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Assignment Selection Placement

doc/api/assignment_selection_placement.md

2026-05-20.1436.0 KB
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Assignment Selection Placement

External tools can be configured to be selectable as an assignment during assignment creation or editing. The assignment_selection placement alows course designers (Admins/Instructors) to use the <a href="file.content_item.html" target="_blank">LTI Deep Linking</a> flow to select an LTI resource from an external tool and associate it with a Canvas assignment. Assigned students can then directly access the tools assessment activity from Canvas. Tools can then leverage <a href="file.assignment_tools.html" target="_blank"> LTI grading services</a> for a deeper assignment integration.

Note: This placement is enabled by default in Canvas for LTI 1.1. It can be removed by using the not_selectable configuration option (see <a href="external_tools.html" target="_blank">External Tools API</a>). For LTI 1.3, the placement will only be enabled if listed in the placements in the JSON configuration.

Configuring

For configuration examples and links to the specification, please refer to the <a href="file.content_item.html" target="_blank">LTI Deep Linking documentation</a>.

Advantages

  • Course designers can associate LTI resources with Canvas assignments.
  • Students can complete LTI assignments without leaving Canvas.
  • Tools can synchronize grades and submissions back to the course gradebook by leveraging <a href="file.assignment_tools.html" target="_blank"> LTI grading services</a>.
  • Using <a href="https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-add-requirements-to-a-module/ta-p/1131" target="_blank">module requirements</a>, Course designers can require the students to launch the tool, achieve a specific score, or submit to the item before module progression is allowed.

Limitations/Challenges

  • Tools must support <a href="file.content_item.html" target="_blank"

Deep Linking</a>.

  • Tools must create a UI allowing the course designer to either select existing LTI resources or create LTI resources on-the-fly.
  • Only one LTI resource can be returned at a time.
  • Only LTI links are allowed.

Workflow

A user must be allowed to create Canvas Assignments and the tool must be configured to use the assignment_selection placement. While tools can be configured to use this placement without deep linking, the workflow described here applies to tools that leverage deep linking with the placement. If a tool does not leverage deep linking, Canvas uses the URL configured at the tool-level or placement-level every time the tool is selected in step 2 below.

During <a href="https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-create-an-assignment/ta-p/740" target="_blank">assignment creation</a>:

  1. the user can select "External Tool" from the Submission Type dropdown.
  2. They then choose "Find" and select the tool they wish to select content from.
  3. Canvas then performs a Deep Linking launch request (if configured) to the tool and the user is presented with a tool-side UI to select or create a single LTI resource.
  4. The tool can return an LTI deep linking message back to Canvas with a URL for the LTI resource. Usually this is a URL with resource identifiers in the url.
  5. When students view the assignment, Canvas launches to the URL returned by the tool.
  6. If a resource identifier was provided as part of the url, then the tool will see this in the launch payload and be able to look up and render the correct resource.
  7. After completing the tool-side assignment, tools may optionally return a grade and/or submission. See the <a href="file.assignment_tools.html">Grading</a> documentation for more details.

Now the instructors and students can view the grade/submission in the Canvas gradebook if they were returned!

Settings

All of these settings are contained for the assignment_selection placement:

  • url: <url> (optional)

    This is the URL that will be POSTed to when users click the Find button from the assignment create/edit view. It can be the same as the tool's URL, something different. Domain and URL matching are not enforced for assignment_selection launches; however, if LTI links are returned, Domain and URL matching is enforced. In order to prevent security warnings for users, it is recommended that URLs be over SSL (https). This setting is required if a url is not set on the main tool configuration.

  • text: <text> (optional)

    This is the default text that will be shown on in the tool selection menu. This can be overridden by language-specific settings if desired by using the labels setting. This is required if a text value is not set on the main tool configuration.

  • labels: <set of locale-label pairs> (optional)

    This can be used to specify different label names for different locales. For example, if an institution supports both English and Spanish interfaces, the text for the hover-over tip should change depending on the language being displayed. This option lets you support multiple languages for a single tool.

  • enabled: <boolean> (optional)

    Whether to enable this selection feature; this setting defaults to enabled if omitted.

  • message_type: <an IMS LTI message type> (optional)

    Sets the message_type to be sent during the LTI launch. It is expected that the tool use this to determine if a Deep Linking flow is being requested by Canvas and present an appropriate UI. A Deep Linking flow is highly recommended for this placement, but is not required. See the <a href="file.content_item.html" target="_blank">Deep Linking documentation</a> for more information, including accepted values.

  • selection_width: <pixels> (optional)

    This sets the width (px) of the selection launch modal. Canvas may set a maximum or minimum width that overrides this option.

  • selection_height: <pixels> (optional)

    This sets the height (px) of the selection launch modal. Canvas may set a maximum or minimum height that overrides this option.