Articles in this section

LMS Integrations

This article covers the following topics:

Overview

CourseKey integrates with the top LMS software providers used at career and technical colleges and vocational programs, to allow single sign on from the LMS to CourseKey, to enable automated attendance tracking for online/asynchronous and blended learning environments, and to support student retention activities based on student grades performance tracking.

This article covers general information about available solutions and options to integrate your institution’s LMS with CourseKey, and additional documentation is available upon request.  Contact your Customer Success Manager or submit a support request if you would like to learn more.

LMS_Integrations.png

 

LTI 1.3/Advantage Integration for Single Sign-On From the LMS to CourseKey

CourseKey allows institutions to enable single sign-on (SSO) from the LMS, using an LTI 1.3/Advantage integration.  With CourseKey's LTI integration, customers can provide a seamless experience for their instructors and students to navigate to CourseKey from within the LMS.  As our integration uses the LTI 1.3 Advantage standard, it allows users to bypass the login screen, to be automatically authenticated using SSO, and/or to be redirected to the corresponding course in CourseKey.

 

Integration Basics

The LTI 1.3/Advantage integration is managed by CourseKey, and currently available for both SIS-integrated and non SIS-integrated institutions that use the Canvas LMS.  Once the initial setup is complete (see details below), users can access CourseKey at any time from within the LMS.  From within a course, they can click the ‘CourseKey’ link.  (Note that the link can be configured to appear in the course-level navigation, an assignment, or other places within the course interface in the LMS.)

  • A match for the user’s email address between the SIS, the LMS, and CourseKey is required for authenticating the user in CourseKey.
  • For SIS-integrated institutions that provision courses in CourseKey via an automated SIS integration, a match for the course’s SIS ID between the SIS, the LMS, and CourseKey is required for redirecting users to the corresponding course after the SSO to CourseKey.
  • For non-SIS integrated institutions that provision courses in CourseKey using the batch CSV file import (or via API requests to the Add/Modify User endpoints), a match for the course’s SIS ID between the SIS, the LMS, and CourseKey is required for redirecting users to the corresponding course after the SSO to CourseKey.
  • For non SIS-integrated institutions that are not able to map courses between the LMS and CourseKey, users are authenticated into the CourseKey but not redirected to their course.  In this case, they are redirected to the CourseKey’s Courses page, where they can navigate to the desired courses.

Integration Enablement

To enable the LTI 1.3/Advantage integration, permissioned Admin users have to follow a few simple steps to complete the initial setup within CourseKey and the LMS.  For the Canvas LMS, these steps are outlined in our article on Canvas to CourseKey LTI integration.

 

LMS Integration for Online/Asynchronous and Blended Attendance Tracking

To enable attendance tracking for students' online/asynchronous and blended learning environments, CourseKey supports an automated integration, via Rest API, that handles data syncs for course activities and their corresponding student submissions from the LMS to CourseKey.  The integration is managed by CourseKey, and available to both SIS-integrated and non SIS-integrated institutions, that use one of the following LMS solutions:

  • Blackboard Learn
  • D2L BrightSpace
  • Instructure Canvas
  • Moodle 

Note that given that each LMS product has its own architecture, data structure, APIs, and features, there are differences on the implementations and use cases supported by CourseKey's integrations with an LMS product.  Contact your Customer Success Manager to learn more about the integration with your institution’s specific LMS product.

 

Integration Basics

The CourseKey integration with the LMS for online/asynchronous attendance tracking handles data syncs on a scheduled basis, with data refreshed once every 12 hours.  (This rate of refresh can be increased or decreased depending on each institution’s needs).  This process is fully-managed by CourseKey, and your specific institution’s schedule for data syncs can be reviewed by a permissioned Admin user in the Integrations Insight Dashboard.

The integration syncs data on course activities and their corresponding student submissions, and transforms each student’s submission into time awarded–based on their status (whether “OnTime”, “Late”, or “OverMax”) and the course and the institution’s specific configurations.

