Support for the IMS Content-Item message was added to Moodle 3.3. This introduces a new, simpler workflow for adding an LTI link to a course. However, there are use cases involving the creation of multiple items, such as a complete table of contents, which are not yet supported. Cengage is supporting a project to enhance the support for Moodle as
described on the project page at https://docs.moodle.org/dev/LTI_ContentItem_Enhacements. Comments and feedback welcome.
Hi Stephen,
Would there be scope within this to look at the use of Content-Item in the text editors so that these items are embedded in Moodle activities (c.f. https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-56229)?
Thanks
Alistair
Hi Alistair,
The scope for this work does not include the integration of Content Item flow in text editor as it focuses on streamlining the addition of LTI Links as Course Activities. This is however I agree another great use case for the Content Item Selection Request.
Claude
Cengage has updated the Project page with an outline of the proposed changes and I am sure would welcome comments and feedback. My own questions are:
- It appears to be the case that for a tool to be able to return multiple content-items it must be added to the Activity Chooser. Is that the case? Are there no plans to add support for multiple items to tools which are added via the Add External Tool page?
- Are there any plans to extend the types of content-items being supported? For example, to include static HTML?
Thanks Stephen for the feedback. Here are the responses:
1. Right, there is no plan to change the External Tool flow for now. The External Tool page flow seems really geared to focus on adding one link at a time. We did not find any way that would make the support of multiple items (in particular with autocreate) feel right in that flow, so thus why we propose to keep it untouched for now.
2. There is no plan to support anything else but LTI Links for now, but I see no reason why the implementation once completed could not be extended to support other asset types.
Claude
The proposal is to change the behavior when launching from the Activity chooser to directly go to the Tool Provider UI. This is a change from the current flow where, where, when launching from the Activity Chooser, the user is sent to the External Tool Page with the tool pre-selected.
Since this is a change, the current proposal is cautious and makes the new flow an opt-in option, and thus adds an extra setting in the external tool plugin page. The question is whether or not that is truly necessary.
The support for Content Item Selection Request is still emerging, and it is a better experience to avoid any in between screen and just show the Tool Provider Add page. As such, should we just remove the opt-in option and just make it the behaviour:
if Content Item Selection Request is supported by the tool, any launch from Activity Chooser will launch directly in the Tool with autocreate true (links are created on return of the content item selection request) and multiple: true (more than one link may be created in the interaction). This would apply for new and pre-existing tool deployments.
Claude
Since this is a change, the current proposal is cautious and makes the new flow an opt-in option, and thus adds an extra setting in the external tool plugin page. The question is whether or not that is truly necessary.
The support for Content Item Selection Request is still emerging, and it is a better experience to avoid any in between screen and just show the Tool Provider Add page. As such, should we just remove the opt-in option and just make it the behaviour:
if Content Item Selection Request is supported by the tool, any launch from Activity Chooser will launch directly in the Tool with autocreate true (links are created on return of the content item selection request) and multiple: true (more than one link may be created in the interaction). This would apply for new and pre-existing tool deployments.
Claude
This screencast of how the Content-Item message works in a different LMS/VLE may be of interest here. Selecting the tool to add takes the user directly to the tool provider and the item is added to the course immediately on return using the title, description, icon and thumbnail provided as part of the selected item.
I wish we could avoid another checkbox for the content item flow. I wonder if it's possible to just always skip the edit page for anything that supports content-item? But yeah I suppose the setting is the safer choice.
An alternative to another checkbox might be to change the existing "Content-Item Message " checkbox into a select tag with options of "single item" and "multiple items". The former would be the default and follow the current workflow. The latter would send a value of true for allow_multiple and auto_create and skip the "Add External tool" page when activated from the activity chooser and bypass it on the return as well (however it was activated).
The more I think about it, the less I see why we would want to have the old behaviour. Kind of inclined to not proposing any option for now and make it the new behavior at least to begin with unless we hear of a strong case against that.
Claude
Claude
Hi!
I've added a short screen cast to illustrate the proposed flow:
Claude
Thanks Claude. The workflow makes sense and looks good.
So if you edit a tool, will you be taken to the content item directly, or to the current edit page? And if we add multiple while editing a tool, what will the behaviour be like?
Not sure if I fully understand which workflow you are referring to as "edit a tool", but as I understand the proposal the change only impacts the creation of links within a course. When the tool is selected from the Activity Chooser it redirects the user to the LTI Tool Provider for them to select/configure one or more content-items to be added to the course. On being returned to their Moodle course, these item(s) are automatically added to the course page. (The screencast posted by Claude shows two items being added to the course.) Once added, these items behave in the same way as any other External Tool (LTI) link; the only thing which has changed is how they were created. And the change would only apply to those tools which are configured as supporting the Content-Item message and which have been added to the Activity Chooser.
I see. Thanks Stephen, that answers my question
Hi!
I've added a section in the proposal around the logic to decide or not to add a gradebook column when a link is created. It's a bit more evolved that I would have hoped, and curious to hear feedback to see if that makes sense.
Thanks!
Claude
After a bit more analysis and the discovery of the handling of Result.autocreate implementation in Moodle, I've revised the proposed flow for Grade Item creation.
The key here is that: in the new flow (autocreate: true) regardless that the Tool requires a grade (either by capability OR explicit settings for manual deployment) a grade book column will only be created if there is an explicit Line Item section in the Content Item payload.
Hoping to hear if that makes sense?
Thanks!
Claude