Course integration into a LMS

Course integration into a LMS

UNCode implements the LTI specification in order to integrate into Moodle, OpenEdx or any other Learning Management System (LMS) that also implements this specification. Here we show the steps to follow to configure a task and the course for that.

Course configuration

To integrate the course into a LMS follow next steps:

1. In course settings, activate the LTI mode and define your LTI keys (consumer key and secret). When you do this, students will lose access to the tasks on UNCode, they will be only accessible via the LMS.

   • Defining the LTI Keys:

   These are composed of consumer keys and secrets separated by a colon in the LTI keys field. For instance, here’s an example of a set of keys and secrets:

   consumerKey1:aVerySecretPassword
   consumerKey2:wowSuchSecret
   

   This defines two LTI keys, consumerKey1 and consumerKey2, with passwords aVerySecretPassword and wowSuchSecret, respectively. Make sure the passwords are alphanumeric and they are long enough for more security.

   These keys are necessary when setting up an activity on the LMS.

2. (Optional) Enable option to send grades back to the LMS. This is highly recommended, as grades will be centralized in one platform.

3. (Optional) On the LMS enable the options to allow the LMS to share the student's username and email with the LTI provider (UNCode). This is recommended to allow students to create a new UNCode account with their LMS account username and email when the LTI Registration plugin is activated.

Setting up an activity on Moodle

Now that the course is configured to allow LTI connections from a LMS. You must follow next steps:

1. In case the activity to be set on Moodle is not created yet, proceed to create a new task on UNCode. Please refer to the corresponding documentation.
2. On Moodle, under edition mode, select add an activity and choose external tool.
3. In General settings:
   1. Fill in the activity name.
   2. If you want, add an activity description and activate the options you desire for your course.
   3. Click on Show more... and fill in the Tool URL. This is the task URL on UNCode, to get this URL, go to the task edition on UNCode and in Basic settings you will see the URL in the field LTI task URL. Paste this URL on Moodle.
   4. In Launch container, select the option you want, this determines how the task is shown on Moodle, either as an iframe or a new window.
   5. Set the Consumer Key you have created in the Course LTI settings previously. From the example given above (consumerKey1:aVerySecretPassword), you will need to copy here the first part before the :, i.e., consumerKey1.
   6. Shared key is the corresponding password of the Consumer key, put it here. That is, from the example given above (consumerKey1:aVerySecretPassword), you will need to copy here the second part after the :, i.e., aVerySecretPassword.
   7. Modify all the other options as you want. Save it and now it should be shown on Moodle.

Notes

• When students enter the activity through the LMS for the first time, they must create an account on UNCode first and then, they can login. After that, a LTI Binding process is done and the student is automatically registered on the course.

• A student can create a new UNCode account with the same username and email from their LMS account, but they can also create a new account from the UNCode page with a different data. The email, username or passwords are not necessary to be the same on UNCode and the LMS.

Additional documentation

Check the INGInious original documentation for more information, here there is also available documentation for Edx.