  • Strategy: Two online/asynchronous attendance tracking modalities (strategies) are supported currently:
    • Fully online/asynchronous courses (Fixed strategy):
      • This strategy awards a configurable fixed amount of attendance time (awardedTime) for each student's course activity submission (one submission per course activity is recorded only; except for graded discussions, for which each post and reply is recorded).
      • An additional optional setting (maxAwardedTimePerDay) allows capping awarded time to a maximum amount per day (from 1 to 24 hours).  Any student's activity submission that contributes time over the maximum amount per day is marked as “OverMax” and does not award attendance time.
    • Blended courses (Uniform strategy):
      • Use of this strategy requires additional set up in the LMS to mark course activities that count for awarding time per students’ submissions.  (For example, in the Canvas LMS, this means adding an asterisk as a prefix to the Assignment Group to which the activities are assigned.  Any students’ submissions for an activity in an Assignment Group with an asterisk counts for awarding attendance time.)
      • Use of this strategy also requires publishing activities that count for awarding time by the end of the first day of the course (the course start date), when the activity count is locked.  The activity count serves for determining the uniform amount of attendance time to be awarded for each student’s course activity submission, which is calculated by dividing the total time, in hours, that can be awarded to a student for online/asynchronous attendance in the course, by the activity count.
      • This strategy awards attendance time for each student’s course activity submission (one submission per course activity is recorded only; except for graded discussions, for which each post and reply is recorded).
      • Note that for blended courses, in addition to awarding attendance time for students’ activity submissions in the LMS, there are in-person/ground/synchronous sessions that students check-in and check-out to, and which contribute to students’ time awarded for the course.  
    • For both strategies, an optional setting (awardAsyncLate) allows awarding attendance time for students’ course activity submissions marked “Late”.

The integration process works as follows.

Sync Course Activities
  • The integration syncs course activities available to students in the LMS, and creates them as online/asynchronous assignments in CourseKey.  These data are synced as soon as 7 days before the start date of a course and through 7 days after the end date of a course, when a course is available (or marked complete) in the LMS.  
  • The process syncs course activities, including native LMS assignments, graded discussions, quizzes, and surveys; and external tool assignments using the LTI standard (for grade passback from a third-party tool).
Sync Students’ Course Activity Submissions
  • The integration syncs students’ course activity submissions from the LMS, and creates them as online/asynchronous assignment submissions in CourseKey.  These data are synced from the start date of the course and through 7 days after the end date of the course, while the course is available to students.
  • The process syncs students’ course activity submissions and sets their status:
    • OnTime: when the submission was made by the activity’s due date (or by the end date of the course, if there is no due date).
    • Late: when the submission was made after the activity’s due date (or after the end date of the course, if there is no due date).
    • OverMax: applies to fully online/asynchronous courses (Fixed strategy) only, when the submission may contribute time over the maximum amount per day.
  • Students’ course assignment submissions are recorded in CourseKey based on the students’ submission date in the LMS, but some activities may be recorded based on grading events (e.g. when the LMS does not record a student’s submission date for external tool assignments that rely on the grade passback from a third-party tool).

 

Data on course assignments and students' course assignment submissions are leveraged in CourseKey.  For instance, students, instructors, and school admins can visualize online/asynchronous assignments and their submission dates and status in a Course's Records page.

AsyncSubmissions1.png

AsyncSubmissions2.png

 

Integration Enablement

The following are minimum requirements for enabling the integration between CourseKey and the LMS for students' grade performance tracking:

  • The institution runs an instance of a supported LMS platform–whether hosted by the institution or a vendor, and has a process/integration in place for course setup and rostering.
    • Note that CourseKey's integration with the LMS leverages existing institution’s processes for data synchronization between the institution’s SIS and the LMS, for course setup and rostering.  See details below regarding requirements and options for mapping users and courses between the SIS, the LMS, and CourseKey. 
  • The institution exposes the LMS API for external systems to conduct requests.
    • If the LMS is hosted by the institution, the institution whitelists CourseKey’s IP addresses (to be provided during enablement) for access to the LMS API.
  • The institution grants access to CourseKey:
    • to execute GET requests to the LMS API, via an issued access token (from an admin account with permission to all accounts and courses) or a developer key for authentication to the LMS API using the OAuth2 protocol; and
    • to access the LMS platform (Test instance), using admin credentials, for user acceptance testing and ongoing testing/data validation.
  • Note that detailed instructions, specific to the institution’s LMS product, are to be shared by our Integrations Manager during enablement.

