Textbook (or Technology) Integrations

What is a Technology Integration?

Inte­gra­tions, exten­sions, plu­g­ins, car­tridges, and online text­book links are terms used by third-par­ty providers (such as pub­lish­ers, web plat­forms, and social media com­pa­nies) to describe how their prod­ucts con­nect with an institution’s learn­ing man­age­ment sys­tem (LMS). These con­nec­tions typ­i­cal­ly use the Learn­ing Tools Inter­op­er­abil­i­ty (LTI) stan­dard, allow­ing users to access exter­nal con­tent or tools from with­in the LMS with­out re-enter­ing login cre­den­tials.

When an LTI inte­gra­tion is used, the LMS may share infor­ma­tion such as a student’s name, email, ID num­ber, and course details to ver­i­fy access. This data is often stored accord­ing to the third party’s pri­va­cy pol­i­cy and may reside on servers out­side of Cana­da, where it is not pro­tect­ed by Cana­di­an pri­va­cy laws.

NIC’s Approval Process for Technology Integrations in Brightspace

Instruc­tor requests to inte­grate an exter­nal link or tool, such as a textbook’s online plat­form or anoth­er web ser­vice, into Bright­space go through an eval­u­a­tion process. This review, which exam­ines the tech­ni­cal steps and poten­tial impacts on Bright­space, can take approx­i­mate­ly 4 to 6 months to com­plete.

Please access this Word Doc­u­ment and com­plete pages 5 and 6 — New Tech­nol­o­gy Inte­gra­tion Request Form — and sub­mit to the ser­vice desk. Review the com­po­nents below or on pages 1 through 4 before you com­plete the request form.

Evaluating an Integration

Before adopt­ing a new LTI inte­gra­tion into NIC’s course learn­ing plat­form, Bright­space there are sev­er­al fac­tors to con­sid­er as out­lined by the six areas below.

D2L lists a col­lec­tion of third-par­ty con­tent ven­dors who have ensured their inte­gra­tion works with Bright­space. Just because the con­tent providers are approved for inte­gra­tion does not mean they are com­pli­ant with Cana­di­an pri­va­cy laws. Not all con­tent is use­ful or aligned with stu­dent learn­ing. Ensure you ful­ly explore.

Ques­tions to ask:

  • Does this third-par­ty ven­dor have qual­i­ty con­tent for your stu­dents’ learn­ing?
  • Is the con­tent avail­able in oth­er loca­tions, for­mats or from Cana­di­an com­pa­nies to use in your course?
  • Is there an open edu­ca­tion­al resource (OER) avail­able for stu­dents to get sim­i­lar con­tent for this course?
  • What open edu­ca­tion col­lec­tions did you search for resources?
  • Could some of the con­tent be co-cre­at­ed by stu­dents as open edu­ca­tion assign­ments or projects?

Many third-par­ty com­pa­nies are not Cana­di­an and do not store their data on Cana­di­an servers. Care must be tak­en to ensure inte­gra­tion with a company’s tool does not vio­late NIC’s com­mit­ment to the BC Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion and Pri­va­cy Pro­tec­tion Act (FIPPA). Each inte­gra­tion is unique and requires scruti­ny to deter­mine what stu­dent infor­ma­tion is being request­ed as well as where and how this infor­ma­tion gets used.

Ques­tions to ask:

  • Does this tech­nol­o­gy require stu­dents to pro­vide any per­son­al­ly iden­ti­fy­ing infor­ma­tion?
  • Is this per­son­al­ly iden­ti­fy­ing infor­ma­tion col­lect­ed by a third-par­ty orga­ni­za­tion?
  • If so, is this data processed and stored with­in or out­side of Cana­da?
  • Can stu­dents opt out of shar­ing this per­son­al­ly iden­ti­fi­able infor­ma­tion with a third par­ty?
  • Can you pro­vide an equiv­a­lent alter­na­tive for any stu­dent who does not con­sent to giv­ing this per­son­al­ly iden­ti­fi­able infor­ma­tion to a third-par­ty?

When eval­u­at­ing a tool for teach­ing and learn­ing, it is impor­tant to con­sid­er stu­dents who may have dif­fer­ing acces­si­bil­i­ty or learn­ing needs and how the tool or ser­vice will accom­mo­date those needs. Acces­si­bil­i­ty could refer to how long the tool provider is going to make the con­tent acces­si­ble. Acces­si­bil­i­ty could also refer to how com­pat­i­ble the tool is with var­i­ous mod­ern browsers, screen read­ers and oth­er adapt­abil­i­ty tools. BC is also rolling out acces­si­bil­i­ty leg­is­la­tion and post-sec­ondary insti­tu­tions will have more due dili­gence to com­ply in all the ser­vices, plat­forms and expe­ri­ences we pro­vide.

