Is there a way to restrict an LTI tool's visibility to be *only* students but neither instructors nor admins?

[pgo586]

The Canvas API docs suggest that using the 'member' value visibility in an LTI's course navigation's XML configuration would make the tool visible to students. However, experience suggests that the tool becomes visible *not just* to students but also to everybody else. Has anybody figured out a way to make a tool truly  visible *only to students* in some other way?

[chriscas]

Hi @pgo586,

I don't think there's a way to do this built in to Canvas, as it would be pretty unconventional to have something that teachers would be totally locked of (I'd understand maybe slightly different functionality or a dashboard or something, but locking teachers out of things usually does not go over well with faculty governance).  The LTI visibility settings are like the minimum role that can see the LTI, and everything above the selected setting gets the access too.

You could use custom javascript/css if the school/institution using your integration would agree to do that to hide a course navigation item from teachers (but this requires careful thought on how you identify the teachers).  This would probably be a last resort, as Canvas admins usually try to keep the amount of javascript/css to a minimum because it can be prone to break and isn't super easy to track and maintain.

-Chris

[pgo586]

I understand your point @chriscas ; I was unfortunately suspecting that was exactly the case. However, I think it would make a lot of sense for Instructure to provide some way of visually hiding a tool from the course navigation for instructors, when the tool does not serve them specifically (e.g. something that is specific to students), as this would clean up the course navigation which in many cases can become pretty cluttered. By visually hiding I mean that ideally it could still be available somehow to faculty that would like to see it. Anyway, thanks for confirming the current state of affairs.