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Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Michael Gage -
Number of replies: 42
Hi,

I'm trying to collect a list of WeBWorK sites which are using LTI to connect to 
their schools Learning Management System:  Canvas, Sakai, D2L, Blackboard, or other LMS.

Please reply to this post and mention which LMS you are connecting to.
In reply to Michael Gage

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Michael Shulman -
At USD we are connecting WeBWorK to Blackboard with LTI. With a little bit of poking around I set WeBWorK up to use both LTI and LDAP, so that students can log in directly with their school SSO account once their webwork account is created by logging in through Blackboard once.

The only hiccup so far has been with one person (a faculty member) whose email account listed on blackboard had a different username from his LDAP username (a mail alias), so that no matter what I called his webwork user he was only able to log in one way but not the other. We fixed it by changing his blackboard email address to not use the alias.

I'm also a little confused about what the grades passed back to Blackboard (in course grade mode) are calculated out of, since they seem rather low. Is it a percentage of all assigned homework sets, or all open/closed ones, or all closed ones, or something else?
In reply to Michael Gage

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Alex Jordan -
We (Portland Community College, webwork.pcc.edu) use Brightspace (formerly D2L) as our LMS. Our fall term starts Sep 26, and I expect *some* faculty will be using WeBWorK via Brightspace single sign-on. Some faculty prefer not to use Brightspace at all; if they use WeBWorK they will use it the "old-fashioned" way. Our winter term starts January 9, and I expect that we will have grade pass back ready to use by then too.
In reply to Michael Gage

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by David Hunter -
At Westmont College, we are using LTI to connect to Canvas.

In reply to Michael Gage

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Balagopal Pillai -
Hi,

         We at Dalhousie (math and stat dept) are using webwork using LTI to
connect to brightspace lms.  I have our second webwork server
in use for two first year courses - one with 800+ students and other with 400+ students. It is working well so far. We tried to get grade passback working with brightspace over the summer term and wasn't successful. Hopefully that will also start working on a future webwork release. Auto creation of accounts via LTI has been very useful for us for the large classes. 

Thanks
Balagopal
In reply to Balagopal Pillai

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Danny Glin -
Hi Balagopal,

There was a change added to WeBWorK 2.12 a couple of weeks back intended to fix grade passback to D2L/Brightspace.  I have the on-submit grade passback working on our instance of Brightspace, though I'm still having issues with the scheduled grade passback.

Danny
In reply to Danny Glin

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Balagopal Pillai -
Hi Danny,

          Thanks. That is great to know. Our term has already started and both webwork servers are in active use. I will test out grade passback again after the term ends. 

Balagopal
In reply to Michael Gage

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Danny Glin -
At University of Calgary, we will be using LTI to connect to D2L/Brightspace.  I have it up and running, but I can't report on full behaviour until our term starts next week.
In reply to Michael Gage

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Tim Prescott -
The University of North Dakota is using the LTI to connect to Blackboard.  Auto enrollment is working great.  Grade passback is working when students complete an attempt, but the mass update doesn't appear to be working properly (see this posting).  I've not had time to dig into why that might be the case.
In reply to Michael Gage

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Michael Fraboni -
I realize this thread is a bit old, but I just found it.

At Moravian College we are using LTI with Canvas for the first time this semester.  So far I love the auto-enroll feature.

We're also trying out grade passback.
In reply to Michael Gage

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Jeffrey Adler -
At American University, we started using LTI last month in order to connect WeBWorK to Blackboard. Our experience so far has been very positive.

We're enjoying not having to create accounts for our students. However, we have lost one lovely capability that we gained last semester: the ability for students to use the same password that they use for all other university services. Instead, students *must* log in via a link that we create on Blackboard (unless we give them passwords manually, which we're not going to do). The reason for this has nothing to do with any deficiency in BB or WW, but it might apply to some other campuses: We generally use LDAP for authentication, but someone in IT insists that BB must use Shibboleth. In order to work with BB, WW now uses Shibboleth, and thus not LDAP. At least, this is how things were explained to me.

