The Effects of Integrating External Applications into Learning Management Systems (LMS)

Abstract

Learning Management Systems (LMS) have become the new norm for education at all levels. Due to the increasing popularity of LMSes, supplemental learning applications are now being tailored to work with an LMS by the use of Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI), which is a standard that helps provide the capability to connect external applications. Despite these advances in educational technology, some instructors seem to have a hard time adopting them. This thesis has two main goals: the first goal is to gauge professor and student interest in using integrated educational apps, and the second goal is to create an LTI application using the current Mechanix platform created by the Sketch Recognition Lab (SRL). In order to gauge interest in integrated software, a survey was sent out to professors and students. N1=29 professors and N2=30 students responded to the survey and gave feedback. Results show that both groups greatly prefer integrated applications over non-integrated applications. Also practical steps were shown on how to make an application LTI compliant.