A group of edX partners and developers lead by Phil McGachey, from Harvard University, has successfully tested the LTI standard as a tool provider in edX’s Edge environment (for edX’s partners only), with Canvas and Blackboard as tool consumers. This development, that fits with edX’s goal of improving on-campus education for its partners, is a pilot for now –not a complete implementation of the LTI 1.1 protocol.
As a result of this preliminary effort, elements of Open edX courses –including video and advanced assessments– are embedded as learning experiences into other LMSs which are more specialized in student management. This way course teams can reuse content they are developing in edX MOOCs for residential courses delivered through Canvas or Blackboard. The Open edX platform can also be treated as a library of learning objects.
In addition, it will offer transfer of grades and synchronization capabilities: data about their performance on Open edX assessments will flow into the gradebook they use along with the grades for all their other assessments.
“At Harvard, our faculty want to to use these materials not just in their edX MOOCs, but also on campus. Integrating Canvas and edX through LTI gives us a transparent way to combine the strengths of each platform,” said Phil McGachey.
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Documentation: Open edX as an LTI Tool Provider
