End of Support for the Ares Web Service
Support for the Ares Web Service will be ended soon. Existing LTI 1.1 connections between Ares and course management systems should be removed and replaced by new connections using LTI 1.3 as soon as possible, which uses the Ares API in place of the Ares Web Service. For more information on configuring an LTI 1.3 connection, see Integrating Ares with LTI 1.3.
LTI (Learning Tools Operability) is a standard that allows applications like Ares to integrate with platforms such as course/learning management systems. LTI is also known as Basic LTI. LTI is developed by IMS Global. See the IMS Global website for further definition and history of LTI.
Please contact Atlas Systems at support@atlas-sys.com or 1-800-567-7401 ext. #1 for assistance with LTI setup.
In order to successfully connect Ares with your course/learning management system (CMS), we recommend involving the following people:
- Atlas Systems customer support agent
- Your Course Reserves staff
- Your Course Reserves IT support (access to Ares Customization Manager)
- Your course/learning management system administrator
Using LTI
Most course/learning management systems are LTI compliant and can be integrated with Ares using LTI. See the IMS Global Learning Tools Interoperability Catalog and view which LTI versions are supported by each product. We recommend learning more about LTI and your specific course/learning management system in preparation for Ares integration. You can find explanation and examples for LTI here: http://developers.imsglobal.org/tutorials.html.
Commonly used LTI configuration links
IMS Global has compiled instructions for using LTI with some commonly used course/learning management systems:
- Blackboard: https://help.blackboard.com/en-us/Learn/9.1_SP_10_and_SP_11/Administrator/120_System_Integration/LTI_Tool_Providers
- Canvas: http://guides.instructure.com/s/2204/m/4152/l/74482-how-do-i-configure-an-external-tool-for-a-course-using-a-url
- Brightspace Desire2Learn (D2L): https://documentation.desire2learn.com/en/Learning-Tools-Interoperability-standards-support
- Sakai: https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/LTI/Home
- Moodle: http://www.somerandomthoughts.com/blog/2011/11/28/moodle-2-supports-connecting-to-ims-lti-tools/
Ares LTI Customization Keys
If you are linking Ares with a course/learning management system, there are three tables in the Ares Customization Manager you will need to populate:
- LTIConsumers table
- LTIFieldMappings table
- WebServiceAgents table
Both of these tables can be located in the Ares Customization Manager at System | Integration.
LTIConsumers Table
If you are linking more than one Course Management System with Ares through LTI, each system will need a separate entry in this table.
Consumer Key |
Supplied by you- the key/username for authentication between Ares |
---|---|
Shared Secret |
Supplied by you- the password for authentication between Ares and |
Instructor Roles |
A comma-delimited list of all of the roles from your CMS that will |
Ares Web URL |
This field is only needed if you use multiple CMS systems that use |
Course Proxy Roles |
A comma-delimited list of all of the roles from your CMS that will |
LTIFieldMappings Table
Ares Field Name |
The Ares field you want that LTI value to import into (FirstName, |
---|---|
Ares Object Name |
Either Course or User |
LTI Field Name |
*The field in the CMS system (context_title or user_id, etc.) |
*See http://developers.imsglobal.org/toolcompare.html for a list of parameters available for different CMS systems.
Using Multiple Course/Learning Management Systems
It's possible to create more than one entry in the LTIConsumers table of the Customization Manager and direct more than one course/learning management system to Ares using LTI. If continuity across the programs is required, identical values must be able to be mapped into Ares' ExternalCourseID and ExternalUserID fields, as Ares uses these two fields to uniquely identify courses and users, respectively.
Sites may also map more than one LTIFieldName parameter to the same Ares field (EXCEPT FOR Ares' ExternalCourseID and ExternalUserID fields).
To map multiple parameters to the same Ares field, the parameters will need to be entered into the LTIFieldName column and must be completely unique to that course/learning management system. The LTIFieldName can NOT be passed by both course/learning management systems. For example, selecting to map a parameter of "context_label" to Ares' CourseNumber field from Moodle would not allow a parameter of "custom_label" to be passed into the CourseNumber field by Blackboard, if "context_label" is also a valid Blackboard parameter.
The second parameter should be entered on its own line in the LTIFieldMappings table, making sure the AresFieldName and AresObjectName values are identical to the values of the row you wish to duplicate. Enter the new LTI parameter in the LTIFieldName row and click Save.
WebServiceAgents Table
This table value is set by default to Axis/1.3, but may need to be changed to fit your specific settings.
Web Session Types
As of Ares v5.0, two new web session types have been added and implemented in LTI and Login as User sessions:
- UserSurrogate
- InstructorSurrogate
These session types work similarly to the normal User and Instructor types except the Surrogate types do not enforce password hashing and expiration requirements.