Current and future state of New Quizzes integration with third party vendors

[SuSorensen]

Instructure is proud of our partnerships and ability to work with other third party vendors so that you have access to a wide variety of tools. New Quizzes strives for that same standard — however, in its current state, the only Instructure supported third party proctoring tool is Respondus Lockdown Browser. Of course, we have plans to expand third party usage. This post outlines the current state, why we support what we do now, and what to expect in the not too distant future. 

There are several ways in which third party tools may interact with Canvas. Some use browser extensions, Learning Technology Interoperability framework (LTI), and/or Application Performance Interface (APIs). In our efforts to keep Canvas open and extensible, we’ve taken all options into consideration in regards to connection with third party tools.

Canvas has a long standing history of working with Respondus. In the very early days they acted as a true partner and worked with us closely to add native Canvas functionality to support  Respondus Lockdown Browser in Classic Quizzes. During the start of the pandemic, we knew we needed to support remote proctoring. We have a well established and trusting relationship and they are the most widely used by customers. To support your urgent need, we again built a native integration with Respondus Lockdown Browser. This is not the way most third party solutions work.

We are in the discovery phase for making our existing APIs publicly available. When this happens, third party tools will be able to use our API to exchange information with their tools. Until that point, we cannot confirm that any other third party proctoring tool can communicate with New Quizzes. 

We recognize that these tools provide important functionality that enables  you to do the very important work you do! We’re still awaiting feedback from vendors about which data points are most critical to ensure a successful transition and integration to best support you.  Our plan is taking shape and we’ll be able to share more of our ideas to get your feedback in the coming weeks.