Setting up LinkedIn Learning with LTI 1.3 in Blackboard
What this Document Tells You
The following steps illustrate the LinkedIn Learning and LTI 1.3 integration process:
What is LTI 1.3/Advantage?
LTI is a standard used to integrate different learning platforms and tools to create a richer learning experience for the higher education sector. LTI 1.3 is the latest version of the LTI standard that focuses on improving security, enabling better content discoverability, and creating greater flexibility and extensibility. LTI 1.3 is the content discoverability standard for higher education using LMS providers such as Blackboard, Canvas, D2L, and Moodle.
LTI Advantage is a further set of extensions to LTI 1.3 that enhance its capabilities. Its main goals are to enable deeper integration between LMS and LTI tools and platforms, removing the need for custom integrations, and to provide a secure channel to transmit student and enrollment information. The three services included in LTI Advantage are:
Deep Linking: allows course creators to easily select and configure the content displayed to learners. For example, creators can configure a link that will launch a specific segment from a video, rather than displaying the full video and asking students to manually find the segment, saving time for both teachers and students.
Assignments and Grades: syncs grades, progress, and comments from multiple sources into an LMS platform’s gradebook, reducing faculty effort and any potential errors.
Names and Roles Provisioning: securely shares course roster and enrollment information. This enables admins and instructors to access reports on student activity within the tool, such as which enrolled students have or have not started an activity.
Things to Consider before Implementation
Since the LTI standard requires an LMS to launch the LinkedIn Learning content, the integration has distinct tradeoffs. Before opting for LTI, please review the sections below to ensure you fully understand the advantages and disadvantages of LTI integrations.
Advantages
If you are a LinkedIn Learning user or admin, you have the following benefits of LTI integration:
Seamless access to LinkedIn Learning for students and instructors
Engaging user experiences for students and instructors
Gradable content
Content easily integrated into LMS courses
Limitations
If you are thinking about using the LTI standard in your learning platform, keep in mind the following restrictions:
To access LinkedIn Learning content, users must have access to your LMS. If a user cannot log into the LMS, the user does not have access to LinkedIn Learning.
Content is only accessible from within the LMS. Educators cannot "deep link" to LinkedIn Learning content on class webpages, wikis, or other external systems.
If your organization uses another form of Single Sign-on (SSO) with LinkedIn Learning, the SSO connection must use the same unique user ID as your LTI connection to prevent duplicate profiles.
Important
Please use the corresponding guides for your desired LMS integration. If you do not see your LMS listed below please continue to the next step.
Prerequisites
You must be a designated LinkedIn Learning administrator to access Integration settings. If you are not an administrator, please reach out to your internal LinkedIn Learning lead, who can add you as an administrator in the system.
Configuring LinkedIn Learning LTI 1.3 Advantage Tool for Blackboard
You must be a designated LinkedIn Learning administrator to access Integration settings. If you are not an administrator, please reach out to your internal LinkedIn Learning lead, who can add you as an administrator in the system.
From the Admin portal click on the Me drop down found in the upper right hand corner and select Authenticate:
Click Add new SSO button in Configure single sign-on page and select LTI 1.3.
Name your new SSO in the Basics tab (e.g. LTI 1.3 Blackboard) and click Next.
Keep the Configuration page open in a separate tab and move on to the next step (you will be leveraging these fields shortly).
Register LinkedIn Learning App within Blackboard Developer Portal
During this step you will be registering an application within the Blackboard Developer Portal. Please ensure you have the necessary permissions to configure this.
In a separate window please register an application within the Blackboard Developer Portal: https://developer.blackboard.com.
Select Register a new application and populate the following and:
- Application Name: LinkedIn Learning
- Description: LinkedIn Learning
- Domain: www.LinkedIn.com
Turn on “My Integration supports LTI 1.3” toggle.
Use the provided information from the LinkedIn Learning Configuration page you have opened in a separate tab to populate the fields outlined below.