LMS Integration for Student Grades Performance Tracking

To enable visibility on students’ course activity grades within CourseKey, and to support student retention activities based on student grades performance tracking in Cortex, CourseKey supports an automated integration, via Rest API, that handles data syncs for course gradebooks from the LMS to CourseKey.  The integration is managed by CourseKey, and available to both SIS-integrated and non SIS-integrated customers, that use one of the following LMS solutions:

  • Blackboard Learn
  • Instructue Canvas
  • Moodle

Note that given that each LMS product has its own architecture, data structure, APIs, and features, there are differences on the implementations and use cases supported by CourseKey's integrations with LMS products.  Contact your Customer Success Manager to learn more about the integration with your institution’s specific LMS product.

 

Integration Basics

The CourseKey integration with the LMS for students' grade performance tracking handles data syncs on a scheduled basis, with data refreshed once every 1 hour.  (This rate of refresh can be increased or decreased depending on each institution’s needs).  This process is fully-managed by CourseKey, and your specific institution’s schedule for data syncs can be reviewed by a permissioned Admin user in the Integrations Insight Dashboard.

The integration syncs data from courses’ gradebooks in the LMS, including individual courses’ gradable activities and their corresponding students’ grades, and the process works as follows.

Sync Course Activities (Gradebook Columns)
  • The integration syncs courses’ gradable activities available to students in the LMS, and creates them as gradebook columns in CourseKey.  These data are synced as soon as 7 days before the start date of a course and through 7 days after the end date of a course, when a course is available (or marked complete) in the LMS.  
  • The process syncs course gradable activities, including native LMS assignments, graded discussions, quizzes, and surveys; and external tool assignments using the LTI standard (for grade passback from a third-party tool).
Sync Students’ Course Activity Grades
  • The integration syncs students’ grades for gradable activities in courses that are available to students in the LMS, and creates a record in CourseKey.  These data are synced from the start date of a course and through 7 days after the end date of a course, while the course is available to students.  
  • To ensure consistency between the final grade of an activity in the LMS and its record in CourseKey, CourseKey retains data on the most recent grade recorded, which is the score used for gradebook calculations in the LMS.
    • For assignments (including external tool assignment), it is the score for the last graded student's submission.
    • For discussion topics, it is the score received by the student for their overall participation in the discussion.
    • For quizzes, it is the score calculated per the scoring policy in the LMS (keep the highest, keep the latest, or the average score of all student submissions).

 

Course gradebook data serve to power the following features:

  • In CourseKey, in the Assessment tab, students, instructors and school admins can view students’ assignment grades in courses; and
  • In Cortex, in the Retention Workspace (Retention Dashboard), school admins, instructors, and staff can visualize insights about students’ engagement in their educational experience, including metrics based on students’ academic performance (grades), risk factors, and an overall risk score.  (See our article on the Retention Workspace for more information.)

Grades.png

 

Integration Enablement

The following are minimum requirements for enabling the integration between CourseKey and the LMS for online/asynchronous attendance tracking:

  • The institution runs an instance of a supported LMS platform–whether hosted by the institution or a vendor, and has a process/integration in place for course setup and rostering.
    • Note that CourseKey's integration with the LMS leverages existing institution’s processes for data synchronization between the institution’s SIS and the LMS, for course setup and rostering.  See details below regarding requirements and options for mapping users and courses between the SIS, the LMS, and CourseKey. 
  • The institution exposes the LMS API for external systems to conduct requests.
    • If the LMS is hosted by the institution, the institution whitelists CourseKey’s IP addresses (to be provided during enablement) for access to the LMS API.
  • The institution grants access to CourseKey:
    • to execute GET requests to the LMS API, via an issued access token (from an admin account with permission to all accounts and courses) or a developer key for authentication to the LMS API using the OAuth2 protocol; and
    • to access the LMS platform (Test instance), using admin credentials, for user acceptance testing and ongoing testing/data validation.
  • Note that detailed instructions, specific to the institution’s LMS product, are to be shared by our Integrations Manager during enablement.

About Mapping Users and Courses Between the LMS and CourseKey

CourseKey's integration with the LMS leverages existing institution’s processes for data synchronization between the SIS and the LMS, for course setup and rostering.  A requirement for syncing data between the LMS and CourseKey is proper data mapping for users and courses between the SIS, the LMS, and CourseKey.

For SIS-integrated institutions, enablement of an integration between the Anthology Student, Campus Cafe, or Verity SIS and CourseKey is required, to maintain data mapping for users and courses, which needs to be consistent across three systems: the SIS, the LMS, and CourseKey.  The integration between SIS and CourseKey also handles provisioning of course properties required to enable online/asynchronous attendance tracking (see a list of these properties below). 