Ques­tions to ask:

  • Does the tool provider have doc­u­men­ta­tion to con­firm acces­si­bil­i­ty and usabil­i­ty of their prod­uct?
  • Does the tool provider pro­vide details on how long the con­tent will be accessible/available to users?
  • Is this tool and asso­ci­at­ed tech­nol­o­gy com­pat­i­ble with screen-read­ers, var­i­ous mod­ern browsers etc.?
  • Do mul­ti­me­dia resources include closed cap­tions, alter­na­tive text, or tran­scripts?
  • If there are inter­ac­tive ele­ments (such as quizzes), can they be nav­i­gat­ed by key­board alone (with­out requir­ing a mouse)

New learn­ing tech­nolo­gies are typ­i­cal­ly request­ed and adopt­ed to meet spe­cif­ic needs that are not met by exist­ing tools at the insti­tu­tion. Before pur­chas­ing or adopt­ing a new tool it is impor­tant to con­sid­er how wide­spread the use and ben­e­fit of this tool will be and to look at tools that are already avail­able and con­sid­er if these can meet that same need.

Ques­tions to ask:

  • What val­ue does the LTI inte­gra­tion pro­vide to enhance stu­dent learn­ing?
  • How many stu­dents and instruc­tors will use the inte­gra­tion?
  • For how long will the inte­gra­tion be required?
  • Are there exist­ing tools, tech­nolo­gies, or plat­forms at NIC that could accom­plish the teach­ing and learn­ing need with­out requir­ing an LTI inte­gra­tion?
  • Is this LTI inte­gra­tion the only or best resource to meet this need?

New teach­ing and learn­ing tools, includ­ing LTI inte­gra­tions, require ongo­ing tech­ni­cal, admin­is­tra­tive, and finan­cial sup­port to be suc­cess­ful. While LTI’s may be ‘free’, they always have costs asso­ci­at­ed with them whether it be time, staffing resources or tech­nol­o­gy updates. Most­ly this is the many days and weeks of IT work to install, make work and then man­age the inte­gra­tion.

Ques­tions to ask:

  • Do you have sup­port from your Dean or Chair to adopt this tech­nol­o­gy?
  • What sup­ports will the ven­dor pro­vide?
  • What sup­ports are you expect­ing from NIC?
  • What is the cost of this prod­uct? (con­sid­er any costs to NIC and any costs to stu­dents)
  • Where will fund­ing for this tech­nol­o­gy come from?

Care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion of these fac­tors is nec­es­sary to make the deci­sion whether to adopt the prod­uct and will facil­i­tate the smooth imple­men­ta­tion of the new tech­nol­o­gy or tool if the deci­sion is made to move for­ward with a new LTI inte­gra­tion.

When con­sid­er­ing a tech­nol­o­gy inte­gra­tion into Bright­space there are four key roles.

  • LTI Spon­sor: An LTI spon­sor is a fac­ul­ty or staff mem­ber who has over­sight respon­si­bil­i­ties for licens­ing third-par­ty appli­ca­tions. The LTI spon­sor may be respon­si­ble for sup­port­ing the LTI appli­ca­tion once installed.
  • Instruc­tor: The course instructor(s) is a cur­rent fac­ul­ty or staff mem­ber who is assigned to teach a Bright­space course which will use the inte­gra­tion. The LTI spon­sor may also act as a course instruc­tor.
  • Course Par­tic­i­pant: A course par­tic­i­pant is a cur­rent­ly enrolled NIC stu­dent or NIC fac­ul­ty, staff, teach­ing assis­tant, or affil­i­ate who is enrolled in a Bright­space course. Only users with valid, cur­rent NIC cre­den­tials can be Bright­space course par­tic­i­pants. Course par­tic­i­pants can access LTI appli­ca­tions from with­in a Bright­space course, if enabled by the course instruc­tor.
  • IT Tech­ni­cian: The tech­ni­cian will sup­port the inte­gra­tion with Bright­space (called NIC IT Edu­ca­tion­al Tech­nol­o­gy Ana­lyst)

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