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Questions on LMS Blackboard/Canvas integration

Questions on LMS Blackboard/Canvas integration

by Mike May -
Number of replies: 1

I think I have bitten off a bit and need some help, or at least directions to information.

My school has decided to go standardized test optional admission.  We want to use webwork as part of placement.  We have constructed webwork tests to do the placement.  We need to figure out how to do that without overwhelming us.

The current plan is to put in our LMS (Currently blackboard, converting to canvas in a year) a course with the placement tests.  Ideally:

A) Students log in to the LMS course and have a link that takes them to webwork without an additional sign in or password.  

B) Being enrolled in the LMS course enrolls them in the webwork course.

For both A and B:

1) Can that reasonably be done?

2) This would be done by ITS and they are not terribly conversant in webwork.  Can you give a reference, either on the web or a contact , of someone who can do some hand holding?

3) Can this be done in such a way as to preserve webwork use for non LMS classes?

4) Are there obvious other questions I should be asking at this point?

Mike May

mike.may@slu.edu

In reply to Mike May

Re: Questions on LMS Blackboard/Canvas integration

by Alex Jordan -

Hi Mike,

Yes, you should be able to do all this. The one point that I hesitate with, is that if you have many students all take a test at the same time, and the test uses Gateway (where all problems are rendered at the same time) then maybe you would have load issues. But probably you can do this without lots of students doing it simultaneously. And also, maybe it can be done will in homework mode, not with Gateway quizzes.

Actually a second point of hesitation. I've helped many schools with getting their LMS-WW connection working in the context of being the Runestone WW admin. It's never been a problem with Canvas, although once or twice we needed a Canvas administrator to assist because of how the school had configured Canvas. With Blackboard, I've never had success. Each time, it appeared that we needed the Blackboard admin to help, and they were not able to. Probably because of school policy about needing to put WeBWorK through a vetting process first that takes a lot of time. In principle though, with support of your IT/DL people, it works with Blackboard.

A and B are effectively the same. You put a few lines in a course's config file. You do a few things in the LMS (possibly needing an LMS administrator's approval). There will be a link in the LMS. A student clicks it. Their LMS ID will match their WW course ID, and the LMS authenticates them so WW lets them in. If there is no matching WW account yet, then this process creates their account.

Here is the reference page of the wiki for all this:

https://webwork.maa.org/wiki/LTI-Advanced_Authentication

Each place that page mentions doing something in localOverrides.conf, I suggest doing it in the testing course's course.conf instead.