For non SIS-integrated institutions, provisioning of users and courses  in CourseKey using batch CSV file imports or requests to the Add/Modify User API endpoints is an option.

  • When adding/updating users to CourseKey, provisioning a mappingID is optional, unless the match between a student’s email address in the SIS and CourseKey cannot be ensured.  By default, a student’s email address is used to map the user record in the LMS with the corresponding user record in CourseKey.
  • When adding/updating courses to CourseKey, provisioning a mappingID is required.  The mappingID needs to be formatted as a String, including letter or number characters only.  Required is also the provisioning of course properties required to enable online/asynchronous attendance tracking in CourseKey (see a list of these properties below). 

For online/asynchronous or blended courses, provisioning the following properties (whether via the integration with the LMS or using batch CSV file imports) is required:

    • strategy: (String) This the strategy used to manage the transformation of students’ course activity submissions in the LMS into attended time, which can be either 'uniform' or 'fixed'.  When not set for an individual course, the default value defined for the course’s attendance name is used.
    • awardedTime: (Integer) This property is only required if the strategy is 'fixed'; if not, its values must be null.  This is the default awarded time in seconds for each student's course activity submission in the LMS.  When not set for an individual course, the default value defined for the course’s attendance name is used.
    • maxAwardedTimePerDay: (Integer) This property is only required if the strategy is 'fixed'; if not, its values must be null.  This is maximum amount of time, in seconds, that can be awarded to students per day for their course activity submissions in the LMS.  When not set for an individual course, the default value defined for the course’s attendance name is used.
    • asyncTime: (Integer) This is the total time, in hours, that can be awarded to a student for online/asynchronous attendance in the course.  This value is set when the course is created in the SIS.
    • syncTime: (Integer) This is the total time, in hours, that can be awarded to a student for in-person/synchronous attendance in the course.  This value is set when the course is created in the SIS.
    • totalTime: (Integer) This is the total time, in hours, that can be awarded to a student in the course.  This must be the sum of asyncTime and syncTime; and an error is thrown if not.

Pivot Point LAB's LMS Integration with CourseKey for Student Grades Performance Tracking and Export to an SIS

To enable visibility on students’ assessment grades within CourseKey and to support students’ assessment grade data export to a non-integrated SIS, in collaboration with Pivot Point LAB, CourseKey supports an automated integration, via Rest API, that handles data syncs for students’ assessments and their grades from the Pivot Point LAB LMS to CourseKey.

PivotPointGrades.png

 

Pivot Point LAB’s assessment grade data serve to power the following features:

  • In CourseKey, in the Program Progress > Program Progress Grades page, students, instructors and school admins can view students’ grades for assessments completed in the Pivot Point LAB LMS; 
  • In CourseKey, in the Applications > Reports page, school admins can generate a report, to export students’ assessment grades in CourseKey and import them into their non-integrated SIS. 
  • In Cortex, in the Retention Workspace (Retention Dashboard), school admins, instructors, and staff can visualize insights about students’ engagement in their educational experience, including metrics based on students’ academic performance (assessment grades), risk factors, and an overall risk score.

See our articles on Pivot Point LAB and the Retention Workspace for more information.

 

Integration Basics

The Pivot Point LAB's LMS integration with CourseKey handles data syncs on a scheduled basis, with data refreshed nightly.  The integration syncs data from the Pivot Point LAB LMS to CourseKey for assessments and their corresponding students’ grades.

  • Upon enablement of the integration, data synced with CourseKey include assessment and grades for the past 12 months (or since the integration was enabled, if within the last 12 months).
  • Students’ assessment grades are based on the grading method (or scoring policy) specified in the Pivot Point LAB LMS.  
    • The Pivot Point LAB LMS allows customizing the grading method (or scoring policy) for each assessment, to choose whether to use the student’s first attempt’s grade, last attempt’s grade, highest grade (the highest grade of all attempts), or average grade (the average grade for all attempts).  Highest Score is recommended.
  • Changes to students' assessment grades in the Pivot Point LAB LMS will update in CourseKey with each nightly data sync.

Integration Enablement

Contact your Customer Success Manager or submit a support request if you would like to get started with the enablement of the Pivot Point LAB's LMS integration with CourseKey, or to learn more.

Related articles

Comments

0 comments

Article is closed for comments.