Add LTI Tool Providers to a Moodle Course

LTI protocol allows an LMS like Moodle to provide instructors with access to applications that they can embed into their courses. Many educational tools are now LTI compatible and an instructor can add those tools in their courses, enhancing the capabilities of the LMS, and thus improve the learning experience of a student.

A list of LTI-compliant tools can be found at eduappcenter.com. Most of these tools either require a contract with your institution or you will have to contact them to request a demo and after that, they will tell you how you can purchase it. For example:

• Dropout Detective identifies students that are most at risk of dropping out of or failing courses. Dropout Detective requires a contract with your institution.
• Modern World History offers a thorough look at world history from the mid-15th century to the present. It has thousands of subject entries, biographies, images, videos and slideshows, maps, and graphs, primary sources, and timelines combined to provide a detailed and comparative view of the people, places, events, and ideas that have defined modern world history. You have to email or call them for ordering and pricing.

We show how these third-party tools can help you enhance your courses with an example of ChemVantage, one of the tools from the eduappcenter.com. ChemVantage provides free Chemistry quizzes, homework assignments and practice exams that keep students engaged by allowing multiple submissions until students succeed. We are using ChemVantage as an example in this tutorial because it is free to use.

Step 1: To add ChemVantage in your course, you need to go to chemvantage.org/lti/registration. Once you are on their website, you will have to enter your email and a unique consumer key for LTI 1.x. You can enter any key that will uniquely identify your LMS.

Step 2: You will receive your credentials (launch URL, consumer key, and a shared secret) in your email.

Step 3: Navigate to your course in Moodle and click on "Add an activity or resource".

Step 4: Select "External Tool" from the list and click "Add".

Step 5: Click on the "+" icon on the right of Preconfigured tool to add a new Tool Provider.

Step 6: Paste your launch URL, consumer key, and a shared secret that you received in your email.

Step 7: Under "Privacy" settings, select "Always" for all three dropdowns.

Step 8: Once the above steps are completed, click "Save Changes" to add ChemVantage as a Tool Provider.

Step 9: Enter the name and description of your assignment and select ChemVantage from the Preconfigured tool dropdown. Select the number of points you want to assign to this ChemVantage exercise under the "Grade" section.

Step 10: After clicking "Save and return to course", you will be taken to your course page. Click on the assignment you just created.

Step 10: You will be taken to a ChemVantage setup page. Select the type and the topic you want for this assignment. Pre-configured multiple choice questions will be shown to the students for each topic.

Step 13: Students will be able to complete the assignment by clicking on the ChemVantage assignment from the list of assignments. One example of the ChemVantage assignment is shown here:

ChemVantage is one of the many tools available to enhance your course experience. You can make use of various such tools without imposing the overhead of additional signups for your students. And the grades from these tools feed directly to your Moodle gradebook.