Bongo Integration Using LTI 1.1

Assists in integrating Bongo within a Learning Management System that is compatible with the LTI 1.1 standard. This document is intended to provide general guidance. Differences in how different LMS systems treat LTI integration may lead to variations in the work required to successfully integrate Bongo as an LTI Tool.

Configuring a Bongo LTI Tool in an LMS

Bongo uses the LTI standard for integration with LMS platforms. (Specification found here). LTI uses a few different pieces of information to complete the integration. These pieces of information will need to be input into the LMS platform to create the LTI tool to be used. This can usually be done globally in the LMS or at the course level. These are the pieces of information that are used for integration: 

• URL: This is the Bongo URL called when a Bongo link is clicked. 
• Key/Secret: These are used to sign the requests to Bongo using the OAuth protocol.

Tool Options

Many LMS systems have many options to determine how much data is sent to Bongo. If these options are available, the following are what is required for Bongo to function properly. 

• User First/Last Names: Bongo requires user’s names to be sent in the LTI request. If this is missing, users will be prompted to enter their name on their first launch. 
• User Emails: Bongo requires user’s emails to be sent in the LTI request. If this is missing, users will be prompted to enter their email on their first launch. 
• Context/Course Information: All activity in Bongo happens within a course or context. Bongo launches will fail if this information is not included. 
• Resource/Link Information: Typical Bongo integrations have multiple Bongo links in a course, the link information is required for successful Bongo launches. 
• Role Information: Bongo has multiple roles and requires a role designation sent from the LMS. Bongo launches will fail if no role or unsupported roles are sent. 
• Outcomes/Grades and Assignment Services/LTI Grading: Bongo shares grades with LMS systems using this standard. This needs to be enabled if grade sync functionality is desired. 

Class/Assignment Creation

Unless using automatic template copying (See below for details), educators must go through the class creation process and create/copy assignments before a learner can launch Bongo. An example using the Moodle LMS can be found here. 

Upon launching a new class, the educator will be prompted with up to three options: 

• Create a blank course: Will create a blank course based on the default template 
• Use a course template: Allows the educator to create a course based on a template. See the section below for details on templates. 
• Copy an existing course: Allows the educator to copy any previous class where they were enrolled as an educator.

Bongo Templates

Bongo courses can be marked as templates to be used again in the future. Once created and marked, template classes will appear in the template list when creating a new class, and can be used for automatic copy if configured.

Marking a Course as a Template

Templates can be managed by educators with the Content Developer role. This role is not enabled by default, but can be enabled for an integration by a Bongo Administrator. Once the role is enabled, the Bongo Administrator can grant educators the Content Developer role or educators can automatically be granted this role if their LTI launch has the Content Developer role. 

Once an educator has Content Developer privileges, they will see the Template Settings option in the left corner hamburger menu. 

Note: Bongo templates cannot have any learners enrolled in them. The Template Settings option will be disabled if learners have already accessed the class. 

Opening the Template Settings menu item will prompt the educator with the option to mark the course as a template. This will add it to the template list seen when creating a new class. 

Template Automatic Copy

Bongo templates can be used in an automatic copy process. This eliminates the class creation step for educators and allows learners to launch assignments in the class without educator involvement. 

In order to use this workflow, a value must be supplied in the LTI request that Bongo can use to know which template to use. Any LTI field can be used, as long as it is unique for each template and is consistent for all classes that want to use a single template. 

The most precise way to do this would be to include a custom parameter that designates which template is to be used, but not all LMS systems have this capability. 

E.g. custom_template_id = template_123456 

If this is not possible with your system’s configuration, other standard fields may be available for this purpose, such as context_title or context_label. To use these alternate fields, please submit a request to Bongo support and include the field you’d like to use.

Once the field and values have been decided and configured, the Content Developer will need to add the values to each template. This is done in the same Template Settings page used to mark the class as a template 

After this setting is set, any new courses with a matching template identifier will automatically copy the contents of the template into the new class.