[IMS-dev] Questions about Basic LTI and basiclti4moodle

[Carlos Alario]

Hi:

My name is Carlos Alario and I am a PhD student in the GSIC-EMIC
(http://gsic.tel.uva.es) research group in the University of
Valladolid, Spain. We are currently working in the integration of
external tools in Virtual Learning Environments with the aim of
increasing the number of learning situations that can be performed
with such systems. So, we are very interested in Basic LTI and the
extensions for LMSs and tools that are being developed by your
community. I have read the implementation guide (http://
www.imsglobal.org/lti/blti/bltiv1p0pd/LTI_BasicLTI_Implementation_Guide_v1p0p1pd.html),
watched some of the Charles Severance's on-line videos about Basic
LTI, and installed basiclti4moodle in one of our Moodle distributions,
but I still have some questions that I would like to share with you.

1. The Basic LTI security model is based on the OAuth protocol. We can
ensure that there are several OAuth Service Providers, such as Google,
Twitter or Yahoo! that are currently implementing such protocol
(http://wiki.oauth.net/ServiceProviders). However, tool providers
(even web tool providers) do not always think about OAuth when
developing their tools. How do you then “link” with Basic LTI those
tools that do not comply with the OAuth specification? I have seen
that there are several extensions for tools like MediaWiki, W3C
widgets or Wordpress (http://groups.google.com/group/ims-dev/web). Do
these extensions contain the functionality of an OAuth server for each
tool?

2. The main requirements imposed by Basic LTI to the tools are: to
implement the OAuth protocol (including dealing with keys and secrets,
identifying the sender and decrypting signed messages); and to offer a
single destination (URL) to be accessed by the VLE. Is there any other
feature imposed to the tool providers?

3. I have installed the basiclti4moodle extension in my Moodle. Now,
as an administrator I can create a new Basic LTI link in the authoring
screen ("modules=>activities=>basic lti"). Now, how can I configure
the "Remote Tool URL", "Resource Key" and "Remote Tool Password" from
a real Tool Provider? I have just tried with data shown as an example
in the specification of Basic LTI (http://dr-chuck.com/ims/php-simple/
tool.php; 12345; secret). I assume that the Resource Key and the
Resource Tool Password are the Consumer Key and the Consumer Secret in
OAuth terminology (http://oauth.net/core/1.0a), is it Ok?

4. I have checked the "Use Cases" for Basic LTI in the specification.
The first and the second (“setting TP domain credentials” and “setting
link level credentials”) are supposed to be manage by the LMS
administrator, while the third one (“launching an authored Basic LTI
link from a context”) is supposed to be manage by the instructor
(educator). However, basiclti4moodle just allows to access to the
authoring screen playing the role of an administrator and not as an
educator. Are the use cases in basiclti4moodle matching the ones in
the specification? If, so how can I configure a Basic LTI link as an
instructor?

5. Finally, our research group, GSIC-EMIC is very interested in CSCL
so, is it possible to use groups with Basic LTI? For example, in
Moodle we can define groups with different students; can they be used
in a tool integrated with the basiclti4moodle extension?

Thanks

Carlos Alario

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