[External Tools] Support Section Information within LTI Launch

[MatthewNordhaus]

Problem statement:

Many LTI tools seem to be unable to properly determine the section that a student is in based on an LTI launch. There are a number of similar ideas that have already been submitted:

• Google Assignments Making Copies for All Sections ... - Instructure Community
• metadata field for sections and not just users - Instructure Community
• How can an LTI app access course section informati... - Instructure Community
• LTI custom Issue - Instructure Community

The specific issue that we are struggling with is the creation of calendar events and items on the TODO list when using the ZOOM LTI Pro connector to schedule meetings. When using sections, the Zoom connector will create a calendar event which appears for ALL students in all sections of the course. The same is true for the created items in the TODO list (which may be identical to the calendar event?)

Proposed solution:

Provide LTI tools with the section information required to properly create calendar events that are visible to the section, rather than the entire course. Large courses with many sections that require Zoom sessions for each section quickly overwhelm the calendar, making it difficult or impossible for students to determine which session is theirs.

More info in these two cases:

#08752219 - Calendar event for section users

#09209766 - The custom attribute $Canvas.course.sectionIds for admin does not return any values

User role(s):

admin,instructor,designer

[AlexisNast]

Thank you for sharing this idea! It has been added to the theme "Decrease friction when launching and using LTI tools" for further consideration.