I’ve got exciting news about what’s coming next for the world’s most adopted edtech standard: Learning Tools Interoperability®, more widely known as LTI®.
LTI first revolutionized the usefulness of learning platforms around 2010 forward, by making tool and learning resource integrations much faster and lower cost. In 2020, 1EdTech (formerly IMS Global) introduced LTI Advantage, which features a much more secure core launch capability and three services for bi-directional data flow between learning platforms and apps of all types. Virtually every major learning platform implements LTI Advantage today.
However, the more advanced features—in terms of data transfer—are still ramping up as the suppliers and institutions improve their product features. These features are now becoming table stakes as the tool and content providers have an additional focus on the user experience, which is made substantially more seamless for learners and more adaptable for faculty needs through LTI Advantage.
The rapid rise of LTI Advantage has many asking how to become experts. 1EdTech now provides support for both districts and suppliers through our TrustEd Apps Certified Leader (TACL) professional development program.
I’m pleased to share what 1EdTech has “on the drawing board” for LTI Advantage. It’s what we are calling, for now, LTI Advantage Data.
LTI Advantage Data
For those involved in 1EdTech, while exciting, LTI Advantage Data should not be a surprise. It is just what it sounds like, bringing together the power of LTI Advantage and Caliper Analytics® to radically lower the cost and change the expectations regarding the generation of trusted data on the use of learning platforms and tools. This data is needed to understand the return on investment in learning tools and gather insights into the learning process to apply appropriate interventions now or make ongoing improvements to the learning experience.
Institutions are largely driving our perspective on LTI Advantage Data at this time. It’s not a new standard, but rather the use of existing standards together focused on ensuring that the following become easy and commonplace:
- Grade/assignment scores pass back from all tools to the learning platform to make it easy for users to see student progress in one place
- A baseline requirement for Caliper data events from tools to enable understanding of tool usage and student engagement with tools sent to the dashboards/data stores of choice
- A baseline requirement for Caliper data events from learning/launch platforms to enable understanding of platform feature usage sent to the dashboards/data stores of choice
- Strategies for a common user identifier to enable the power of data generated by all teaching and learning tools, apps, and platforms
The use of the 1EdTech standards to enable LTI Advantage Data, including OneRoster® or Edu-API to set up the provisioning of users, means that the overhead required to set up the data flow will be “out of the box” and the data generated will be consistent and therefore, trusted.
While some suppliers and institutions are making much more extensive use of Caliper than will be prescribed in the first incarnation of LTI Advantage Data, it is intended to set the bar so that all organizations and users can benefit!
Get in on the ground floor!
The 1EdTech team is in the process of collecting requirements from end-user organizations regarding the items above. We look forward to sharing more information and gathering feedback at our upcoming Learning Impact Conference, June 5-8, in Anaheim, California, USA. There will be sessions and a bootcamp dedicated to all aspects of LTI and the beginning of our second cohort for TACL professional development, which is open to all Contributing and Affiliate members.
Registration for Learning Impact 2023 is open now. You can view the full agenda online. I look forward to seeing you there!
