LAMS and 3rd Party App Integration Mechanism

LAMS Integrations

LAMS 2.0 has been integrated with:

In this document, we present a technical overview on how these integrations are implemented. Although each 3rd party applications are different (even they are in different programming languages) the principles that we follow are essentially the same.

LAMS 2.0 Side 

The following diagrams give the overview and the details of the LAMS 2.x/3rd party app SingleSignOn implementation:

  •   overview diagram:

 
 

  •   sso sequence diagram:

 
 

User Information

Every time a LMS user attempts to access LAMS, LAMS will check to see if the user exists in its database. If the user has not been created in LAMS, LAMS will make a call to the external application to retrieve user information and create the user on the fly. Therefore you will need to set up a user information servlet on the LMS side that will return user information to LAMS.

Request format 

The user information url is defined in the LAMS System Administration page and contains three parameters: username, timestamp and hash.

For example, the url for moodle is given by:
http://localhost/moodle/mod/lamstwo/userinfo.php?ts=%timestamp%&un=%username%&hs=%hash%

The hash value is generated using the SHA1 algorithm on the following (all in lower case)
[ timestamp + username +  serverID + serverKey ]

Response Format

The response from the external application is a comma seperated list of 14 values
<Title>,<First name>,<Last name>,<Address>,<City>,<State>,<Postcode>,<Country>,<Day time number>,<Mobile number>,<Fax number>,<Email>,<Locale language>,<Locale country> 

External calls to LAMS

Login Requests

Request for author, learner and monitor are directed through the LoginRequest servlet.  For example:

http://localhost/lams/LoginRequest?....

The parameters are:

  • uid - the username on the external system
  • method -  either author, monitor or learner
  • ts - timestamp
  • sid - serverID
  • hash - SHA1 hash of [ts + uid + method + serverID + serverKey]  (Note: all lower case)
  • courseid - the id of the course from the LMS
  • country - country component of locale
  • lang - language component of locale
  • requestSrc - string to identify who is making the call, this is only used in authoring to display on the close button.
  • notifyCloseURL - callback URL to refresh the page after a sequences has been added.
  • lsid - This is used for monitor and learner to tell LAMS the learning session id you want to open.

Getting Learning Designs

You will need to get a List of existing learning designs so the LMS user can choose which ones they wish to start.
You can get a list of learning designs by making a request to the LearningDesignRepository servlet on the LAMS side. For example:

http://localhost/lams/services/xml/LearningDesignRepository?

The parameters are:

  • username - the username of the current user
  • datetime -  timestamp
  • serverId - the server id
  • hashValue - SHA1 hash of [timestamp + username + serverID + serverKey]  (Note: all lower case)
  • courseId - the id of the course from the LMS
  • country - country component of locale
  • lang - language component of locale
  • mode - "1" returns all learning designs being monitored by the current user, "2" returns all learning designs authored by the user

Starting, Stopping or Scheduling a Lesson

To start, stop or schedule a lesson in LAMS you need request another servlet: 

http://localhost/lams/services/xml/LessonManager?

The parameters are:

  •  username - the username of the current user
  •  serverId - the server id
  •  datetime - timestamp
  •  hashValue - SHA1 hash of [timestamp + username + serverID + serverKey]  (Note: all lower case)
  •  courseId - the id of the course from the LMS
  •  country - country component of locale
  •  lang - language component of locale
  •  ldId - the id of the learning design (for starting or scheduling)
  •  lsId - the id of the learning session (for stopping)
  •  method - "start", "stop" or "schedule"
  •  title - the title of the lesson, for starting and scheduling
  •  desc - the description of the lesson, for starting and scheduling

This servlet returns an xml response depending on the method ('start', 'schedule' or 'stop').

