LTI Process Overview – Accessibility at the UW

El Schofield, Service Manager, UW-IT Teaching & Learning Systems
Robyn Foshee, UW-IT

June 5, 2025

Note: This report was submitted to the Digital Accessibility Initiative Course Content Accessibility Action Team for consideration. It contains options for meeting the DOJ mandate and does not include approved recommendations. To learn more about resulting Action Team recommendations to UW leadership visit the team’s Proposal for Making Course Content Accessible.

This document summarizes the current state and future directions for approving third-party tools that integrate with the University of Washington’s primary instance of Canvas LMS. It was requested by the Course Content Accessibility Action Team as a part of ongoing work to improve accessibility of course materials.

Key Takeaways

Our current LTI adoption process is ad-hoc and does not have built-in mandates for accessibility. While large deployments of centrally supported tools are typically vetted for accessibility, the same resources are not available for smaller LTI implementations for single courses or departments.

Many LTI tools are offered for free, at least to instructors or departments. Because these integrations are not running through the Procurement office, they are subject to less scrutiny than purchased tools. For these cases, it currently falls to Canvas service managers to complete any additional vetting steps, which is time-consuming, inconsistent, and inefficient.

A successful LTI adoption process needs to strike the difficult balance between being thorough enough to ensure compliance but lightweight enough to foster innovation and timely adoption of a variety of useful pedagogical tools. To create this balance as we increase compliance checks, we should also look for ways to make the process more efficient end to end for all involved.

What is LTI?

Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) is a technical standard that makes it possible to integrate third-party vendor tools with your Canvas course. According to IMS, the consortium that maintains the standard, “LTI supports a high level of security for passing data about the users, their institutional enrollment, and roles.”

LTI integrations, or “LTIs” for short, must be installed within the LMS in order to be available to instructors and students. Integrations can either be installed at the “root” level – which makes them available to all courses in the LMS – or at the “subaccount” level, where only courses provisioned in that subaccount (typically associated with a specific school or program) will have access.

Some LTI integrations require installation at the course level, meaning the tool has to be manually installed each quarter in every course where it would be used. Due to the time and resources required for these installations, UW-IT Student & Educational Technology Services (SETS) is not able to support course level integrations.

Current State: the process right now

For a third-party vendor LTI integration to be approved and installed in UW Canvas:

A UW employee must request the integration. Integrations cannot be initiated by an offer from external vendors without being supported by a request from a UW faculty or staff member. Integrations cannot be requested by students.
The requester must have a means to purchase or acquire access to the integration, if a purchase is required. UW-IT usually does not assist with purchasing LTIs for individual or departmental implementation.
The third-party vendor of the LTI must sign a set of legal agreements that add to and clarify specific terms of the primary contract with the vendor, applicable to integration of the LTI in UW Canvas. These agreements include:
The integration must be installed in UW Canvas by the SETS team. Most integrations are straightforward, but can increase in complexity based on how the integration is designed, what data it needs, and where it needs to be available in Canvas.

At this time, the LTI process is significantly different from the process for adopting tools that are or will become centrally supported tools. Tools that are centrally supported by UW-IT, such as Panopto or Hypothesis, go through a process that includes more oversight and verification that the tools fulfill understood needs and align with UW standards. This process can include:

RFPs
Accessibility testing/audits
OIS review
Pilots and user research
Contract negotiations
Collaboration with Internet2

In contrast, individual or departmental requests for LTI integrations are not currently held to the same standards. With these requests, the burden is shifted to the requester to determine if the tool is reliable and suitable for their needs. Since the LTI will not be centrally supported, it is the responsibility of the requester to create and maintain a relationship with the vendor for ongoing support.

Because of the limited responsibility of UW-IT for these tools, the process is more limited and can include:

Primary check: willingness and ability of the vendor to sign UW agreements, including accessibility and information security riders.
Secondary checks (typically for college- or institution-level requests):
- Review of an up-to-date VPAT and/or HECVAT from the vendor.
- Accessibility testing by Accessible Technology Services (ATS).
- Security/Privacy review by Office of Information Security (OIS)

Common challenges:

Requests are made without awareness of the length of the process. Many faculty reach out in the week or two before a quarter, thinking that turnaround for an LTI integration is short. Even requests made in advance may take months if a vendor redlines the agreements. This can lead to frustrated faculty and can give the impression that UW-IT is a hindrance rather than a partner in teaching and learning.
It can be difficult to connect with the right contact at a third-party vendor. Sometimes a request for integration comes from a UW employee who has already been in contact with a vendor. If not, the requester might expect that SETS is responsible for creating a relationship. Even when a relationship is in place, vendor contacts from sales or support might not have the technical expertise in the LTI to answer questions or help with integration. Relationship management can become the most resource intensive part of the approval process.
LTI Riders and the need for legal expertise on both sides of the vendor relationship. As previously mentioned, review, redlines, and negotiation calls for legal expertise that not all vendors have easily available and is also not resourced within SETS. When either side of the relationship has to reach out to external support to sign off on the required agreements, the process becomes slower and more costly.
Limited capacity to track use, audit tools, update tools, and update agreements. Because there isn’t a UW-IT purchase associated with these LTI integrations and no service manager for these specific tools, there is a lack of resources to maintain and update the tools and contracts.

Future state: areas for improvement

The Canvas service team has discussed potential improvements to this process for some time, but because of the limited staff time on our team and the number of partners involved, implementing changes can be a challenge. Following are some potential directions for growth.

