Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) is an education technology specification developed by the

IMS Global Learning Consortium Ims is a Norwegian surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Gry Tofte Ims (born 1986), Norwegian footballer * Rolf Anker Ims (born 1958), Norwegian ecologist See also * IMS (disambiguation) {{surname Norwegian-language surnames

. It specifies a method for a learning system to invoke and to communicate with external systems. In the current version of the specification, v1.3, this is done using

OAuth2 OAuth (short for "Open Authorization") is an open standard for access Delegation (computer security), delegation, commonly used as a way for internet users to grant websites or applications access to their information on other websites but witho ...

, OpenID Connect, and

JSON Web Token JSON Web Token (JWT, pronounced , same as the word "jot") is a proposed Internet standard for creating data with optional signature and/or optional encryption whose payload holds JSON that asserts some number of claims. The tokens are signed ei ...

s. For example, a

Learning Management System A learning management system (LMS) is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, automation, and delivery of educational courses, training programs, materials or learning and development programs. The learni ...

(LMS) may use LTI to host course content and tools provided by external, third-party systems on a

web Web most often refers to: * Spider web, a silken structure created by the animal * World Wide Web or the Web, an Internet-based hypertext system Web, WEB, or the Web may also refer to: Computing * WEB, a literate programming system created b ...

site, without requiring a learner to log in separately on the external systems, with information about the learner and the learning context shared by the LMS with the external systems.

History

* Learning Tools Interoperability, then called BasicLTI, originated in 2008 as a Google Summer of Code project developed by Jordi Piguillem under the mentorship of Charles Severance and Marc Alier. *In June 2010 LTI v1.0 was finalized. *In August 2012, LTI v1.1 added the ability for the external tool to pass grades back to the invoking system. *In January 2014, LTI v2.0 was released, providing

REST Rest or REST may refer to: Relief from activity * Sleep ** Bed rest * Kneeling * Lying (position) * Sitting * Squatting position Structural support * Structural support ** Rest (cue sports) ** Armrest ** Headrest ** Footrest Arts and ente ...

-based two-way communication between the external tool and the invoking platform. At the same time, a subset of v2.0 was released as v1.2, as a stepping stone between v1.1 and v2.0. *Due to complexity, adoption of LTI v1.2 and v2.0 was slow, and IMS GLC subsequently declared them to be "legacy" specifications, not in the recommended upgrade path from LTI v1.1, citing security concerns. * In May 2019, the IMS Security Framework and LTI v1.3 were published, based on

, OpenID Connect, and JWT. LTI v1.0, v1.1, v1.2 and v2.0 were all deprecated.

Adoption

LTI has been adopted by many large educational content providers, including Pearson and

McGraw Hill McGraw Hill is an American educational publishing company and one of the "big three" educational publishers that publishes educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. The company also publishes referen ...

. Popular Learning Management Systems, such as D2L Brightspace,

Instructure Instructure, Inc. is an educational technology company based in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. It is the developer and publisher of Canvas, a web-based learning management system (LMS), and MasteryConnect, an assessment management system. ...

Canvas,

Blackboard A blackboard (also known as a chalkboard) is a reusable writing surface on which text or drawings are made with sticks of calcium sulphate or calcium carbonate, known, when used for this purpose, as chalk. Blackboards were originally made of ...

, BenchPrep, LAMS, OpenLearning, Sakai,

Moodle Moodle is a free and open-source learning management system written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. Moodle is used for blended learning, distance education, flipped classroom and other online learning projects in sc ...

, iTeach and

Open edX Open edX is the open-source platform software developed by the edX organization. On June 1, 2013, edX open sourced the platform it had built to date, naming it Open edX to distinguish it from the organization itself. The source code can be fou ...

also support LTI.

References

{{Reflist

External links

* Dr. Chuck's Blog: Teaching, Learning, Technology, Standards, Interoperability, etc.
"Connecting IMS Learning Tools Interoperability and SAML"

eLearning Industry, "Why Learning Tool Interoperability Should Be Part Of Your eLearning Application"
* Blackboard Help
"Learning Tools Interoperability"
* Moodle documentation
"LTI and Moodle"
Software architecture Web 2.0 neologisms