LTI (Learning Tools Integration)

Cirrus' support for 1EdTech's† (aka IMS Global†) standard for Learning Tools Integration (Wikipedia ⧉, IMS Global LTI ⧉) allows you to integrate Cirrus as a "Tool" in any LTI 1.3 compatible LMS or "Platform". Further below we also explain the Key Benefits of using LTI with Cirrus.
Certified examples are Canvas, Blackboard, and Sakai with 100 more in IMS Global's Product Directory.
† IMS Global rebranded itself as 1EdTech in 2022.

Key Benefits

LTI Quick Start

On this page we give a lot of technical / background information. Yet, the actual set up is rather easy so you could skip this and directly go to Setting up LTI in Cirrus.
Though if you then have any questions or perhaps even run into some issue we strongly recommend to read through this page as most frequently asked questions have been addressed, including how to troubleshoot.

Supported Scenarios

At the moment the following scenario's are supported:

LTI 1.3 vs REST API (vs Hybrid)

We kindly refer you to the REST API vs LTI 1.3 (vs Hybrid) section of our Integrations Overview of our functional Knowledge Base.

LTI1.0/1.1/1.2 no longer supported

Roadmap

During Q3 2021 we have released major enhancements to our LTI 1.3 capabilities giving Cirrus one of the best possible LTI integrations currently on the market. With it a single link into Cirrus gives a great user experience (causing us to also deprioritize Deep Linking). In Q1 2022 we released our Admin UI for LTI and routing via deployment_id for a.o. Blackboard.

In case you're interested in sponsoring "LTI 1.3 Proctoring" (Standard based online proctoring) or are still interested in "Deep Linking v2.0" support please contact us ⧉.

• DONE: Q1 2022 Routing via deployment_id [CR-17397]
• DONE: Q1 2022 Admin UI [CR-14784]
• DONE: Q2 2022 Blackboard test [CR-16543]
• DONE: Q1 2023 Candidate Sync optional Sakai group filter [CR-19211]
• Q1 2023 Security: Prevent "Clickjacking" - Framing of Cirrus [CR-19758]
• Pending an interested customer: Canvas test [CR-16539] (incl. minor 1d fix [CR-16776])
• Future: LTI 1.3 Proctoring - New standard for online proctoring
• Future (deprioritised): Deep Linking v2.0 (deprioritized as Cirrus works beautifully with only one single link)

Disclaimer: LMS behaviour is beyond Cirrus' control

E.g. how and where LTI Links can be placed in the LMS and what behaviour they support is beyond the control of the Cirrus Platform.
Please contact your LMS/Platform provider for guidance and support.

LTI Launch

Dashboard launch vs "Exam launch"

(1) On the Candidate Dashboard candidates can start active Exams and review completed Exams.

N.B. If your users prefer "Exam launch" instead, this is of course supported. A combination of Dashboard launch and Exam launches is also supported.

Online Proctoring via Dashboard launch

New tab/window - Prevent Clickjacking

Please always configure your launch links to open in a new tab/window.

Instructor: set up of "Exam launch"

(Please, read Dashboard launch vs "Exam launch" first.)
For the "Candidate Launch (Single Sign-On) into a particular Exam (Schedule) scenario", the LMS and Cirrus both need to know which Schedule is being launched.

In Cirrus, the External ID needs to be copied from the Schedule. And in the LMS added as value of the LTI custom parameter 'schedule_id'.

For example, for Cirrus Schedule "Introduction into Physics" with External ID '2021introphys1', the following LTI custom parameter needs to be configured in the LMS: schedule_id=2021introphys1

LTI Launch Fields

The mandatory LTI field sub containing the user id is the only user field used by Cirrus during launch to look up an existing user via its user id (= User External ID). Following the look up the Role Mapping (see below) is applied.

Role Mapping

In Cirrus an administrator can configure the role mapping on the "IMS LIS Mappings" settings page.
As in many LMS'es users can have multiple roles and Cirrus users only one, the Priority column can be used to manage which role Cirrus should assume the LMS user to have.

To support double roles, the LIS Roles are divided in Role Types "Candidate" and "Author":

Role info is contained in the "https://purl.imsglobal.org/spec/lti/claim/roles" claim of the LTI Launch JSON.

On-the-Fly User / Hierarchy Creation

For workflow reasons, e.g. to set up the marking workflow, it's strongly adviced to ensure (almost) all candidates are in the schedule ahead of the exam.
Cirrus offers two solutions (in addition to creating the users using the REST API, via manual import, or manually):

or

On-the-fly scheduling

If your users for some reason cannot organize to have the candidates scheduled in advance, Cirrus LTI offers on-the-fly scheduling but for above mentioned reasons we advice to avoid using this because of its negative implications on a.o. the marking workflow.