Governance and decision-making

Governance group with faculty and staff representation.
- Could include students as well to weigh in on value of tools to learners.
- Would preferably have representation from different disciplines to reflect diversity of discipline-specific tools.
Regular cycle of review and approval
- Preferably quarterly or biannually to address emerging needs while allowing time to resolve previous requests before starting next batch.
- Approving body would not be responsible for completing legal agreements; would need to figure out what step comes first.
Explicit criteria for integration to be approved
- Teaching purpose
- Alignment with University Values
- Accessibility
- Security
- Non-Redundancy
Collaborating with peer institutions
- Other universities deal with similar issues vetting and configuring LTI tools
- Some opportunity to save time by sharing information on both adopted tools and tools that don’t reach approval phase
  - Configuration challenges
  - Support quality
  - Accessibility issues
- Informal networks for sharing information already exist; could formalize this for our use

Compliance steps

Accessibility testing workflow
- Start requesting VPATs by default.
- Built-in testing period before implementation.
- Revisit our testing environment to use with tools (how can we set these up quickly?)
- Threshold for when we ask for ATS help vs. when we test ourselves.
- Toolkit for testing within SETS.
Updates to riders & accompanying approvals process
- Accessibility rider was recently updated, but that means almost no currently installed LTIs have this rider in place.
- Many of UW’s standard agreements presume large-scale, high-risk deployments.
- Cybersecurity insurance minimum regularly creates issues for small vendors.
- Legal consultation for agreements is expensive for both university and vendors, sometimes resulting in a failure to reach agreements in cases where both parties are willing to negotiate a solution.
Faculty-led process for small-scale deployments.
- Faculty can take care of completing these agreements directly with the vendors with approval from their AVP.
- Faculty-driven process would reduce time spent by central IT supporting for one-off LTI integration requests, which could be better spent vetting larger implementations.
- We would need a system for reviewing requested modifications of standard agreements, as these requests cannot be handled by faculty.

Curation of tools

Reviewing and removing integrations on a cycle.
- Improved dashboarding to evaluate usage patterns.
- Regular review of existing integrations to remove those that are unused or non-compliant.
- Cycle of standard communications with UW requesters.
- Recommendation or requirement of LTI 1.3-only implementations moving forward.
Leveraging reporting tools and dashboards.
- Instructure is expanding their tools for selecting, installing, and reporting on integrations.
- UW has an in-house dashboard that lists integrations and configuration details, such as subaccount. It does not include usage data.

Glossary

The following definitions apply to the specific context of this report. These acronyms and definitions are not intended to apply outside of the context of learning technology integrations at UW.

Learning Management System (LMS): An online system for hosting course content and activities. The University of Washington’s primary LMS is Canvas, developed by the vendor Instructure. Some other UW units have also procured or developed separate learning management systems to support training programs or non-matriculated studies, but for the most part these are not supported by UW-IT.
UW Canvas: UW’s primary instance of Canvas, which includes course sites for all official UW courses listed in the time schedule. All UW faculty, staff, and students can log into this system to view course sites for which they are enrolled as a student or added as a teacher, TA, or designer.
Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI): Standard protocol for developing integrations with standard learning management systems like Canvas.; LTI integrations serve as the primary way for third-party vendors to integrate applications and services into an LMS so that faculty and students can use the tools directly within course sites.
LTI integrations: Software and web applications designed to integrate with an LMS using LTI protocols. Sometimes just called “LTIs.”; LTI integrations are typically offered by publishing companies or educational technology businesses either as stand-alone products or to accompany existing purchases of textbooks or software. However, not all LTIs require purchase, and not all organizations who offer LTIs are vendors or for-profit businesses.
Student and Educational Technology Services (SETS): The UW-IT team that supports the UW Canvas LMS service, including installation of LTI integrations. Currently led by Jake Kulstad.; The team includes both engineers and service managers who maintain a variety of systems that support a student’s academic journey at the University of Washington. It was formed in 2025 from the merger of two existing teams: Teaching & Learning Systems (T&LS) and Student Information Systems (SIS).
UW Learning Technologies (LT): The primary support team for UW Canvas and several of its integrations. Currently led by Jake Kulstad.; This support team consists of full-time staff managers and part-time student support staff who respond to phone, email, and in-person requests related to centrally-supported online teaching and learning tools. While LT works in close partnership with the UW-IT SETS team, it is not a part of UW-IT; the team exists within the Academic and Strategic Affairs unit of the Provost’s Office.
Centrally supported tools: LTI integrations that are procured by UW-IT or another central UW unit, and that are supported by LT for use across UW Canvas. These make up about 20% of the total number of integrations installed in UW Canvas.; These are typically high-impact integrations related to core aspects of teaching and learning that are not fully supported by Canvas. Notable examples include Panopto (for course videos and classroom recordings), Zoom (for hosting live video calls for class sessions and office hours), and Poll Everywhere (for launching real-time polls and gathering live feedback during class sessions).
Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT): A template to standardize the documentation of accessibility conformance of a website, web application, mobile application, etc. Vendors generally provide Accessibility Conformance Reports using the VPAT templates during the procurement process. These indicate whether the vendor believes they fully meet, partially meet, or do not meet a broad array of Section 508 and WCAG requirements.
Higher Education Community Vendor Assessment Toolkit (HECVAT): A comprehensive questionnaire that companies can complete to provide a detailed picture of their cybersecurity, privacy, and compliance standards in one place. The document includes a few accessibility items, but mostly focuses on privacy and security of the tool that is being assessed.
Office of Information Security (OIS): UW-IT office that leads enterprise information security risk management and owns the assessment of information security risk and compliance, tracking, and reporting. Also leads, engages, elevates and coordinates interorganizational information security practices.