Applicable products: CertMaster Practice
Note: The following requires that you have an LMS integration with CompTIA already configured in your Canvas instance. If you are interested in setting this up, please contact your Sales representative, who can get you in touch with our integration team. For more info on the configuration process, see our other articles on configuring our products in Canvas.
Our LTI 1.3 implementation of CertMaster Practice is still in development, and as such, using LTI 1.3 for CertMaster Practice is only recommended in certain situations – namely, when you wish to create individual links in Canvas for every CertMaster Practice module in a course. For most customers, we recommend a more pared-down implementation: one link to a Learner Dashboard, one to an Instructor Reporting Dashboard, and one to the final Practice Exam. However, if your institution’s needs differ, LTI 1.3 may be right for you.
Method 1 (Recommended): From the Modules view
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In your Canvas course, click Modules in the course navigation bar on the left.
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Find (or create) the module you want to place CertMaster Practice content in.
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Click the '+' icon at the right of the module title bar.
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Select External Tool from the dropdown at the top of the dialogue that appears.
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Select the desired CertMaster Practice tool from the list that appears and a content selector will open.
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The tool name can be altered in the LMS tool configuration, but if you followed our configuration documentation, it will be called ‘CertMaster Practice for <Certification Name>’
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Select the item you wish to place in the Module. Repeat for each desired item.
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Canvas will process the selected items into Canvas assignments automatically with a corresponding column in the Canvas Gradebook.
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CertMaster Practice items will not function for new students in an embedded context, so you must configure all items to open in a new tab. To do this, navigate to Assignment settings by clicking the item, then clicking the Edit Assignment Settings button in the upper right. Then scroll down to the Submission Type section and check the box to ‘Load This Tool In A New Tab’.
Method 2: From the Assignments view
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In your Canvas course, click Assignments in the course navigation bar on the left.
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Click the three-dots button in the upper-right, and select the desired CertMaster Practice tool to display the content selector.
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The tool name can be altered in the LMS tool configuration, but if you followed our configuration documentation, it will be called ‘CertMaster Practice for <Certification Name>’
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Complete Steps 6-8 above.
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After that, you can add the Assignments to Modules as you would normally.
Method 3: From the Editor Button
Note: Gradebook links will not be created when using this method. You’ll still need to create Assignments via either Method 1 or Method 2 above in order for grades from these activities to pass back to the Canvas Gradebook.
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In any Canvas text editor window (for example, in a Page), click the External tools button, which looks like an electrical plug.
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Select the desired CertMaster Practice tool from the list. (You may need to click ‘View all’ if it doesn’t show).
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Check the boxes next to as many items as you wish to add to the module, then click the blue Submit button at the bottom of the content selector.
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Integration links will appear, which you can reformat as desired.
Functionality and Tips
This seems like an awful lot of links, and each has its own gradebook entry? And what about an Instructor Dashboard?
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We generally recommed an LTI 1.1 implementation that sends the user to our platform’s Learner Dashboard, as well as provides an entry point to an Instructor Reporting Dash.
Assignment and Grade Services (AGS) Functionality
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Our tools utilize LTI 1.3’s Advantage Services, including AGS, which allows grades to automatically pass from our platform to the LMS gradebook as they’re scored.
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There are a handful of requirements for this process to happen properly in CertMaster Practice:
- There cannot be multiple Canvas assignments associated with the same piece of graded content in a single Canvas course.
- All LTI Advantage Services settings in the Canvas Developer Key configuration that are related to results, submissions, or gradebook must be switched on. If you used the JSON configuration method in our documentation, this will already have been done for you, but it is possible for an LMS Admin to switch it back off after the fact.
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Provided these are all met, grades will return to the LMS within seconds of student completion.
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Note that due to the nature of the smaller CertMaster Practice modules – taking the user through each question multiple times until they ‘master’ them – completion of a module implies a grade of 100%, and only the final Practice Exam will return anything other than a grade of 100.
For more assistance, see the screenshots below.
Location of the Modules '+' icon in Method 1.
1.4 Select ‘External Tool’ at the top, and then click the desired CertMaster Practice tool.
Adding an item from the content selector.
An example of how a Lesson might look in Canvas using all of our learning products. The third section is the CertMaster Practice content.
