What is LTI Advantage – and what does it add?

From connection to collaboration

LTI 1.3 makes it possible to open an external tool securely from inside a learning platform, with the right user, course and role. That alone saves a lot of logins and manual set-up. But a launch is only the first step. To work smoothly together, the two systems also need to know which activity belongs where, who is enrolled on the course, and what each student achieved. LTI Advantage adds exactly those services.

Like LTI 1.3 itself, LTI Advantage is maintained by 1EdTech, the global education technology consortium formerly known as IMS Global. It uses the same security model as LTI 1.3, so every service is protected by the same modern standards.

How does it work?

LTI Advantage consists of three core services, each of which a platform or tool can support:

• Deep Linking. A teacher browses content or activities in the external tool from inside the learning platform, picks the right one and adds it to the course – without copying links or IDs by hand.
• Names and Role Provisioning Services. The tool can read the list of participants on a course, together with their roles, so it does not depend on separate enrolment files or students logging in first.
• Assignment and Grade Services. The tool can create a column in the platform’s gradebook and send scores back to it, along with information about whether marking is still in progress or complete.

1EdTech has also defined further optional services, including Dynamic Registration for faster set-up, Submission Review for opening a submission from the gradebook, and a Proctoring Service. These are newer, and support for them varies between platforms.

Why does LTI Advantage matter?

The main reason is less manual work and fewer errors. Without these services, teachers and administrators often move activities, participant lists and grades between systems by hand. With them, the data flows automatically and stays in step.

It also improves the experience for everyone involved. Teachers set up activities in the platform they already know, students find their assessments where they expect them, and results appear in one gradebook. And because LTI Advantage is an open standard, institutions can combine tools from different suppliers without building a separate integration for each.

What LTI Advantage cannot do

LTI Advantage is a menu, not a package. A platform or tool can support some services and not others, so “supports LTI Advantage” does not necessarily mean all three core services are available – let alone the optional ones. Each integration should be checked service by service.

It also works within the course in the learning platform. Formal exam administration – registration, exam plans and the official record of grades in the student information system – usually requires other integrations. And gradebooks differ: how scores, late submissions and re-sits are handled is not fully standardised.

How does WISEflow approach it?

In WISEflow, LTI Advantage is part of a wider approach to interoperability: an assessment platform should fit into the institution’s ecosystem, not force it to change. Our understanding goes a little further than ticking off services:

• Deep Linking in daily use. Teachers can pick an existing exam flow – or, with the right privileges, create a new one – and add it directly to a course or assignment in any learning platform that supports LTI Advantage.
• Participants from the course. Participants can be provisioned from the course in the learning platform, so the people in the course are the people in the exam flow.
• Grades where teachers expect them. Grade return to the learning platform completes the loop from course to assessment and back.
• The right system for the right job. For formal exams, WISEflow also integrates with student information systems through its open API, so the official record stays where it belongs.

What should institutions consider?

• Service by service: ask suppliers exactly which LTI Advantage services they support, on which platforms.
• Data flows: decide which system is the source of truth for participants and for grades.
• Exams vs coursework: consider where LTI is the right route, and where student information system integration is needed.
• Ownership: agree who configures, tests and maintains each integration.

LTI Advantage does not replace good integration planning. Used well, as part of a considered approach to interoperability, it turns separate systems into a joined-up experience – for teachers, students and administrators alike.