Grayed out sets when lis_source_did is empty

[Alex-Jordan]

If a course's grade passback mode is homework, but a set's lis_source_did has not yet been established, the set is grayed out. I think I understand the reason for this is that the student must have entered webwork some other way (password authentication, some other LTI link into the course, ...) and it leads to the student telling the instructor something is wrong, and eventually it is understood that someone needs to follow the LTI link from the LMS to get that lis_source_did recorded.

I wanted to ask if we really need to gray out the set under these conditions. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the set were not grayed out, the student could work on it, and the only "bad" thing is that grade passback will not occur. Wouldn't that be OK? And later the instructor can recognize grade passback is not happening and do something to establish the value for the set's lis_source_did? Or maybe even if the grade passback mode is homework and lis_source_did is not yet established, then there would be an alert next to the set on the Assignments page for the instructor to see.

It's been a problem repeatedly that instructors who do not grok LTI well are reporting students unable to access their sets because of this graying out.

Additionally/alternatively, at the time an instructor in the LMS uses the content item selection tool and data is sent to WeBWorK to retrieve the list of sets, is enough known already such that the lis_source_did for all sets could be set in the database at that time?

I'm asking these questions to make sure I don't misunderstand something. I may make some changes to the LTI if I understand things correctly. Maybe I'd make the graying out behavior optional if I understand things correctly, but people would still want that behavior.

[drgrice1]

One of the problems is that it is not easy for an instructor to "establish the value for the set's lis_source_did". It is different for LTI 1.1 than for LTI 1.3. For LTI 1.1, the only way that can really be established is by the student entering the set from the LMS. There may be ways to delve into the LMS's database and find what is needed, but that is not really a viable option. For LTI 1.3, it still requires the student entering a set from the LMS, but it is more broad as once any student has entered a set, it enables the set for all students that have at least signed in once from the LMS. However, as with LTI 1.1, if none of the required passback information is available, then it isn't easy to find in any other way than a student entering WeBWorK from the LMS.

As to using content item selection (or deep linking), the answer is no, that information is not available at that time.

[Alex-Jordan]

For us with LTI 1.3 with D2L, it is enough for the instructor to follow a set's link from the LMS. My practice has become to create one module where I use the content item selection to create links to all of the sets. I hide this module from students, although I could reveal it I suppose. But I then just open all the links myself once, and that's enough for students.

Elsewhere in the course I can get away with only providing a link to the WW course landing page. Or I can make additional instances of the set-specific links within the relevant modules (but I need to use the already-existing LTI/ELT links, not use the content item selection tool again). It doesn't matter if a student uses the set-specific links since I already initialized things.

But it is this step where the instructor would open all the links that my faculty keep overlooking. It's in my instructions and my tutorial video for them, but enough of them are just not doing it for some reason.

[drgrice1]

That may work for D2L (and perhaps for Moodle), but will not work for all LMS's. It specifically will not work for Canvas, as it does not provide grade pass back information for instructors.

[drgrice1]

Also, it won't work for LTI 1.1 at all since each user has set specific information that must be provided.

[Alex-Jordan]

So it sounds like it would be fine to make it configurable whether or not the sets under those conditions are grayed out. The default would be as things are now. But for example with D2L and LTI 1.3, changing this setting would make sense for some instances. Does that all sound right to you?

[drgrice1]

Yeah, that seems fine to me.