Explaining LTI versus LTI

tdelillo
Community Champion

I have been working with a vendor who says that their product integrates with Canvas. They have been unable to provide me with any explanation of how the integration works, except to keep insisting it would “add a link to the student’s main page” in Canvas. When pressed as to whether this meant the Dashboard, they said yes. They provided me a key and secret, and I configured the app, but it does nothing. I am beginning to suspect that I’ve had a gross misunderstanding with them. What I THINK is happening is that they’re unaware that they have to develop an LTI external app, instead assuming that by giving us the key/secret to allow Canvas to talk to their system, that it will magically put a link somewhere.

 

Since I’m not a developer, I feel like I’m lacking the proper language to explain this to them. If you had to explain to someone the difference between using LTI as SSO, and actually building a tool that uses the LTI framework to communicate with Canvas, what would you say? And if they were ignorant of the app-building process, where would you direct them?

I'm putting this in the Canvas Admins‌ groups, and tagging the Canvas Developers‌ as well. Help! :smileyconfused: