Homework Submission Placement

The homework_submission placement allows students to use the LTI Deep Linking flow to select a resource from an external tool for submission to an "Online File Upload" submission type assignment.

Configuring

For configuration examples and links to the specification, please refer to the LTI Deep Linking documentation. Simply replace the assignment_selection text with homework_submission in the XML (LTI 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2) or JSON (LTI 1.3) examples.

Advantages

• Allows Canvas to have a full copy of the file, which may be of importance for auditing or other administrative purposes.
• Allows students to choose whether or not they want to use the tool to submit.
• Files can be checked for plagiarism by tools that use the Plagiarism Detection Platform.
• Integrates into the native Canvas submission workflow that students are already familiar with.

Limitations/Challenges

• Tools cannot use LTI grading services to sync grades.
• If the tool wants to update/alter the submission, the student must resubmit the new version.

Workflow

Once an assignment is configured to accept file uploads, any LTI tool that uses the homework_submission placement will be exposed as a tab when the student attempts to submit to the assignment. Students will be able to choose to either upload a file directly from their system, or click on a tool's tab. When the tab is clicked, Canvas initiates an LTI launch to the tool and indicates that a deep linking selection request is happening. The tool can then present the student with a UI to select and/or create content and return it to the LMS as a file download url. Canvas then attempts to download the file and attach it to the Canvas submission.

The end result is Instructors can ask students to submit a file to Canvas as the submission. The student can then choose from multiple sources for that file without having to go to the source in a separate window and download the file locally to their machine.

Settings

All of these settings are contained for the homework_submission placement:

• url: <url> (optional)

  This is the URL that will be POSTed to when users click tab in the file upload UI. It can be the same as the tool's URL, or something different. Domain and URL matching are not enforced for homework_submission launches. In order to prevent security warnings for users, it is recommended that URLs be over SSL (https). This setting is required if a url is not set on the main tool configuration.

• text: <text> (optional)

  This is the default text that will be shown on the tab in the file upload UI. This can be overridden by language-specific settings if desired by using the labels setting. This is required if a text value is not set on the main tool configuration.

• labels: <set of locale-label pairs> (optional)

  This can be used to specify different label names for different locales. For example, if an institution supports both English and Spanish interfaces, the text for the hover-over tip should change depending on the language being displayed. This option lets you support multiple languages for a single tool.

• enabled: <boolean> (optional)

  Whether to enable this selection feature; this setting defaults to enabled if omitted.

• message_type: <an IMS LTI message type> (optional)

  Sets the message_type to be sent during the LTI launch. It is expected that the tool use this to determine if a Deep Linking flow is being requested by Canvas and present an appropriate UI. A Deep Linking flow is highly recommended for this placement, but is not required. See the Deep Linking documentation for more information, including accepted values.

• icon_url <url> (optional)

  The URL for an icon that identifies your tool in the RCE toolbar. It is it is recommended that this icon be at least 16 x 16 px and png or svg format the url should be secured over SSL (https). This icon only appears if a tool is listed in the "More" tab (i.e. the 4th or greater installed tool that uses this placement).

• selection_width: <pixels> (optional)

  This sets the width (px) of the selection launch iframe. Canvas may set a maximum or minimum width that overrides this option.

• selection_height: <pixels> (optional)

  This sets the height (px) of the selection launch iframe. Canvas may set a maximum or minimum height that overrides this option.