If you are using Canvas, you may want to refer to our automatic capture scheduling feature for LMS Courses, which performs the simplified course provisioning in Echo360 as a function of setting up lecture recordings. This feature will be rolled out for other LMS/VLE in the near future.
Simplified course provisioning for LMS is a setting that tells Echo360 to automatically create a new Echo360 course and section when an LMS instructor or administrator passes in from an LMS course. The feature is designed to eliminate the administrative tasks of creating sections and courses in Echo360 for an LMS course to link to. It allows YOU, the administrator, to configure the LMS and let the LTI link into Echo360 configure Echo360.
The auto-created course will have the same course code as the LMS course and the same name. The auto-created section will have the section number 001. This is editable if the Edit section names feature is turned on.
Technical Detail: Actually, if the LTI payload from the LMS contains a value in the lis_course_section_sourcedid field, Echo360 uses this value as the Section name. How is this value populated in the LMS? That depends on what LMS/VLE you are using. Moodle, for example, uses the Course ID field as this value. Meaning if you link from Moodle to Echo360 via one-click provisioning, the value in the Course ID field will automatically become the Section Name/Number in Echo360. If you'd rather have the section auto-numbered, clear this field for your Moodle courses. Brightspace and Sakai also send a value in this field but it is populated differently. Refer to your LMS documentation or support representative as necessary.
After the new Echo360 section is created, Instructors will be given other options for subsequent links into Echo360 from their LMS course. Refer to (and have your Instructors refer to) Simplified Course Provisioning Options for Instructors, as well as Instructor How-To's for LMS Simplified Course Provisioning.
Other integration steps remain generally the same, depending on the level of Echo360 integration you want for your LMS. Use the following overview articles for more information on the integration steps available for your LMS:
- Blackboard - Integration Overview
- Brightspace - Integration Overview
- Canvas - Integration Overview
- Moodle - Integration Overview
- Sakai - Integration Overview
PREREQUISITE: There must be either an ACTIVE term and/or a FUTURE term to hold the auto-created sections (depending on which simplified provisioning option you select). Active simply means that dates for the term include "today" or the day(s) the new Echo360 sections are auto-created.
If you plan to use a single term as a catch-all for auto-created sections on an ongoing basis, be sure to create a term with an end date sufficiently far out. You can have a term that spans many years if you want, but we suggest keeping it within a reasonably managed limitation. When the term expires, sections cannot be auto-created into it. Users will receive an error message.
Once Simplified Provisioning is turned on, the other Global LMS options for section options and section creation are enabled and grayed out. These settings are required for one-click provisioning and cannot be disabled.
Finally, if you select the option to force instructors to select a term for their auto-created section, they will receive a simple drop-down list containing a list of Active or Future terms to choose from.
To enable simplified course provisioning:
- Log into Echo360 as an Administrator.
- Select the Settings icon in upper-right of the screen.
- From the Settings menu, select Configurations.
The LMS Configuration page appears by default and has two tabs: Global Settings and Configurations. - In the Global Settings tab, shown by default in the right side of the page, click a check into the Automatically provision new Echo360 sections through LMS Course links checkbox, identified in the below figure.
- You have two options for simplified provisioning:
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Force instructors to select an active or future term for the auto-provisioned sections - If you select this, there must be at least one active and/or future section for instructors to select when they create the LMS Course link to Echo360.
- Automatically provision all new sections into a specified active term - If you select this, you must select a currently active term from the drop-down list. See PREREQUISITE note above.
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Force instructors to select an active or future term for the auto-provisioned sections - If you select this, there must be at least one active and/or future section for instructors to select when they create the LMS Course link to Echo360.
- When finished, click SAVE. You may need to scroll down to see the SAVE button.
If you navigate away from the page before clicking SAVE your selections will NOT be retained!
From this point, you can follow the above linked integration steps for configuring your LMS with Echo360. Remember that all the simplified provisioning does is let the LMS link-through auto-create the courses and sections in Echo360. YOU can still control how much or how little integration your LMS has with Echo360. Your instructor can also control the level of integration they want, from simply using Echo360 as a content management library for their class materials, to gradebook integration for Echo360 analytics.