This article will address the issue of multiple Learning Management Systems discussing some of the history, effects, challenges, and current usages of the LTI Protocol by IMS Global.
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Winning The Battle Of Multiple Learning Management Systems
Here is how to win the battle of multiple Learning Management Systems (LMSs). Let us start with part one, the pre-LTI era.
Part One - The Pre-LTI Era: Background And Challenges
The Learning Management System for EDU space is very crowded and
there are literally hundreds of other Learning Management Systems which
trickle the EDU space worldwide. However 90% of the market space is
controlled by some of the major players such as BlackBoard, Canvas by
Instructure, Moodle, Pearson Learning Studio, Sakai, and Desire2Learn.
There has also been some consolidation recently with companies like
BlackBoard buying Learning Management Systems such as Angel as well as
several major Moodle Hosting Companies Worldwide.
- Challenge #1: Uniqueness of each set of APIs.
Each one of these Learning Management Systems has their own set
of APIs. Each one has a unique interface and course structure.
Integrating with all these Learning Management Systems poses a major
challenge for learning application developers such as ourselves. Each
one of these Learning Management Systems has their own set of APIs. Each
one has a unique interface and course structure. Not only would this
require companies like ourselves to create an application from scratch
for every Learning Management System, users would expect us to maintain
and support our application every time a Learning Management System
provider releases a new version. Companies that would want to integrate
their product and solution into the Learning Management System would
have to spend tremendous time and resources to develop their application
uniquely to each Learning Management System.
- Challenge #2: Application deployment.
Learning applications often are required to be installed on the
Learning Management System hosting server. In addition to the sometimes
cumbersome installation process, this would create additional
considerations such as security threats, and potential financial
resources to the hosting companies for the approval process. With many
organizations hosting their Learning Management System by using a
Learning Management System hosting company, this would bring another
party to the table, posing an additional hurdle for the learning
application developer when attempting to bring their platform and
solution to the education community.
Part Two - Solution: Multiple Learning Management Systems Welcome LTI
LTI stands for
Learning Tools Interoperability. It is a
specification developed by IMS Global Learning Consortium and has since
been adopted by almost all EDU Learning Management System including
Blackboard Learn, Moodle, Canvas, D2L and Sakai (check
IMS Certified Product Directory for a comprehensive list).
The concept behind LTI is to establish a standard to easily integrate learning applications with the Learning Management System.
All of the major Learning Management Systems support LTI. This means
that we can now invest all of our resources in developing a quality
solution, and using LTI make it available to almost all of the education
and corporate training community in one go. No need to start from
scratch for every Learning Management System, no need to maintain
multiple applications, no need to watch applications break over and over
again with each new Learning Management System release.
While this may not appear like headline news, this completely changed
the approach when integrating learning applications within Learning
Management Systems. Rather than having to install the learning
application on premise, the application could now be hosted in the
cloud. A few short minutes of entering a URL, key, and secret (specific
LTI terminology) into the Learning Management System administration
panel and you can link to the learning application anywhere in the
Learning Management System. This dramatically simplified the
installation process. Delivering the application as a SaaS service
allows the ability to push updates automatically to the user without a
need to ever bother the Learning Management System hosting company in
the process.
To the user, LTI links appear like any other link in the Learning
Management System course page. The magic starts when the LTI link is
clicked. The LTI link seamlessly connects the user to the learning
application, without ever leaving the Learning Management System.
Further, LTI will send the user’s information, including name and
Learning Management System role to the learning application. Thus, the
learning application can identify whether it has been launched by a
student or teacher and can therefore handle further requests
accordingly.
Part Three - Development Of LTI Integrations: Technical Considerations
There are a few things in mind when developing your learning application for LTI.
First, while LTI is a standard in most Learning Management Systems
today, there are some minor technical differences in the ways it has
been implemented across Learning Management Systems (or Tool Consumers
in LTI terms).
Some LTI parameters won’t be supported in all Learning Management
Systems. Additionally, some LTI parameters are optional and might not be
passed to the learning application at the discretion of the Learning
Management System administrator or user. Some roles such as
Administrator or Teaching Assistant are not supported in some Learning
Management Systems. These need to be taken into consideration when
designing the LTI wrapper for your learning application (Tool Provider
in LTI terms), and we do recommend testing your LTI learning Tool with
each Learning Management System.
Secondly, while delivering your learning application as a SaaS
service has many advantages, you should note that this will require the
maintenance of your cloud infrastructure. Among other things, this will
require planning server capacity to take peak usage into consideration,
IT maintenance, uptime guarantees, notifying users when server downtime
is expected, regular backups, and planning server costs.
Lastly, we still need to remember that LTI has its limits. It will
pass some basic information to your learning application, and it can
optionally pass minimal grading data back into the gradebook, but that’s
pretty much it for now. Anything more then that will require some
creative design or will not be possible for now across all the Learning
Management Systems.
Summary
LTI has completely changed the Learning Management System integration
landscape. Rather than building a unique solution for each Learning
Management System, learning applications can now be connected with
almost all EDU Learning Management Systems using one standard. With LTI
applications already an integral part of the Learning Management System
experience in many leading online learning programs, these are exciting
times for the community’s learning application developer.
This article was originally published on https://elearningindustry.com. You can view it here.
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