Summary
LTI grade passback is how KnowledgeCity reports a learner's scores and progress back to the external learning platform that launched the content. Integrations does this through two standard LTI services, AGS (Assignment and Grade Services) and Basic Outcomes, which you enable in your LTI 1.3 Consumer Settings. This article explains how each service works and how scores flow from KnowledgeCity into the connected platform's gradebook.
Introduction
Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) is the standard that lets learning platforms integrate with one another. When an external platform launches KnowledgeCity content through an LTI connection, grade passback closes the loop by sending the learner's result back to that platform, so scores and progress recorded in KnowledgeCity appear in the platform's own gradebook without manual re-entry.
This feature is used by administrators who connect KnowledgeCity to an external LTI 1.3 platform and by the instructors who rely on that platform's gradebook. It solves the problem of keeping grades consistent across two systems by reporting results automatically over a standards-based connection, using whichever reporting method the connected platform supports.
Key Concepts
- Grade passback: the outbound flow that sends a learner's score and progress from KnowledgeCity back to the platform that launched the content.
- AGS (Assignment and Grade Services): the LTI service that reports scores into the connected platform's gradebook. Enable it when the platform supports AGS.
- Basic Outcomes: an outcomes service that reports a result back to the platform, used where AGS is not the reporting method.
- Access token URL: the platform endpoint KnowledgeCity calls to obtain an OAuth access token so it can call the platform's grade services.
- Public key URL: the platform's keyset endpoint, used to verify the signed messages exchanged during the connection.
- Reporting method: the single grade service (AGS or Basic Outcomes) that a given platform expects; you enable the one your platform supports.
Steps to Follow
Confirming which reporting method the platform uses
Before enabling grade passback, confirm with the integrating platform whether it accepts scores through AGS or through Basic Outcomes. Enable only the service the platform supports and expects, because the two are alternative reporting methods rather than options you turn on together.
Enabling AGS for gradebook reporting
In your LTI 1.3 Consumer Settings, enable AGS (Assignment and Grade Services) when the connected platform supports it. With AGS enabled, KnowledgeCity reports the learner's score into the platform's gradebook using the Assignment and Grade Services, so progress recorded during the launched content is written back as a grade on the platform side.
Enabling Basic Outcomes as the alternative
If the platform uses the Basic Outcomes service instead, enable Basic Outcomes in the same settings. KnowledgeCity then reports the learner's result back to the platform through the Basic Outcomes service rather than through AGS.
How the score is sent back
When grade passback runs, KnowledgeCity first requests an access token from the platform's Access token URL, then calls the enabled grade service to deliver the learner's score and progress. The signed messages that pass between the systems are verified using the platform's public key URL, which keeps the exchange trusted end to end.
Verifying that grades arrive
After you enable a grade service, perform a test launch from the platform and complete the content as a learner would. Confirm that the resulting score appears in the connected platform's gradebook before you rely on the integration in production. If the score does not arrive, recheck the reporting method and the endpoint URLs with the integrating party.
Conclusion
Grade passback lets KnowledgeCity send scores and progress back to the platform that launched its content, using AGS to write into the platform's gradebook or Basic Outcomes where that service is used instead. By enabling the reporting method your platform supports in your LTI 1.3 Consumer Settings and verifying it with a test launch, you keep grades consistent across both systems automatically.