Most students won't notice any deficiency. But teachers now need manually-assigned passwords if they want to be able to respond to WW-generated e-mail from students.

Side-benefit of using LTI: We used to require anyone using our WW server either to be on campus or to set up a VPN connection. LTI forced our IT people to make some changes that mean that this is no longer the case. That’s one fewer thing to go wrong.

I believe that no one is presently passing back grades to Blackboard, since most of us tend not to use the gradebook feature. We export grades to spreadsheets, just like in the old days.

When we have several sections of a coordinated course, we combine them into a single course on Blackboard. This means that within such a course, we must create "groups" of students manually, so that we can have a way of e-mailing individual sections. And we have to update these groups as our rosters evolve during the first two weeks of the semester. But the upside is that we can then link this combined course to a single WeBWorK course.

Within WW, we tried to indicate manually which students belonged to which physical section, so that we could easily extract grades by section. However, we found that every time students logged in from BB, this information was overwritten. But then our IT guy found a setting to tweak that fixes this.
In reply to Michael Gage

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Andras Balogh -
We just enabled settings for LTI in our Balckboard at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

Andras

In reply to Michael Gage

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Tim Alderson -
We have been using the LTI to connect with D2L at the University of New Brunswick Saint John for 2 years. We have found the auto-enroll feature to be a great time-saver.
I am working on grade pass-back this summer.
In reply to Michael Gage

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by tim Payer -
Late in Reply,

But yes, we too at Humboldt State, HSU, are using an LTI through Canvas for about 4-5 Math courses.

Tim
In reply to Michael Gage

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Nathan Wallach -
Technion - https://webwork.technion.ac.il/webwork2/?

LTI from Moodle with automatic account creation, and UTF-8 support so Hebrew student names work.

Grade passback (homework) was tested successfully, but is not in active use.

We have been using the code which is now in the WW 2.15 branch (essentially a release candidate) for about 6 months. Sites which had issues when student names have special characters are encouraged to migrate to WW 2.15. (shameless plug) now or after the formal release.
In reply to Michael Gage

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Omar Hijab -


I'm (very) late to the party, but I just set up at the University of New Haven 

https://math.newhaven.edu/webwork2/

WeBWorK 2.17 with Canvas, account auto-creation, and grade passback. Everything works like a charm, especially if one follows directions. The option of using fallback_source_of_username is brilliant, my settings are

$preferred_source_of_username = "lis_person_contact_email_primary";

$fallback_source_of_username = 'user_id';

$strip_address_from_email = 1;



In reply to Michael Gage

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Paul Pearson -

At Hope College we are using LTI to connect WeBWorK to Moodle.

In reply to Michael Gage

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Tural Hamzayev -

Hi,

In ADA University we are using LTI together with Blackboard Learn. We have both Original and Ultra view courses integrated to WebWork.

In reply to Michael Gage

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Stephen Flood -
At Bridgewater State University, we are using LTI to connect to Blackboard.

Everything works well for log-in, but for some unknown reason we have never been able to get grade passback to work. We've make sure that tools are allowed to change grades in Blackboard, and I have confirmed that there isn't a firewall preventing packets from reaching the server. This might not be the place to ask, but any suggestions for troubleshooting our installation would be very welcome.
In reply to Michael Gage

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Steven Xiao -
At the Mathematics Department, Washington University in St. Louis, we started to use Webwork ( ver. 2.15 ) /Canvas integration, mainly for the automatic creation of the student accounts. It worked perfectly for the auto creation. At that time, grade pass back tested fine. But didn't use it.

Now some instructors want to use the grade pass back feature. I was going to test the feature with a new webwork installation ( ver. 2.18 ). It looks like that there are quite some changes with V. 2.18 and I didn't have enough lock by using the old authen_LTI.conf instructions for this newer version. So I come back to this forum and then found this post.

Anyway, anyone tried 2.18 webwork with Canvas integration? Or someone would update the "LTI-Advanced Authentication" https://webwork.maa.org/wiki/LTI-Advanced_Authentication sometime?

