Your instance as an LTI Tool Provider

Your instance as an LTI Tool Provider#

The Open edX platform can act as a Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) tool provider, allowing you to deliver Open edX course content inside another LMS such as Canvas, Blackboard or any system that supports LTI 1.1.

Setting this up involves 2 roles:

Site operator: Enables LTI provider functionality on the Open edX instance and creates LTI 1.1 credentials for external LMS. See Configuring your Open edX instance as an LTI Tool Provider (site operator docs).

Educator: Identifies the Open edX course content to share, constructs LTI URLs for that content, and adds LTI 1.1 configuration along with those URLs to the external LMS.

Content You Can Deliver#

The Open edX software lets you deliver specific parts of a course via LTI. You can share a subsection, a unit, or an individual component. Sections are not supported.

For details on which content types work well when delivered via LTI, see Content Compatibility for LTI.

Learner Authentication Options#

The authentication mode affects how seamlessly learners access your content and whether you need to configure your external LMS to send learner identity information. This is configured by your site operator. See Authentication Modes for the configuration steps.

Anonymous (default): A user account is automatically created for the learner with a randomly generated username and email address. No personally identifiable information is stored. This mode provides the most seamless experience and the learner may not even notice that your Open edX instance is involved.

Because accounts are created with randomly generated usernames and email addresses, you cannot identify individual learners in your Open edX instance.
Auto-create with personal information: A user account is created using the learner’s email address. If an account with that email already exists, it is linked automatically. This mode is useful when you need to identify learners or associate their LTI activity with an existing Open edX account.

For this to work, configure your external LMS to include lis_person_contact_email_primary in the LTI launch request. Without it, your Open edX instance cannot identify the learner and will create an account using the LTI user ID instead. You can also send lis_person_name_full (or lis_person_name_given and lis_person_name_family) to populate the learner’s display name, but this is optional.
Require existing account: The learner must already be signed into your Open edX instance in the same browser, and their account email must match the email address your external LMS sends in the launch request. If either condition is not met, they see an error page with a link to the sign-in page. This mode is useful when learners must have pre-existing accounts on your Open edX instance.

For this to work, configure your external LMS to include lis_person_contact_email_primary in the LTI launch request. Without it, the email match fails and the learner sees the error page, regardless of whether they are signed in.

Grade Passback#

When you include problem components from a graded subsection in an external LMS, the Open edX software grades the learner responses and transfers the scores back to the external LMS.

If the content is an individual problem component, the Open edX instance returns the grade for each learner immediately after they submit an answer.

If the content is a unit or subsection, the Open edX instance aggregates the grades and returns them after a configurable delay (15 minutes by default).

Note

Your external LMS may have additional requirements for grading to work. For example, in Canvas, the LTI URL of a problem component must be added to the Assignments section of a course, or to a module item that points to an assignment.

Or the user who launches the LTI material must be eligible to receive a grade (that is, a learner, not a TA or course designer).

What You Need from Your Site Operator#

Before you can configure your external LMS to consume Open edX content, you need the following from your site operator:

Consumer key: A unique identifier for the external LMS. Your site operator creates this when configuring the LTI consumer in Django admin.
Consumer secret: A shared secret used to authenticate the LTI connection. Created alongside the consumer key.

You will enter these values into your external LMS when setting up the LTI integration. In addition, you will need the LTI URL for each piece of Open edX content you want to deliver. You’ll need to construct these yourself using the course ID and usage ID. See Determine LTI Content Addresses.

Note

Not all Open edX content types work well when delivered via LTI. For details on which component types are compatible, see Content Compatibility for LTI.

Review Date	Reviewer	Release	Test situation
2026-05-06	Aamir Ayub	Verawood	Pass
2025-06-04	MITx	Teak	Pass