Integration with Web Application using Open edX as backend LMS

Development
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Hi @jakeg!

That ADR is part of a project funded by MIT that has similar goals to yours: to use Open edX to author and host content, but to have an LTI consumer (in their case, Canvas) actually present it to learners. And by no coincidence, it builds on tools (Blockstore and Content Libraries) originally envisioned for a project that is similarly in line with yours: labxchange.org. I recommend watching this video for context.

Great question. LabXchange uses Blockstore and other Open edX APIs directly. That gives it a lot of control over the data, allowing the platform to do things that would be impossible to achieve with just LTI. But, as you can imagine, this is an expensive way to go about it.

Luckily, it turns out that the Open edX architects would like it to offer a similarly flexible way of reusing content - one that is not tied to the rigid course structure. And that translates into the Content Libraries project. It is not in a generally usable state, yet, but MIT bet on it being the case soon - hence why they funded the ability to expose Content Libraries via LTI.

I don’t know what the timeline on your project is, but if I were you, I’d keep close tabs on what’s happening with this new iteration of libraries. The LTI code is likely to merge to master soon, which will make it availabe in Maple, and edX is likely to move ahead with other improvements soon.

This is the list of the MIT-funded PRs that currently exist, btw: