Interoperability should be a key consideration for anyone building a digital learning experience. On the business side, it’s best practice to design a platform that can easily incorporate external tools and continue to evolve as new tools are released. More importantly, designing for interoperability creates an improved learner experience. When external tools operate smoothly within your LMS, learners are more likely to use them, stay on the platform, and complete their learning journey.
Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) is the leading interoperability standard in the learning industry. Based on our experience, it offers powerful advantages—seamless tool integration, enhanced security, and improved learner experience. But like any standard, it comes with challenges and considerations that organizations need to plan for.
LTI was created by 1EdTech, a nonprofit dedicated to improving digital learning through open standards. Here’s how they define it:
1EdTech’s LTI standard is a technical standard (not a product) used to connect learning tools with an institution’s learning environment without logging into each tool. LTI supports a high level of security for passing data about the users, their institutional enrollment, and roles.
Who Needs LTI Implementation?
If you work in digital learning, LTI is worth understanding. Based on our experience, here are the major use cases:
- Off-the-Shelf LMS + Off-the-Shelf Tool
Many platforms, like Canvas and Blackboard, support LTI out of the box, making it easy to integrate third-party, off-the-shelf tools. This allows you to extend your LMS’s functionality by layering additional tools on top. - Off-the-Shelf LMS + Custom Tool
If you use an off-the-shelf LMS, you can develop custom tools and integrate them via LTI—enabling seamless interoperability within your platform. - Custom LMS + Off-the-Shelf Tool
If you’re building a custom LMS, incorporating LTI lets you leverage existing tools without building everything from scratch. For example, if you need live video functionality, you can integrate Zoom via LTI, reducing development costs while ensuring maintainability, security, and a user-friendly experience. - Custom LMS + Custom Tool
You can also build both a custom LMS and a custom LTI-compliant tool. However, unless you plan to share or license the tool separately, it may be simpler to build the functionality directly into your platform.
LTI isn’t always the best option, but in many cases, it’s a powerful way to extend functionality while maintaining flexibility and interoperability.
The benefits of the LTI standard
Implementing the LTI standard in your LMS benefits your organization and your learners in several ways:
- Reduces the time and development cost to connect your learning platform with learning tools.
- Improves the security of your LMS by preventing learner data leaks with a secure integration between the LMS and tools.
- Creates a more engaging learner experience by providing seamless and secure access to learning tools.
- Streamlines management of user permissions by facilitating provisioning of user accounts in the tool.
- Reduces administrator and instructor workload by providing a way for the LMS to capture learners’ progress and data from external tools. For example, passing assignment grades back to a teacher’s centralized gradebook.
- Prepares you to evolve your LMS as new tools become available, making integration easier and more secure.
For tool providers, the benefits of implementing LTI in your tools include:
- Easier and more secure integration of your tool into a client’s LMS.
- LTI certification, demonstrating your tool’s security and interoperability to potential clients.
- A listing in the 1EdTech Product Directory, helping your tool get discovered by more clients.
Lessons Learned from Working with LTI
We’ve found that LTI isn’t always as straightforward as you might expect from a widely used standard. While this certainly doesn’t diminish its value, here are some key lessons we’ve learned:
- Not all off-the-shelf tools play nicely with custom LMSs. LTI is a standard, but some third-party tools include additional proprietary code that make them compatible only with certain LMS platforms. If you’re working with a custom system, be sure to dedicate time for researching compatibility.
- Mapping integrations is a critical (and collaborative) exercise. You’ll likely want to deploy LTI tools to specific courses, course runs, and users. Ensuring a solid data model and defining how data flows between your system components is one of the biggest considerations for custom platforms. This is an exercise we like to go through collaboratively with clients so that there is a shared understanding of how to manage these tools over the long run.
- LTI training resources are scarce. Unlike many open-source technologies with robust documentation, LTI training can be difficult to find. 1EdTech offers resources, but LTI is tough to grasp without hands-on experience. We’ve already navigated these challenges—so you don’t have to!
The difference between LTI 1.3 and LTI Advantage
The latest LTI versions – LTI 1.3 and LTI Advantage – have the highest level of privacy and security, ensuring your learners’ sensitive and Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is protected.
LTI Advantage offers three new feature services:
- Names and role provisioning services – Automate course enrollment into third-party tools and provide reports on student activity within the tool.
- Deep linking – Simplify course building with the easy addition of deep links to content, including content playlists and tables of content.
- Assignment and grade services – Dynamically update scores and comments from third-party tools into a single place, such as the LMS grade book.
Any organization interested in implementing the LTI standard should use LTI 1.3. To determine if you need LTI Advantage, assess the capabilities you require in your LMS and those you may want to add in the near future. Not all LMS platforms need LTI Advantage.
How the learner experience is improved with LTI
Today’s learners expect their technology to be user friendly and secure. Data privacy is a top concern. The LTI standard helps a digital learning experience accomplish both.
If an LMS feels clunky, requires too many clicks, necessitates additional logins, or often has bugs and issues, learners are likely to quit. With LTI, external tools open within the LMS in an iframe, with no additional sign-in required. The experience feels seamless and easy for learners.
For example, if your online learning program includes a video session for learners to collaborate, the LTI standard allows you to integrate Zoom within the LMS, minimizing the steps a learner needs to take to participate.
LTI Implementation Playbook
In our practice, we’ve developed a structured approach to exploring and implementing LTI. Here are the key steps we recommend:
- Define Your Goals
Identify the core functionalities you want to enable with LTI. - Research & Select Tools
- Explore the 1EdTech Product Directory to find LTI-certified tools that fit your needs.
- Decide whether to use an off-the-shelf tool or build a custom LTI tool.
- Evaluate & Validate Your Choice
If using an off-the-shelf tool, meet with the company’s product solutions team to ensure it integrates smoothly within your tech stack. - Plan Authentication & User Interactions
Map out how users will:- Authenticate with LTI-integrated tools.
- Configure tool settings within your LMS.
- Interact with the tool during learning experiences.
- Define Data Exchange & Permissions
Establish how user roles, course data, and permissions will be handled to ensure a seamless integration. - Implement in Stages
Not every part of the LTI specification may be needed. Start with core functionality and expand as necessary.