  • Start - An xml node called "Lesson" with an attribute "lessonId" which contains the learning session id.
  • Schedule - An xml node called "Lesson" with an attribute "lessonId" which contains the learning session id.
  • Stop - An xml node called "Lesson" with an attribute "deleted" which informs you whether the lesson was successfully deleted in LAMS

Get user progress for a lesson

To get a user progress for a lesson, you must also request the LessonManagerServlet. You can either get a specific progress for a user, or a list of progresses for an entire lesson.

The parameters are:

  • username - the username of the current user
  • serverId - the server id
  • datetime - timestamp
  • hashValue - SHA1 hash of [timestamp + username + serverID + serverKey]  (Note: all lower case)
  • method - singleStudentProgress or studentProgress for the list of progresses
  • lsId - the learning session id for the lesson.
  • courseId - the course id
  • progressUser - (For single user progress) the username of the user who's progress you wish to retrieve.

You will revieve an xml repsonse in the following form:

For single user progress:

<LearnerProgress
    lessonComplete="true"
    activityCount="4"
    activitiesCompleted="4"
    attemptedActivities="4"
    studentId="304"
    courseId="MATH101"
    username="testUser"
    lessonId="13"
>
</LearnerProgress>

For multiple user progresses:

<LessonProgress>

<LearnerProgress
    lessonComplete="true"
    activityCount="4"
    activitiesCompleted="4"
    attemptedActivities="4"
    studentId="304"
    courseId="MATH101"
    username="testUser"
    lessonId="13"
>
</LearnerProgress>

<LearnerProgress
    lessonComplete="false"
    activityCount="4"
    activitiesCompleted="2"
    attemptedActivities="3"
    studentId="114"
    courseId="MATH101"
    username="stephenh"
    lessonId="13"
>
</LearnerProgress>

 
</LessonProgress>





3rd party application modules

Moodle (integrated with LAMS 1.0.2 and LAMS 2.0)

  • package structure

          mod.html: a form to setup/update a module instance

          version.php: defines some meta-info and provides upgrading code

          icon.gif: a 16x16 icon for the module

          db/mysql.sql: an SQL dump of all the required db tables and data
 
          index.php: a page to list all instances in a course

          view.php: a page to view a particular instance

          userinfo.php: a script to return user data to lams server

          lib.php: any/all functions defined by the module should be in here.
             constants should be defined using MODULENAME_xxxxxx
             functions should be defined using modulename_xxxxxx

          There are a number of standard functions:

             modulename_add_instance()
             modulename_update_instance()
             modulename_delete_instance()

             modulename_user_complete()
             modulename_user_outline()

             modulename_cron()

             modulename_print_recent_activity()

  • data model

          mdl_config stores lams configuration info such as server_url, server_id and server_key.

          mdl_lamstwo stores lams module instances (moodle activity). It has a foreign key relationship to mdl_course.
 

  • webservice (client end)

           use nusoap

           rpc style 

           implemented in lib.php
 

  • I18N

           as "country" and "lang" columns in mdl_user table

           or "country" and "lang" properties in user object

  • other

          a customized tigra tree menu used to display workspace folders and sequences

           Yahoo! calendar UI widget used for user to pick a date to schedule a LAMS lesson
 

WebCT 4 (LAMS@MQ, integrated with LAMS 1.0.2)

  • package structure

          lams
            |___sql
            |       |__[DDLs]
            |___[perl programs]

           templates
            |___lams
                     |__entry.html (index page containing links to main features)

                     |__mod.html (page to create lams learning session)

                     |__groupingman.html (page to manage grouping and groups)

                     |__sessionman.html (page to manage created lams learning sessions)

                     |__groups.html (page for teacher to select a group to enter)
 

  • data model

     

          enrollmentsettings and datafeed_students are webct tables, while others are lams specific ones.
 

  • webservice

          use SOAP:Lite

          implemented in list.pl (getAllLearningDesigns)
                                 genurl.pl (createLearningSession)
                                 rmsession.pl (deleteLearningSession)

  • I18N          

          None

  • other

          detailed comments in code

Enter labels to add to this page:
Please wait 
Looking for a label? Just start typing.