LTI User Field Mapping

Only used if a Cirrus user needs to be created on-the-fly.

LTI Context - Hierarchy Field Mapping

Only used if a Cirrus Hierarchy needs to be created on-the-fly.

Context info is contained in the "https://purl.imsglobal.org/spec/lti/claim/context" claim of the LTI Launch JSON.

User Role - Hierarchy Permissions mapping

Besides creating the user and the hierarchy, Cirrus also sets the user's hierarchy permissions. Cirrus does this by taking the mapped Cirrus user role and context(s) from the launch:

Grades Service

Cirrus can send the published result back to the LMS that supports LTI Advantage - Assignment and Grade Services v2.0 ⧉.

The Create LineItem (Grade Book Column) Service allows Cirrus to create the right grade book columns for Exams with the correct name from Cirrus, and chose the correct grade book column dependent on the Exam taken in Cirrus.

Create LineItem (Grade Book Column) Service

LTI Line Item - Schedule Field Mapping

Score Publish Service

Cirrus sends the published result to the Grade Service's Score Publish Service ⧉.
The LMS endpoint is the aforementioned "line_item_url". An example payload (taken from the standard) is:

{
  "timestamp": "2017-04-16T18:54:36.736+00:00",
  "scoreGiven" : 83,
  "scoreMaximum" : 100,
  "comment" : "This is exceptional work.",
  "activityProgress" : "Completed",
  "gradingProgress": "FullyGraded",
  "userId" : "5323497"
}

Synchronize Schedule's Candidates (aka Roster)

Cirrus can synchronize the candidates of a schedule with the schedule's hierarchy roster from the LMS that supports LTI Advantage - Names and Role Provisioning Services v2.0 ⧉.

This because the LMS will send to Cirrus the Membership Service URL, where to retrieve the roster information from, during the Instructor launch. Cirrus will store this URL in the hierarchy with matching External ID (LTI Context ID) so after one such LTI launch the hierarchy can also be syncronized by other users also without LTI launch.

Setting up LTI in Cirrus

A Cirrus Administrator can configure the LTI1.3 integration through the Cirrus UI when LTI has been enabled.

1. Go to Administration > INTEGRATIONS > IMS LTI.

2. Click Add item to create a new LTI 1.3 configuration
3. Choose a title for your integration
4. Select your Platform/LMS, use "Other" if not listed.
5. Depending on your choice you need to provide different information, see:

• Blackboard
• Canvas Cloud
• Sakai
• Other (Any LTI 1.3 Supporting Platform/LMS)

7. For all LMS's the settings in the table below are available.
8. Click Save and Close

Cirrus LTI Settings

Blackboard

Thanks to the shared deployment model of Blackboard, Cirrus can fill in all the details of an integration for a Cirrus Region in the Blackboard market place so you merely have to:

• In Blackboard look up our application in the market place and add it to your Blackboard, see Blackboard Application Name in the table below.
• and then in Cirrus fill in the Client ID (provided by Cirrus, see the table below) and your own Deployment ID (provided by your Blackboard).

NOTE: If Blackboard has not been set up for your "region", please Contact our Service Desk⧉.

Internal Note: The Application ID in the Blackboard Developer portal is configured as Client ID in Cirrus shared cluster configuration.

Canvas Cloud

If you are a Canvas Cloud customer please contact our Service Desk⧉

Sakai

The Sakai configuration is like "Other". Please be aware that if you're running your Sakai in a cluster, you have to:

1. Add an "Issuer" line for each Sakai node in your cluster.
2. Fill the "Line Item Base URL" with the (one) line item url of your cluster.

As apart from this attention point the configuration is exactly like "Other" please follow those instructions.

Other (Any LTI 1.3 supporting Platform/LMS)

Platform ID

For the Platform ID please choose a short identifier that will be used in the Cirrus LTI URLs. Please note that it must be 5 to 15 characters and only a-z, A-Z, 0-9 and hyphen ‘-’ are allowed.

Provided by the Platform/LMS

The Customer LMS (aka "Platform") Administrator needs to provide you with the following information to configure in Cirrus:

Provide to the Platform/LMS

This is the info your LMS Administrator need to fill in in your Platform or LMS. As soon as you have chosen and filled in your Platform ID, Cirrus will generate the URLs and fill these fields:

TROUBLESHOOTING

Platform not reachable from the Internet

If you self-host your Platform/LMS please first check the URLs under Provided by the Platform/LMS are reachable from outside your network (firewall). E.g. by testing them on your mobile phone without Wifi, or trying it from home.

LTI Launch issues

In order to troubleshoot LTI launch issues you need some minimal technical expertise as you, or your technician, need to be able to open the Developer Toolbar of your web browser (e.g. F12 in Chrome) and find the details of your LTI Launch request, and in particular the LTI 1.3 Launch JSON ⧉.