Copy the OIDC Connect Initialization from LinkedIn Learning
Paste this value into the Blackboard Login Initiation URL field
Copy the OIDC Redirect URL from LinkedIn Learning
Paste this value into the Tool Redirect URL(s) field within Blackboard
Copy the Keyset URL from LinkedIn Learning
Paste this value into the Tool JWKS URL field within Blackboard
Set the Signing Algorithm to: RS256 within Blackboard
We will now move onto the Registration page within LinkedIn Learning and copy in the corresponding values below:
Copy the Issue from Blackboard
Paste this value into the OIDC Issuer field within LinkedIn Learning
Copy the OIDC auth request endpoint from Blackboard
Paste this value into the Platform OIDC Authentication URL within LinkedIn Learning
Select Keyset URL within LinkedIn Learning
Copy the Public keyset URL from Blackboard
Paste this value in the Platform OAuth 2.0 Keyset URL field within LinkedIn Learning
Copy the Auth token endpoint from Blackboard
Paste this value into the Platform OAuth 2.0 Token Retrieval URL field within LinkedIn Learning
External ID Parameter Name:
Use this setting to determine which authentication attribute is used to identify users. The default value is Subject. You also can use Email Address or a custom attribute name. For example, your LMS may provide an additional identifier, like lis_person_sourcedid.
Click the “Register Application” button. Upon registering you will be provided with the Application ID:
Copy the Application ID from Blackboard (Please note we will use this same value again shortly)
Paste this value into the Client ID field in LinkedIn Learning
Register the LTI 1.3 Advantage Tool
Login as a Blackboard Admin.
Navigate to Admin Panel shown below:
Under the Integrations tab select LTI Tool Providers
Click Register LTI 1.3/Advantage Tool
Client ID: Use the “Application ID” we got from the previous section
Click “Submit” and continue
Set “Tool Status” to “Approved”
Check all “User Fields to Send”
Toggle Allow grade service access to Yes.
In order for grades to be reflected in Gradebook, you must toggle the Allow grade service access option to Yes. If set to No, the grade will show as blank in Gradebook.
Copy the “Deployment ID” value from Blackboard
Paste this value into the Deployment ID field within LinkedIn Learning
In LinkedIn Learning click Next to navigate to the LTI Advantage page:
- Toggle the Enable LTI Advantage switch to ON.
- In the textbox fill in your Blackboard domain such as “linkedin-test.blackboard.com”, and click Add.
- Toggle Reporting switch to ON.
- Toggle the Deep Linking switch to ON.
Click “Save” and In the “SSO connections” table, find the SSO we just saved, click the “Status” drop-down menu, select “Active”.
In Blackboard click Submit and Expand the menu by hovering on the tool’s name or by clicking the drop down arrow to the right.
Select Manage Placements and Create Placements
Upload the icon
Target Link Url: “https://www.linkedin.com/learning-admin/lti-deep-link”
In Course Settings select Course Menu and Structure
Follow:
Creating a course in Blackboard
Login as an admin and click on Admin on the left side of the screen
Click on courses in administrator tools
In the next screen, click Create course → New
In the next screenEnter course name and course id (adding your ldap as prefix might help with identification)
In “Course view option” select “Ultra course view” (second option)
All other options can be left as-is.
Hit the submit button on the bottom right of the screen
This will take you back to the screen in step 3 above
In this screen, search for your ldap prefix
Hover over the COURSE ID and a drop down will appear
Click on it and press Make Available.
In the screen that comes up, again search for the course you created
Hover over the course you created and click on enrollment that appears after clicking on the drop down
Click on “Enroll Users” in the next screen.
Add users you would like to enable access for below
(Optional) If you would like to validate the experience, if you login as a student, you should be able to find this course under the list of courses
Launch LinkedIn Learning Institution Tool
From the homepage click on courses → select the course you just created.
You’ll see a page like so and click on the “+” (highlighted below)
Click on “Content Market” in the menu that opens up
Click LinkedIn Learning under Institution Tools
After clicking this link you will now be able to leverage the LinkedIn Learning tool to search, add, and remove courses/videos. When done, click the Confirm button at the bottom.
