Can I get an LMS-specific or org-specific user identifier in a Desire2Learn LE LTI launch?

Question

By default, an LTI launch sent from the D2L LE provides the user_id property to uniquely identify the user making the LTI launch; however, this user ID can't be directly used with the LMS or most other institution systems to refer to the user: it is specific to LTI launches. Can I configure the LTI launch to provide a way to identify the user that I can directly use with the LMS or with other organization services (such as an LMS user ID, or a user log-in name)?

Answer 1

You can configure an External Learning Tool in the Learning Environment to provide more information with LTI launches: the precise list properties that an external learning tool can include in an LTI launch are first governed by the security settings for the LMS as Tools Consumer Information (in the "Settings" page for the External Learning Tools management screen); assuming that the LMS is configured to let LTI launches provide a wide variety of properties, you can set the launch to include one or more of these bits of information:

• Send user ID to tool provider

  This sends the LTI user_id property in the LTI launch.

• Send user name to tool provider

  This sends the user's name information in the properties lis_person_name_given, lis_person_name_family, and lis_person_name_full.

• Send user email to tool provider

  This sends the user's email information in the lis_person_contact_email_primary property.

• Send system username to tool provider

  This sends the user's LMS UserName (the name that a user would log into the LMS with) as the ext_d2l_username property.

• Send system Org Defined ID to tool provider

  This sends the organization's defined identifier for the student in the ext_d2l_orgdefinedid property. This is often the institution's student or employee number for the LMS user.

• Send system role to tool provider

  This sends the LMS role ID for the launching user within the org unit context from the launch occurred, in the property ext_d2l_role.

If you need to get the LMS UserID value for a user, then you can try using the Valence Learning Framework APIs. Immediately upon LTI launch, make a call to the APIs to retrieve a set of user tokens back to the launching domain; this should fetch you the user tokens for the launching user (who must currently have an current logged-in session with the LMS). You can then use a whomai call to verify that the user is who you think she is (by comparison to the bits of information from the LTI launch), or to fetch that user's LMS UserID property.