LTI® Glossary
LTI® has a lot of vocabulary, some of it renamed between versions and some of it shared with standards that solve a different problem. These are the terms you run into building an integration, defined plainly.
If you are starting from nothing, Getting Started is a better entry point than any single definition here.
The two sides
Every integration has a platform on one side and a tool on the other. Version 1.3 renamed both, which is the single most common source of confusion when reading older material.
- Tool — the application a learner is sent to
- Platform — the system that starts the launch, usually an LMS
- Tool Provider — the 1.1 name for a tool
- Tool Consumer — the 1.1 name for a platform
- LMS — a learning management system
The standard
- LTI® — the standard itself
- LTI® 1.3 — the current version
- LTI® 1.1 — the previous version, deprecated in 2022
- LTI® Advantage — 1.3 plus the three services
A launch
- LTI® Launch — what happens when someone opens a tool
- OIDC Login Initiation — the handshake that starts it
- ID Token — the signed payload describing the user and context
- JWKS — the published keys that make the signature verifiable
- Issuer — identifies the platform a launch came from
- Client ID — identifies a registration
- Deployment ID — identifies one deployment of it
- Context — the course a launch came from
- Resource Link — one placement of a tool in a course
- Target Link URI — where the launch should land
The services
- Deep Linking — letting a teacher pick content
- Assignment and Grade Services — writing to the gradebook
- Names and Role Provisioning Services — reading the roster
- Line Item — a gradebook column
- Score — a grade posted against one
- Dynamic Registration — automated setup
LTIAAS terms
These two are ours rather than the specification's.
- ltik — authenticates calls made during a launch
- Service Key — authenticates calls made outside one
