Learn how to use LTI with your library or cloud ebook in Kotobee Author. 

Using LTI

By equipping your library or cloud ebook with an LTI tool, you can remove the extra step of "sign in" for your users and rely on the user authentication system handled by the LMS. Think of it as a single sign-on (SSO) authentication method using the LMS credentials. The LMS in question must be LTI-compliant such as Moodle 2.2 onwards, as well as many other LMS systems too.

Note: To use LTI for a single cloud ebook, it must also be hosted by Kotobee.

This guide is using LTI 1.1. To instead use LTI 1.3 (the latest version of LTI) visit this support article instead.

Benefits of LTI through Kotobee

The benefits do not only lie in single sign-on. Here is a complete list of all the benefits you will gain from using LTI:

  • Control user access for your ebooks and library through your LMS.
  • Import user information from your LMS (e.g. user email, name, course, activity) and upload it into your Kotobee Library.
  • Set different book permissions when accessing the library from within different course pages (in the LMS).
  • Allow users to log in to the same library or cloud ebook if they're available in other formats (mobile app, web app, etc) using the same login account.
  • Retrieve all user annotations whether the library or cloud ebook is accessed through LTI or externally.
  • View your current users, and activate or deactivate users later easily through Kotobee Author (from under the Manage tab).

Enabling LTI

Here's how to enable LTI:

  1. Go to your library or cloud ebook settings, and click on the LTI tab. You will find an Enable LTI option. 
  2. Check the checkbox to reveal the Access Key and Secret.
  3. If the Key and Secret are blank (or N/A), click the Generate button to generate your first Key and Secret. (You may later reset the Key and Secret by clicking the Regenerate button.)
  4. Store the Secret somewhere safe, and save your changes.
  5. Optionally, you may disable activation emails going to users, if they sign up to your cloud ebook or library through LTI. This can be done by setting the Disable activation emails checkbox.

Once LTI is enabled for your library or cloud ebook, you will notice a new LTI section in the submenu. Here is where you will be controlling permissions for each course of your LMS.

Controlling Course-Specific Permissions

One of the great advantages of LTI is that although you are displaying the same library as a tool in the LMS, students who access this tool from different courses can receive different book permissions. This way you can create a single library for your institute containing all the books (whether answer books, different subject books) and specific students can see specific books.

  1. Go to the new LTI section in your library or cloud ebook submenu. Type in the name of the Activity and hit Create course.The activity name will appear among the registered courses list.
  2. Click on Permissions to set the relevant permissions for this course. Students enrolled in this course will receive those permissions. In the following example, we are assigning permissions to the book "Introduction to Biology".

Using Your Library or Cloud Ebook as an LTI Tool

Now that you have set the relevant permissions for the course(s) you want, you should make the library or cloud ebook available for your students through your LMS. Kotobee Author already supports exporting SCORM packages, but LTI is unrelated to SCORM. In the following steps, we will be using Moodle as an example LMS, due to its popularity and that it supports LTI.

  1. After going into your course page, choose Add an activity or resource.
  2. You will be shown the activity/resource dialog box to select the type of content you want to add. From this list, select External tool and hit Add.
  3. A form will appear with fields required to fill out, regarding the LTI tool. This is the simplified form, to display all the fields, click on Show more.

    Here are the important fields that you should fill. Note that depending on your version of Moodle, the labels of these fields may differ slightly.

    • Activity name: This name should be the exact course title that you have assigned in Kotobee Author (see Controlling Course-Specific Permissions section above). You can assign the same tool to multiple course pages in your LMS and just change the activity name in order to have separate permissions.

    • Launch URL: Simply enter https://www.kotobee.com/lti.
    • Secure launch URL: Same as the one above, enter https://www.kotobee.com/lti.
    • Consumer key: Enter the Key, retrieved from your library or cloud ebook settings section in Kotobee Author.
    • Shared secret: Enter the Secret, retrieved from your library or cloud ebook settings section in Kotobee Author.
    • Privacy: ensure all settings are adjusted to "Always"
  4. After you've filled these details, hit Save and return to course. 

Now you've added your library or cloud ebook as an external tool. Users who click on the tool will see the library or cloud ebook, and in case it's set to private, they will immediately be logged in. You can later go into the Users section of your library or cloud ebook in Kotobee Author, and view the list of users who have logged in and received access.

Controlling the Default View

By default, your library will open at the home view, displaying the list of books the user has access to.

If you prefer the library to open a book directly, in order to save the user the trouble of finding the intended course book, this is possible by editing the Launch URL (as well as the Secure Launch URL). To the end of the URL, add ?book=X replacing X with the book ID. 

So if your book ID is 56 for example, the new Launch URL and Secure Launch URL will be:
https://www.kotobee.com/lti?book=56

Note that old versions of LMS's may not support query strings in the Launch URL. If you do receive an error, you may use the following URL format instead:
https://www.kotobee.com/lti#/book/56

You can also control which chapter will be opened in the Launch URL. Use the following URL format:
https://www.kotobee.com/lti#/book/56/reader/chapter/24
Here, 56 represents the book ID, and 24 represents the chapter index.