Using LTI external tools in your Moodle course

Moodle, along with other modern LMS platforms, supports the international standard, LTI (Learning Technology Interoperability), for integrating with third-party tools right from a Moodle course without the need for a custom plugin. LTS in continually evaluating, vetting, and implementing LTI integrations with various third-party learning tools. Some of these tools include digital textbooks, enhanced textbook content, and learning activities through Learning Unlimited, specific publishers that offer enhanced textbook content and support the LTI standard, polling tools like Poll Everywhere, and more. LTI integrations are the fastest growing type of integration, and LTS encourages instructors to be proactive in suggest LTI integrations to evaluate and test for potential inclusion in Course Site.

Instructors may already use one or more LTI external tools in their course. As of Moodle version 4.4, this process has been streamlined and usage can be more easily customized to best fit the needs of the course being taught. Instructors can now choose which of the available LTI external tools they would like to show up in the course activity chooser. By default, LTS has made several LTI external tools available site-wide that will show up in the course activity chooser. These defaults are set based on licensing, availability, and audience. Other tools are also configured, but not available in the activity chooser due to use by licensing restrictions and/or smaller audience.

Updating/Selecting which LTI external tools will appear in the activity chooser for a specific course

In order to update and/or select which LTI external tools an instructor would like to have appear in the course activity chooser for their specific course, follow the simple steps below:

Log in to the course (instructor and course builder level roles only can do this). From the main course navigation, select More > LTI external tools

Open

From the LTI External tools page, instructors are shown a list of available LTI external tools currently configured in Course Site.

To show/hide an LTI external tool from this specific course’s activity chooser, simply click the on/off toggle from the Show in activity chooser column in the row corresponding to the chosen tool.

Open

Once an instructor has made their selections, they should only see those LTI external tools in the course activity chooser. An example of the course activity chooser is shown below with some well-known LTI external tools highlighted: Google Assignment, Gradescope, and Learning Unlimited.

Adding a new external tool local to a specific course only

While it is possible to add your own external tool restricted to your specific course only, LTS strongly discourages this practice as you are at your own risk for functionality and reliability. If you come across a tool that you think you might want to use in your course, please reach out to LTS as soon as possible so we can begin the evaluation process (depending on the third-party this can take a week to a month or two, so please try to reach out before the start of a semester).

To add a tool, simply click the Add tool button from the LTI External tool page.