Tool, Platform, Provider, Consumer: The LTI® Terminology Map
LTI® renamed both of its two roles between versions, and a great deal of the material still published about it uses the older names. Search results for phrases like LTI provider return pages written for a version deprecated in 2022, alongside pages using the current vocabulary, with nothing explaining that they are describing the same thing.
This is the map. The current vocabulary is the one used in the LTI® 1.3 specification published by 1EdTech Consortium, Inc.
The two roles
Every LTI® integration has exactly two sides.
| LTI® 1.3 term | LTI® 1.1 term | What it is | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tool | Tool Provider (TP) | The application a learner is sent to | A quiz app, a video platform, a courseware product |
| Platform | Tool Consumer (TC) | The system the launch starts from | Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard, Brightspace |
The direction is the thing to hold on to. The tool provides the learning
activity; the platform consumes it by embedding it in a course. 1.3 dropped
the provide/consume framing because it described the commercial relationship
rather than the technical one, and because "consumer" collided with OAuth's
oauth_consumer_key.
If you are reading a page that says Tool Provider and Tool Consumer, it was written for LTI® 1.1. The role descriptions will still be broadly right; the implementation details will not be.
Which one are you building?
This is the question the vocabulary exists to answer, and it decides everything else.
You are building a tool if your product is the thing learners use, and schools want to launch it from their existing LMS. You receive launches. You need to be registered in each institution's platform. This is the common case for ed-tech products, and it is what LTIAAS Launch provides.
You are building a platform if your product holds the courses and the enrolments, and you want to let your customers add third-party content into them. You start launches. Tool vendors register with you. This is the case for an LMS, an LXP, or a courseware platform, and it is what LTIAAS Connect provides.
A product can be both. Nothing in the specification prevents a system from receiving launches from an LMS and launching tools of its own; the two sides are implemented independently.
The rest of the vocabulary
The role names are not the only thing that changed, and several terms are routinely used loosely.
| Term | What it actually means |
|---|---|
| Client ID | Identifies a tool's registration with one platform. Issued by the platform. |
| Deployment ID | Identifies one deployment of that registration. A multi-tenant platform can have many per registration. |
Issuer (iss) | Identifies the platform. A URL. Together with the client ID it identifies a launch. |
| Context | The course. Almost never anything else in practice. |
| Resource link | One placement of the tool in a course. Two links to the same tool in one course are two resource links. |
| Target link URI | Where the launch should land inside the tool. |
| ID Token | The signed JWT carrying all of the above. |
The pair that causes the most confusion is client ID and deployment ID. A registration is the agreement between one platform and one tool; a deployment is an instance of that agreement in use. For most platforms there is one deployment per registration and the distinction never comes up. For a multi-tenant platform like Blackboard, several institutions can share a registration, and the deployment ID is the only thing that tells them apart.
Names that are not LTI® roles
Three more terms get pulled into the same conversation and mean something else entirely.
LTI® Advantage is not a role or a version. It is LTI® 1.3 plus three services. See the glossary entry.
LTI® provider service, in vendor marketing, generally means a hosted service that supplies the tool side so you do not implement it yourself. It uses the 1.1 word because that is the term buyers still search for.
LTI® certified means a specific thing: 1EdTech runs a conformance certification programme, and a product is listed as certified or it is not. Treat the phrase as a claim to check rather than a description.
Common questions
Is a tool provider the same as a tool?
Yes. Tool Provider is the LTI® 1.1 name for the application a learner is launched into. LTI® 1.3 shortened it to Tool. The role is identical.
Is an LMS a platform or a consumer?
Both names describe it. Tool Consumer is the LTI® 1.1 term and Platform is the LTI® 1.3 term. An LMS is nearly always the platform in a launch.
Can one application be both a tool and a platform?
Yes. A system can receive launches from an LMS and also launch tools of its own. The two roles are independent, and a product that does both implements each side separately.
What is an LTI provider service?
It usually means a hosted service that gives your application the tool side of LTI® so you do not implement the protocol yourself. The word provider there refers to the LTI® 1.1 role name.
Next
- What is LTI® 1.3? — the launch sequence in detail
- LTI® 1.3 vs LTI® 1.1 — what changed between the versions
- The glossary — every term, defined individually
