Learn@Illinois Moodle - Instructor's Guide to the Moodle LTI

This document provides an overview of the Moodle LTI tool. For any questions, please reach out to atlas-tlt@illinois.edu.

General Navigation

1. You can view and edit your Moodle content while embedded in Canvas, or you can open your course on our LTI server for more editing room. An easy way to open your current page on the LTI server is clicking your profile icon in the top right corner of your embedded content, then select "Open in new tab".
2. You can communicate with your students through the Inbox or Announcements in Canvas or through forums in your Moodle site. All three methods will send an email notification to your students. For Moodle forums, students must be subscribed to that forum to receive emails.
3. Moodle's auto-linking feature is turned off by default, but can be enabled by going to More > Filters in your Moodle site. If you use individual activity LTIs, make sure that auto-links are not directing students to a part of the course that is not available to them.
4. External links within your Moodle content should be set to open in a new window, otherwise they will open within the Canvas shell and create a window within a window. Any internal or auto-links will display properly if opened in the same tab.
5. If you are using an entire course LTI, you cannot distribute direct links to pages in the embedded site, as every page will have the same Canvas link. The URL will direct them to the main Moodle course page, embedded within Canvas. Do not provide students a link to your course on the Moodle LTI server (the only exception is if you are using ProctorU - more details below).
6. If you are using an entire course LTI, we recommend hiding all items in the Canvas sidebar, and creating a homepage with a link to the embedded Moodle site (use the Canvas URL).
7. If you are using individual activity LTIs, and want to add more activities, view our instructions here: Adding the Moodle LTI to a Canvas Site.

Enrollment, Roles, and Groups

1. Rostered enrollments will be automatically enrolled in your Moodle course site every 2 hours, or as soon as the user launches the LTI.
2. If you need to manually enroll students, TAs, or other instructors in your course, do so in Canvas under People, NOT in Moodle. Users added to Moodle will be removed the next time the rosters sync. The sync process goes from Banner to Canvas to Moodle.

See here for information on Enrollment, Roles, and Groups.

Activities and Grading

1. Activities and modules need to be published in Canvas for students to access them. To publish, click the circle with the slash through it next to a module or activity. It will turn into a green checkmark.
2. For individual activity LTIs, you can add activities to the Canvas calendar by editing the activity in Canvas and adding a due date. They will not be displayed in the Canvas calendar otherwise. Entire course LTIs are not compatible with the Canvas calendar.
3. Grades will sync from Moodle to Canvas as soon as a grade is updated.

See here for more information on Grading.

Using External Tools

1. If you are using individual activity LTIs, all external tools (Zoom, Turnitin, textbook publisher integrations, etc.) should be added to your Canvas site, not your Moodle site. The exception is connecting ProctorU to quizzes, which is configured within the Moodle quiz settings.
2. If you are using an entire course LTI, the following external tools are currently available in Moodle: Zoom, Turnitin, iClicker Cloud, ProctorU, Pearson, and McGraw Hill. All others will need to be added to your Canvas site.
3. For ProctorU to function properly, it must be set to open in a new tab. Follow the instructions here: Using ProctorU with the Moodle LTI.