Thanks
In reply to Steven Xiao

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Steven Xiao -
Unfortunately, 2 minutes too late to edit my original post. We started to use webwork/Canvas integration from Spring 2021. ...
In reply to Steven Xiao

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Glenn Rice -

The instructions on the wiki at the link that you posted have not been fully updated for 2.18.  LTI authentication with version 1.1 hasn't really changed.  The variables in the configuration have been renamed and moved around, but the base functionality is still the same.

The variables common to both LTI 1.1 and LTI 1.3 authentication are in authen_LTI.conf.

All of the variables specifically for LTI 1.1 are in authen_LTI_1_1.conf.  The variable $LTIBasicConsumerSecret is now $LTI{v1p1}{BasicConsumerSecret}.  In general the renaming is much like that, and it shouldn't be too difficult to figure out how the old and new variables relate.  There is one exception though.  The $LTIBasicToThisSiteURL variable is now $LTI{v1p1}{OverrideSiteURL}.

The setup in the LMS for LTI 1.1 is the same.  If you had it set up before, then you won't even need to change that.

In reply to Glenn Rice

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Steven Xiao -
Thanks, Glenn.
After multiple tries last night, I was going to gave up. After I saw your post, I tried again this morning. Now it seems that it is working.

First I have to say that I don't know anything about how this Webwork/Canvas integration works. All I did was to play with the different combinations of the parameters.

What I did was: edit the authenticity_LTI.conf file and only turn on v1p1. For the rest, just follow the original LTI-Advanced Authentication, pretty much. Of course, read through almost all the lines of the new authen_LTI.conf and the authen_LTI_1_1.conf.

So far, I only tried $LTIGradeMode = "course"; and have not tried the "homework" case. Hopefully it will work also.

What I don't understand is that the Canvas we are using is hosted by Instructure.com. I thought the LTI version should be 1.3. It seems to me that I saw somewhere it says that 1.3 and 1.1 are not compatible. But when I turned off v1p3, why does it work in my case? Any potential security problem there?

If anyone is interested, I could share my authen_LTI.conf and authen_LTI_1_1.conf here,
In reply to Steven Xiao

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Glenn Rice -

A course can only use one of LTI version 1.1 or LTI version 1.3.  Typically, a single WeBWorK server will even only use one of those, but it is possible for the server to use both for different courses.  LTI 1.3 is the newer and more secure protocol.  However, it does take a little more work to set up.  It is possible to set up LTI 1.1 without administrative access to the LMS.  That is not the case with LTI 1.3.

Canvas supports both protocols (as do most LMS's now).  If you have LTI 1.1 working, then go with that.  It should be fine.

In reply to Glenn Rice

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Heath Hart -

Is there a timeline for documentation on LTI 1.3 integraiton with Canvas?  Our university's IT requires 1.3 and not 1.1 and we've been unsuccessful at getting the integration to work.

Hints are welcome.  

In reply to Heath Hart

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Danny Glin -
Each Learning Management System behaves a little differently when it comes to how to configure LTI integration. When it comes to any specific system (e.g. Canvas) the documentation usually requires someone with access to that system working with the community to figure out how to get it working.

So far the documentation for LTI 1.3 integration with WeBWorK is a little thin. You can start with https://webwork.maa.org/wiki/LTI-Advanced_Authentication#LTI_1.3_Setup and see how much of that you can translate to Canvas. If you get stuck you can post here with screenshots of what you see in Canvas and any errors or feedback you get, but please start a new thread as we are getting off topic for this thread.
In reply to Danny Glin

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Glenn Rice -
Also see the zip file that I posted in https://github.com/openwebwork/webwork2/pull/1909 (https://github.com/openwebwork/webwork2/files/11425838/setup.zip). It is referenced poorly in the link that Danny posted, but I included screen shots of the Canvas set up. That is not tested in a production environment though. It shouldn't be to hard to adapt the settings to make it work.
In reply to Michael Gage

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Zak Zarychta -

I am trying, albeit unsuccessfully so far, to use LTI connect WeBWorK with BlackBoard

Zak

In reply to Zak Zarychta

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Zak Zarychta -
After some initial issues setting LTI connect (user error i'm sure), thus far, it is working well.
Zak
In reply to Michael Gage

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Edward Jacobs -
Hi,

I wanted to check and see if anyone is successfully implemented 1.3 LTI with Canvas in a production environment as I don't see any specific step by step instructions for Canvas with LTI 1.3?  

