers and letters such as 23746387264 or yt4984yr8.

• To create the LTI Passports policy key, combine the LTI ID, client key, and client secret in the following format (make sure to include the colons):

[
  "lti_id:client_key:client_secret"
]

For example, an LTI Passports policy key may resemble any of the following:

[
  "test_lti_id:b289378-f88d-2929-ctools.school.edu:secret"
]

[
  "id_21441:b289378-f88d-2929-ctools.school.edu:23746387264"
]

[
  "book_lti_provider_from_new_york:b289378-f88d-2929-ctools.company.com:yt4984yr8"
]

Step 6:

After you have created the LTI Passports policy key using the information gathered from the LTI provider, you must scroll down on the same Advanced Settings page and locate the section labeled LTI Passports. Here, you will need to insert the LTI Passports policy key between the square brackets.

For example:

[
  "lti_id:client_key:client_secret"
]

Note

If you have multiple LTI providers, separate the values for each LTI Passports policy key with a comma. Make sure to surround each entry with quotation marks. You can follow this example:

[
  "hungnm:op:secret", "id_21441:b289378-f88d-2929-ctools.school.edu:23746387264"
]

Step 7:

At the button on the screen, click on Save Changes.

Step 8:

After this, the Xblock should be available, so click the Content tab and select the Outline option to get back to the course content.

Step 9:

Under Outline, go to the section, then the subsection, and finally to the unit or page where you want to add the LTI component.

Step 11:

Once you are there, click Advanced Component in the Add New Component bar.

Step 12:

You will see a list of all the advanced components added to your course. Click on LTI. The system will add the component immediately to the unit.

Step 13:

Click the Edit button on the upper right corner of the new component to add the content details.

Step 14:

The editor window is going to open. Here you will find several options to set up the XBlock as needed. The principal options that you must edit are:

• Accept grades past deadline: Specifies whether third party systems are allowed to post grades past the deadline. By default, this value is set to True.

• Button Text: Enter a custom label for the button that launches the third-party LTI application.

• Custom Parameters: Enables you to add one or more custom parameters. For example, if you added an e-book, you could set a custom parameter that opens the e-book to a specific page. You could also use a custom parameter to set the background color of the LTI component. Every custom parameter has a key and a value.

• Display Name: Specifies the name of the component. This name appears above the component and in the course ribbon at the top of the page in the courseware. Unique, descriptive display names help you identify problems quickly and accurately for analysis.

• Hide External Tool: Indicates whether you want to launch an external tool or to use this component as a placeholder for syncing with an external grading system. If you set the value to True, Studio hides the Launch button and any IFrames for this component. By default, this value is set to False.

• LTI Application Information: Enter a description of the third party application. If requesting username and/or email, use this text box to inform users why their username and/or email will be forwarded to a third-party application.

• LTI ID: Specifies the LTI ID for the external LTI provider. This value must be the same LTI ID that you entered on the Advanced Settings page.

• LTI URL: Specifies the URL of the external tool that this component launches. This setting is applicable when Hide External Tool is set to False.

• Open in New Page: Specify whether the problem opens in a new page. If you set this value to True, the student clicks a link that opens the LTI content in a new window. If you set this value to False, the LTI content opens in an IFrame in the current page. This setting is applicable when Hide External Tool is set to False.

• Request user’s email: If Open in New Page is set to True, you can also request user information. Set this value to True to request the user’s email address.

• Request user’s username: If Open in New Page is set to True, you can also request user information. Set this value to True to request the user’s username.

• Scored: Indicates whether the LTI component receives a numerical score from the external LTI system. By default, this value is set to False.

• Weight: Specifies the number of points possible for the problem. By default, if an external LTI provider grades the problem, the problem is worth 1 point, and a student’s score can be any value between 0 and 1. This setting is applicable when Scored is set to True.

Step 13:

Finish the configuration of the component and click on the Save button.

Step 14:

Publish the unit and check how your new component looks on its final version by clicking the View Live Version button.

You may also visit our demo site where you can find various examples of the use of the LTI component.