• Open Browser's Developer Toolbar
• (If you've configured to open Cirrus in a pop-up, use Chrome and enable "Auto-open DevTools for popups" in the "Developer Tools"⧉ settings)
• Find first POST request to lti.cirrusplatform.com (or lti-<envid> if your Cirrus is not hosted on our standard EU, see Platform URLs)
• In the Request data find the id_token parameter and copy its value
• Decode the JWT token (e.g. via https://jwt.io/)

For an example LTI 1.3 Launch JSON, see the "Example LTI 1.3 Launch JSON" paragraph further below.

Please note that Cirrus will ignore any LTI1p1 claims.

Example LTI 1.3 Launch JSON

Taken from the Learning Tools Interoperability Core Specification 1.3 ⧉ section "E. Full example resource link request".

Important fields and claims have been described on this page (e.g. "sub", "https://purl.imsglobal.org/spec/lti/claim/roles", and "https://purl.imsglobal.org/spec/lti/claim/context")

{
  "iss": "https://platform.example.edu",
  "sub": "a6d5c443-1f51-4783-ba1a-7686ffe3b54a",
  "aud": ["962fa4d8-bcbf-49a0-94b2-2de05ad274af"],
  "exp": 1510185728,
  "iat": 1510185228,
  "azp": "962fa4d8-bcbf-49a0-94b2-2de05ad274af",
  "nonce": "fc5fdc6d-5dd6-47f4-b2c9-5d1216e9b771",
  "name": "Ms Jane Marie Doe",
  "given_name": "Jane",
  "family_name": "Doe",
  "middle_name": "Marie",
  "picture": "https://platform.example.edu/jane.jpg",
  "email": "jane@platform.example.edu",
  "locale": "en-US",
  "https://purl.imsglobal.org/spec/lti/claim/deployment_id":
    "07940580-b309-415e-a37c-914d387c1150",
  "https://purl.imsglobal.org/spec/lti/claim/message_type": "LtiResourceLinkRequest",
  "https://purl.imsglobal.org/spec/lti/claim/version": "1.3.0",
  "https://purl.imsglobal.org/spec/lti/claim/roles": [
    "http://purl.imsglobal.org/vocab/lis/v2/institution/person#Student",
    "http://purl.imsglobal.org/vocab/lis/v2/membership#Learner",
    "http://purl.imsglobal.org/vocab/lis/v2/membership#Mentor"
  ],
  "https://purl.imsglobal.org/spec/lti/claim/role_scope_mentor": [
    "fad5fb29-a91c-770-3c110-1e687120efd9",
    "5d7373de-c76c-e2b-01214-69e487e2bd33",
    "d779cfd4-bc7b-019-9bf1a-04bf1915d4d0"
  ],
  "https://purl.imsglobal.org/spec/lti/claim/context": {
      "id": "c1d887f0-a1a3-4bca-ae25-c375edcc131a",
      "label": "ECON 1010",
      "title": "Economics as a Social Science",
      "type": ["http://purl.imsglobal.org/vocab/lis/v2/course#CourseOffering"]
  },
  "https://purl.imsglobal.org/spec/lti/claim/resource_link": {
      "id": "200d101f-2c14-434a-a0f3-57c2a42369fd",
      "description": "Assignment to introduce who you are",
      "title": "Introduction Assignment"
  },
  "https://purl.imsglobal.org/spec/lti/claim/tool_platform": {
      "guid": "ex/48bbb541-ce55-456e-8b7d-ebc59a38d435",
      "contact_email": "support@platform.example.edu",
      "description": "An Example Tool Platform",
      "name": "Example Tool Platform",
      "url": "https://platform.example.edu",
      "product_family_code": "ExamplePlatformVendor-Product",
      "version": "1.0"
  },
  "https://purl.imsglobal.org/spec/lti/claim/target_link_uri":
      "https://tool.example.com/lti/48320/ruix8782rs",
  "https://purl.imsglobal.org/spec/lti/claim/launch_presentation": {
      "document_target": "iframe",
      "height": 320,
      "width": 240,
      "return_url": "https://platform.example.edu/terms/201601/courses/7/sections/1/resources/2"
  },
  "https://purl.imsglobal.org/spec/lti/claim/custom": {
    "xstart": "2017-04-21T01:00:00Z",
    "request_url": "https://tool.com/link/123"
  },
  "https://purl.imsglobal.org/spec/lti/claim/lis": {
      "person_sourcedid": "example.edu:71ee7e42-f6d2-414a-80db-b69ac2defd4",
      "course_offering_sourcedid": "example.edu:SI182-F16",
      "course_section_sourcedid": "example.edu:SI182-001-F16"
  },
  "http://www.ExamplePlatformVendor.com/session": {
      "id": "89023sj890dju080"
}

}