The Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) specification is an education technology specification from 1EdTech (previously IMS Global Learning Consortium) intended to simplify and standardize the way learning systems communicate and interact with each other, including items like login support, grading, results reporting, and content linking.

LTI is a specification, a grouping of rules and behaviors that should be adhered to. Not all applications that use LTI implement the entirety of the LTI specification.

The Learning Tools Interoperability consists of several Services: 

• LTI Core

  • The LTI core establishes a secure connection and confirms the tool’s authenticity while the extensions add features like the exchange of assignment and grade data between an assessment tool and your LMS gradebook. 

• Assignment and Grade Services

• Names and Role Provisioning Services

• Deep Linking 
  

“Tool” vs. “Platform” 

LTI specifications allow for two (or more) systems (denoted as a Platform and Tool) to integrate with each other. The individual service specifications detail what features are provided through LTI. Typically, the integration is between an LMS and an application that provides some type of learning experience. The LMS is denoted as a Platform. The Learning Experience Application (BenchPrep) is set up to act as a Tool. 

LTI allows external tools (like BenchPrep’s learning experience), content, and activities to work with a Learning Management System (LMS) or similar platform. For example, information like a course grade can be safely transferred from BenchPrep’s Tool into a customer’s LMS, and our customer’s users can sign into BenchPrep’s platform using existing LMS credentials via LTI. 

Why use LTI?

Using LTI provides many advantages, among them: 

• Enhanced Learner Experience - LTI eliminates the need to manage multiple sets of login credentials for separate tools. 
• Privacy and Security - data that is exchanged between platforms leverages 1EdTech security frameworks to ensure most up-to-date privacy and security.
• Content Accuracy - tenants maintain a single source of Content in BenchPrep, instead of providing files to clients to implement within their LMS. As a result, learners accessing content via a non-BenchPrep LMS will always have the most up to date content. 
• Time and resource savings - ease of integration without having to worry about building a custom integration or switching to new tools, resulting in cost, time and resources savings while accelerating speed-to-market time.
   

LTI and BenchPrep

BenchPrep completed the LTI 1.3 Tool certification process and our platform has been tested and certified as conformant with 1EdTech certification requirements. Customers can use an existing Platform (LMS, AMS, etc.) that is LTI 1.3 platform capable to support user login, data transfer, custom grading, and deep linking to content in BenchPrep without custom integration work!

As an LTI 1.3 Advantage certified tool, BenchPrep can connect to systems that are LTI 1.3 compliant. LTI Platforms we have successfully connected to include: 

• Blackboard Learn
• Brightspace by D2L
• Canvas vCloud
• Moodle
• Strut Learning

LTI Capabilities offered by BenchPrep include:
 

• Branch and Tenant multi-tool configuration - LTI Tool can be set up at tenant or branch level, allowing for customizations in configuration options. 
• Multi-Deployment - BenchPrep supports deploying the same LTI tool into multiple courses or branches. A single LTI tool can have multiple deployments, allowing for the same tool to be used in different contexts. The LTI Platform (LMS) course selector allows you to pick the course and content you want to link to. Content that can be linked includes: Lessons, Tests, Practice Questions, Study Tasks and Skillable Labs. 
• Course to Tool relationship -  Multiple courses can be added to a single LTI tool deployment.  This allows for more flexibility when linking content from the LMS Platform. 
• Role Mapping - Users with global LTI roles can be mapped to corresponding BenchPrep roles via our mapping capability.  This enables easy role-based access control and synchronization of roles between the LMS and BenchPrep.
• Group Assignment - Ability to map users to Groups based on the information in theLTI context claim.  This allows for automatically grouping users based on attributes in the LMS, instead of needing to manually create groups and assign users to groups.