Nearpod LTI 1.1 integration for Canvas

[DorisLin]

We had Nearpod LTI setup in Canvas LMS year ago. Recently a user reported some modules with Nearpod content returns a message "Information > This code or link is no longer valid > OK". After clicking OK, it returns an error "error "Nearpod.com refused to connect". Those contents were created by a departed colleague, and  this user has imported courses from previous terms. 

I reached out to the district admin in our institution. He suspects the broken links were to due to expired sessions so he created new sessions expiring by end of next year, then update those Nearpod content links to the new sessions. This has resolved the broken links and Nearpod contents work as expected.

In the meantime, I also talked to Nearpod Support but was advised there currently is not a Canvas integration set up for Nearpod for our institution. They provided me a link of integration guide which refers to removing  LTI 1.1 integration then setup Nearpod for LTI 1.3 in our Canvas PROD instance. Noting the integration only works in Production. There is not a test environment where LTI 1.3 will operate as expected. 

Once I was added as a district admin, I do see the message under Manager Nearpod>LMS Integration Setup: "No previous setup integrations."  My question is that we actually have other Canvas courses with Nearpod content which have been working fine. I suspect the previous Nearpod LTI 1.1 integration is still working somehow behind the scene, but just not registered in Nearpod. I hesitate to remove LTI 1.1 and add LTI 1.3 integration, concerning it might break other working Nearpod links.

Has any other sites have similar experiences? Much appreciated.

[Hildi_Pardo]

I'm not sure - -so I'm sorry I'm not much help.   But I would definitely reach back out to Nearpod and ask them what happens to content that is connected and working via LTI 1.1 if the LTI 1.3 get installed.

And then, maybe hold on on this transition until after the Term ends.

[chriscas]

Hi @DorisLin,

I don't have experience with Nearpod at all, but I've migrated about 25 integrations from LTI 1.1 to LTI 1.3 for my institution over the past few years.  What I can tell you is that @Hildi_Pardo is spot on with asking Nearpod what their upgrade experience will be like for faculty.  Sometimes things are seamless and faculty don't even know there was a chnage.  Other times, faculty have to totally re-link or set their courses up with the vendor again.  Some integrations will also allow you to have an LTI 1.1 version working alongside the LTI 1.3 version, where others will clash and break completely if you have two integrations installed.  I usually do these sorts of upgrades between terms, just to avoid breaking any active courses.

I hope some of this info might help guide you in this upgrade.

-Chris

[DorisLin]

Thanks Chris. That was a great advice to avoid the study period when courses are active.

From IT perspective, we do wish to test in non-prod instance before implementing it in prod. Well, it will be up to our business users if they find it comfortable with upgrading it in prod when time suits.

[chriscas · Accepted solution]

Hi @DorisLin,

I forgot to comment on the Prod/Test sitaution.  In my experience, it's pretty much the norm for LTI 1.3 applications to only function in one Canvas environment (prod, test, beta) at a time.  Without getting too technical, I think the mainr eason for this is that LTI 1.3 is more secure and both the app and Canvas have to know about each other, there in LTI 1.1, most of the time Canvas just needed to know about the app and the app didn't need to know about your Canvas environment to work.  Added security is always great, but this is something that does frustrate me for testing purposes...

What your team may want to do is set up a subaccount for testing LTI 1.3 integrations in prod.  The configuration eneds to be done at the root account level, but for testing, they can deploy the app just to a subaccount so it won't afffect any current official courses.  This works pretty well, unless the app has a menu in user navigation (that requires the app to be installed at the root account level).

Sorry if this got a bit into the weeds, but maybe it'll help you and your team.

-Chris

[DorisLin]

Thanks a lot Chris for your advice. I will definitely propose this to our business users.

[DorisLin]

Thanks Hildi.

Yes, I did reach out Nearpod Support and was advised that once we upgraded to 1.3, those links created on 1.1 will break and need to be recreated. They are also aware of bugs affecting 1.1 so the recommendation is best to upgrade to 1.3. 

My other concern is that the Nearpod integration only works in Production. There is not a test environment where LTI 1.3 will operate as expected. Our general practice is to test in a non-prod instance before implementing it in PROD.