Gradebook Experience
Login as an instructor, navigate to the course and select the gradebook. In the below screen, once you click “post grades”, the student user will be able to view their grade.
Congratulations! Your learners now can use the LinkedIn Learning and LTI 1.3 integration for SSO and learner progress reporting.
Common Issues & Troubleshooting Tips
Issue: if you find when launching the LTI Advantage Tool that it freezes or gets stuck in a loading screen. The issue could be due to cross-site tracking being enabled on your browser.
Fix: you will want to disable cross-site tracking on that browser. Please work with your IT team for assistance.
Issue: If you experience a strange nested issue (or error) after clicking the Add button for either a Course or Video in the LTI Advantage tool the issue could be the domain you indicated in step 4.
Fix: You want to be sure you are including either https://www.linkedin.com or just www.linkedin.com. If you’re already using one option try using the other to see if that fixes it. You may also need to clear your cache.
Issue: If when launching the LTI Advantage Tool, you receive an “Things Aren’t Loading” error
The issue has to do with being logged into LinkedIn Learning or having an already active Learning session in another tab and/ or browser.
Fix 1: Try logging out of LinkedIn Learning in any tabs or browsers it is currently active in.
Fix 2: Try clearing your cache and cookies or launching the LTI Advantage Tool in a private/ incognito browser window.
Issue If you receive an "Oops! It's not you. It's us. Give it another try, please." error.
It means you are missing hostname(s) needing to be added in the LTI Advantage Tool tab in the LTI 1.3 configuration settings in LinkedIn Learning.
Fix 1: you will want to add those missing hostname(s) and test it again.
To add those hostname(s), you want to be logged into the Admin Tool in Linkedin Learning.
Hover over Me > Authentication
Next you want to click the 3 dots to the right of the LTI 1.3 configuration in the center panel > followed by Edit
Click on the LTI Advantage Tool tab
Type the hostname into the field > click the Add button. Repeat for multiple names then click Save in the bottom right.
Fix 2: If this error is intermittent, you may need to reach out to LinkedIn Learning Support for further assistance, but you can try a different browser or clear your cache to see if it helps.
Issue: If you see an “Unable to connect to www.linkedin.com” error
This is likely due to a mismatch with the configuration.
- Fix: Check to see if the Redirect URLs, the Target Link URI and the OpenID Connect Initiation URL are configured correctly. Any mismatch in values will result in the LTI Advantage Tool to fail. If the issue continues, please reach out to LinkedIn support.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. Are all users able to connect their LinkedIn profiles through an LTI connection?
A. Yes, LTI supports profile association.
Q. Which provisioning types are supported?
A. LTI requires JIT (just in time) provisioning and is automatically configured. This condition means that, upon the first successful LTI authentication, LinkedIn Learning automatically creates a user profile (if a user does not already exist).
Q. Can SAML SSO and LTI be enabled at the same time?
A. You can enable both authentication options at the same time, but we recommend that you consult your dedicated Technical Consultant before adopting this method. You might unintentionally create duplicate accounts if the same group of users has access to both LTI and a second SSO connection.
Q. Is the Unique User ID value configurable?
A. Yes, you can configure the Unique User ID in the External ID Parameter Name field.
Q. Can LTI launches be loaded in an iFrame?
A. No, LTI does not support iFrames.
Support
Below you can find supporting documentation and other resources.
Supporting Documentation
Technical Issues
If you have technical issues with the SSO setup, contact your account team or application support team through the LinkedIn Learning Help Center.
LinkedIn's Privacy and Data Security Policy
https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy
LinkedIn Security Contacts
If you have any security questions or you would like to report a security issue, write to us at security@linkedin.com.
Additional Resources
For more information on integrating LTI v1.3 with your LMS and LinkedIn Learning, see IMS Global’s LTI 1.3 Implementation Guide.
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