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.
Placing links into your Moodle course (configured 2024 or after)
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In your Moodle course, click the Turn editing on button in the top right.
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Scroll to (or create) the topic you want to place CertMaster Practice content in.
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Click + Add an activity or resource at the bottom right of the topic to open the Activity Chooser.
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Find and select the CertMaster Practice tool in the All or Activites tabs, or search for it using the Search bar at the top.
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The tool name can be set to anything your LMS Admin wants, but if our recommended configuration was followed, it will begin with ‘CertMaster Practice for <certification>’
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If you cannot find the tool in the Activity Chooser, your LMS Admin may have chosen to not show it there. In this case, select External tool from the Activity Chooser, and in the dialogue that appears, select the desired tool from the Preconfigured tool dropdown second from the top.
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- Skip Activity Name, and click Show more...
- Scroll down to Custom parameters and add the appropriate parameters from your documentation to create the desired type of link. See screenshots below for examples.
- To create a Learner Dashboard link, add template_xid from the table in your documentation
- To create an Instructor Dashboard link, add template_xid from the table in your documentation, and on a new line add mode=Reporting
- To create a graded Practice Test link, add template_xid and module_key from the table
- (Practice Test links only:) Scroll to the Privacy section, and check Accept grades from the tool. All three items in this section should now be checked.
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Repeat steps 3-6 for each tool: the Learner Dashboard, Instructor Dashboard, and Practice Test.
Placing links into your Moodle course (configured pre-2024)
If your integration was set up before 2024, you may have an older configuration that looks a bit different. This is not a problem, and you won't lose any functionality, but you'll want to follow the instructions below instead!
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In your Moodle course, click the Turn editing on button in the top right.
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Scroll to (or create) the topic you want to place CertMaster Practice content in.
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Click + Add an activity or resource at the bottom right of the topic to open the Activity Chooser.
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Find and select the desired CertMaster Practice for <Certification> tool in the All or Activites tabs, or search for it using the Search bar at the top.
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The tool name can be set to anything your LMS Admin wants, but if our recommended configuration was followed, it will begin with ‘CertMaster Practice for <certification>’
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If you cannot find the tool in the Activity Chooser, your LMS Admin may have chosen to not show it there. In this case, select External tool from the Activity Chooser, and in the dialogue that appears, select the desired tool from the Preconfigured tool dropdown second from the top.
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Repeat steps 3-4 for each tool: the Learner Dashboard, Instructor Dashboard, and Practice Test.
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Click Save and return to course and your selected items should now appear under the desired Topic.
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Click the Edit dropdown next to the Instructor Dashboard, and select Hide, so only Instructors can see and click the link.
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Click the Edit dropdown next to the Practice Test, and give it the desired Grade settings. Learner scores will returned as a percentage that is then applied to the Points value you assign in the Activity settings.
If you’re interested in using the smaller, individual CertMaster Practice modules as graded assets, please read LTI 1.1 Basic Outcomes Functionality below.
Functionality and Tips
LTI 1.1 Basic Outcomes Functionality
Our LTI 1.1 tools utilize 1EdTech’s Basic Outcomes functionality to pass grades back from our platform to the Canvas gradebook. There are a couple of requirements for this process to happen properly in CertMaster Practice:
- Only items set up as direct module links or Practice Test links will pass back grades. Grades for activities completed through a Learner Dashboard link will not bass back.
- Learners must enter our system through the link in question in order for the grade to be sent back to the gradebook.
Provided these requirements are met, grades will return to the LMS within seconds of student completion.
If you wish to link the many smaller, individual modules from CertMaster Practice, notify your integration specialist, but note that most customers do not choose this option: Since CertMaster Practice modules make the user answer each until they ‘master’ it, the only grade ever sent back for the smaller modules will be 100%.
For more assistance, see the screenshots below.
Step 3. Select + Add an activty or resource. Clicking the highlighted one in the screenshot will add the selected content to the Moodle topic 'Demo Topic'.
Step 4. The Moodle Activity Chooser. You can search for ‘CertMaster’ at the top and then select the desired tool directly (such as ‘CertMaster Learn for A+’), or select ‘External tool’ and then pick the specific tool from the ‘Preconfigured Tool’ dropdown in the dialogue that appears.
Appendix: Custom Parameter Definitions
CertMaster Practice utilizes a number of LTI custom parameters to affect how the LTI link functions and where it sends users. What do each of these custom parameters actually do?
Account Key (account_key)
The account_key parameter is exactly what it sounds like -- an identifier for your institution's CertMaster Practice account in our system. This identifies your launch as coming from your institution -- it's required for all tool links and will be the same across each one. This is why it's generally configured at the Preconfigured Tool level, rather than at the activity level.
Mode (mode)
The mode custom parameter simply declares whether the link will point toward Learner material or Instructor reporting. This parameter is required, and only has two possible values, 'Learning' and 'Reporting'. We generally configure this to be mode=Learning at the Preconfigured Tool level, as the majority of an institution's tool links will be Learner links. Additionally, most LMSes (Moodle included) only take the lowest-level of duplicate parameters, so if you want to create an Instructor link, you simply add mode=Reporting at the activity level, and it will overwrite the tool-level parameter.
Template External ID (template_xid)
The template_xid custom parameter is required for launch, and dictates which CertMaster Practice course that link sends users to. So if you've created a Learner Dashboard link that includes the parameter template_xid=yourinstitution_security701, that would take you to the Security+ 701 material for your school. Note that though these values dictate which course your link goes to, they are institution-specific, so please use the ones sent by your CompTIA integration specialist.
Module Key (module_key)
The module_key represents a single module/activity within the CertMaster Practice course, and the way it works is a bit trickier. It's optional, and if it's left out, the link will send the user to the Learner Dashboard for the full course. If it's included, two things happen: First, the link will send that user to that key's individual module in the course. Second, it enables that activity to pass grades back to your LMS gradebook.
However, we generally only include one module_key parameter per course with the parameters we send out: the key for the full Practice Exam. Why don't we include a list of module keys for each module in the course? Though we can send them if you wish, we've found most customers prefer not to link every single module individually. This is due to the way CertMaster Practice works: almost all individual modules ask the user to answer the same questions over and over again until they've gotten them all correct. The module is not considered complete until the user answers every question correctly. Therefore, the only grade ever sent back from a completed module will be 100%, regardless of whether the learner got every question correct on the first try, or took many tries to do so.
The Practice Test, on the other hand, is graded more conventionally and will send back the grade the student scored on the test. As a result, it has considerably more use in most settings, as opposed to creating a whole course's worth of individual links that always send back 100's.