The Amazing LTI 1.3 Tool
At first glance, LTI 1.3 appears to be a magic solution to many of the complex problems of integration into the world of the Learning Management System (LMS). Your LTI app can be launched from within the LMS, receive information about the student or educator which will provide an optimized user experience, integrate with LMS data analytics, plagiarism tools, and proctoring systems.
Unfortunately, since there is no standardization among learning management systems, the steps and requirements for configuration of your learning app will be different for each LMS. This means that you, as the provider of the learning app, will be required to send some information to the platform team, and they will need to do things and send back other information…
Problem 1: If you want your customers to install your learning app in their LMS you need to write different instructions for each different LMS,
Problem 2: Person-to-person communication is required to convey the information that the customer needs, as well as to receive the information from the customer, in order to complete configuration on both customer and application sides of the equation.
Problem 3: Even with instructions, configuring your learning app and the LMS is a manual process, prone to human errors.
This is where the LTI 1.3 Dynamic Registration specification can make your life easier.
IMS to the Rescue
IMS recognized this challenge, and since the moment LTI 1.3 was defined, the IMS community has been working to provide a solution.
This solution has arrived in the form of a new specification called the IMS Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) Dynamic Registration Specification. This specification "...defines a way to automate the exchange of registration information between LTI Platforms and Tools that use the OpenId Connect and oAuth 2 registration flows. This allows Platform administrators to automate tool registrations and avoid tedious and possibly error-prone manual configuration while remaining in control of granting or denying Tools access to the Platform." (IMS Global LTI Dynamic Registration Specification). In a nutshell, the basic dynamic registration process needs only one URL to get started. Beyond conveying this first URL, the rest of the process can be automatic.
FIGURE 3: Extremely simple but effective form in
Sakai to introduce the Initiate Registration endpoint URL.
This specification provides everything needed to allow the learning app and the LMS to communicate and to automatically configure most (if not all) of those complex parameters with minimal effort.
Useful Reading:
- For more information on LTI dynamic registration, read this article’s sequel: LTI 1.3 Dynamic Registration or “How I Met Your Platform”.
If you have any questions about this specification or how to incorporate it into your LTI app platform, we can help!
