Integrations

Integrations with Learning Management Systems

LAMS works well as a stand-alone e-learning system. It can also be integrated with other educational software such as a Learning Management System (LMS). There are two options for LMS integration:

1. Via IMS LTI 1.1 or 1.3

2. Via native integration module

Integrations via LTI

LAMS is LTI 1.1 and 1.3 compliant tool provider. It can work with a number of LMSs that support LTI, e.g. Blackboard, Canvas, Moodle, Sakai, D2L Brightspace, Neo LMS, etc.

LAMS Setup

In order for any LMS to be able to use LAMS as LTI tool provider, it needs to be registered with LAMS first. For this

1. In the sysadmin menu, choose "Maintain LTI Tool Consumers" menu item and opt for adding new LTI Tool Consumer. The page where you can enter tool consumer's settings will look like the following:

Setting up LTI consumers

2 . Enter appropriate values and save. Please note that key and prefix should be unique among all LTI tool consumers and integration servers. If this conditions aren't met, LAMS won't allow saving the new tool consumer and will show according error message.

• Key: this is the server identification string that we will use to individually identify the LMS server that will be "talking" to LAMS.

• Secret: this is the secret key that both systems will be used to sign the request using OAuth during authentication. Make sure you keep your server key private

• Name: the server name

• Description: a meaningful server description

• Prefix: the prefix that the usernames will have in LAMS. (usually just one or two letters will do)

• Disabled: whether the tool consumer should be disabled

• Lesson finish callback URL: shows what URL will be used for sending scores back to LMS. It's set automatically during the first LTI request to LAMS and can't be altered by sysadmin, thus it's shown here only for the reference. And if it's empty - it means there haven't been done any LTI calls by this consumer yet.

• Comma-separated list of monitor roles. Map IMS LTI roles to LAMS roles. List the LTI roles to map to LAMS monitor.

• Parameter to use as loginId. Choose which IMS LTI parameter should be used as login Id (unique user identifier) in LAMS.

Lesson default settings: choose which are the default lesson settings when creating a lesson via integration.

Integration via native modules

A LAMS integration is module built for a specific LMS that it handles the communication between the two systems. This module acts as a bridge between them making them behave as one unified system.

The LAMS integrations take care of the single-sign-on (SSO) or, in other words, that once a user is logged-in with the LMS she won't need to login in LAMS again to access any LAMS resources. Additionally the LAMS integrations are designed to simplify the work for the system administrator: courses and users are created automatically in LAMS based on information from the LMS.

To do this, LAMS relies on the LMS to provide student details to it in the background so that students do not have to log in separately to LAMS. Similar integration is also provided for teachers so they do not need to log in separately to LAMS, and also to make it easier for teachers to author LAMS sequences and add them into their LMS course page directly.

LAMS integration requires two steps:

1. initial development of integration software to link the two systems, and

2. Configuration of this integration software with your local LAMS and LMS system.

Currently we have native module integrations with Moodle 3.x and Blackboard 9.1