Additionally we worked a couple years ago several hours on grade sync with LTI 1.1 and homework level setup with deep linking with no success.

Any information on either of these two items would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Ed
 
In reply to Edward Jacobs

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Heath Hart -

We're struggling, too.  We're using WW 2.18 and have had some partial success with Canvas and LTI 1.3 -- namely, that we can get students to log into a WebWork course from Canvas, and we can get WebWork to create accounts for students who do not already have one.  We have not yet gotten grade return to work, but hope springs eternal...  

I'll be glad to share with you what we've done so far.

Heath

In reply to Heath Hart

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Edward Jacobs -

Thanks Heath thats great information and sorry to hear your having issues.


By chance in the old LTI 1.1 were you able to get grade sync to actually work as we spent a few hours and were not successful with that, just got the signon to work with LTI 1.1 and create accounts.


Ed


In reply to Edward Jacobs

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Heath Hart -

We never used LTI 1.1, sorry.  This is my current institution's first year with WebWork.

In reply to Heath Hart

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Peter Lert -

HI Heath,

We have been using WW 2.16 with Blackboard for a few years, and now are facing a campus-wide transition to Canvas AND a requirement to use LTI 1.3. Meaning that we must update to 2.18 if not 2.19 as well (probably a good thing to do in any case).

I am hoping that you managed to get your configuration working with grade return, but in any case I'd appreciate any experience and wisdom you can pass along. Thanks is advance!

--Peter

In reply to Peter Lert

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Glenn Rice -
I recommend upgrading to 2.19 (although it is still in the release candidate phase, and not officially released). There are nice features for LTI in the upcoming release. There are updated instructions on how to set things up for 2.18 and 2.19 at https://webwork.maa.org/wiki/LTI_Authentication_(for_WeBWorK_2.18_or_newer). The instructions also include details on how to set things up for the new features for 2.19.
In reply to Michael Gage

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Lorenzo Ng -
I tried to use LTI 1.3 from a WW 2.18 to Moodle and it just won't work.. no errors... just when a resource link is clicked from a Moodle course, users are unable to SSO to WebWork. They just see the WW login screen

This error does not happen with WW 2.16

strange
In reply to Lorenzo Ng

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Glenn Rice -

You are comparing LTI 1.3 with WeBWorK 2.18 to LTI 1.1 with WeBWorK 2.16.  The two different LTI versions are completely different, and take completely different setups.  Try using LTI 1.1 with WeBWorK 2.18 instead.

LTI 1.3 with WeBWorK 2.18 does work with Moodle.  Moodle is the one LMS that I can certainly verify it works with without doubt as Moodle is the easiest to setup and run locally.  The setup is entirely different than that of LTI 1.1 though.

In reply to Glenn Rice

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Lorenzo Ng -

Thank you Glen.

Just to confirm, where are the docs for the setup? I read the ones in the sample file, followed it to the tee and still does not work.

I have another colleague at another school experiencing the same thing so they reverted back to LTI 1.1 with their WW 2.18 because it does not work for them as well.

What exactly are the differences and how can we troubleshoot them?



In reply to Lorenzo Ng

Re: Who is using LTI to connect WeBWorK to an LMS?

by Glenn Rice -

There is documentation at https://webwork.maa.org/wiki/LTI-Advanced_Authentication.  You can also enable the debugging parameters in conf/authen_LTI.conf.  Make sure that you update that file from the .dist file as it has changed considerably.  You will also need to edit the conf/authen_LTI_1.3.conf file.

Note that for LTI 1.1 you use the conf/authen_LTI_1.1.conf file.

In any case you use the conf/authen_LTI.conf file and set that to load the appropriate other file (or both).