External tools available in Canvas

On this page:

Overview
Tools under review
Assessment
Communication (real-time and asynchronous)
Content creation, presentation, and management
Course management
Digital courseware and learning tools
Library research
Miscellaneous
SIS integration
Student success

Overview

Below is a list of external tools (also called LTI tools, LTI apps, or external apps) that have been reviewed and approved for use at Indiana University. Most are available in all Canvas courses, but some are restricted by campus, school, or department to comply with licensing agreements or other constraints.

Most of the tools integrated with Canvas are available for use by students, faculty, and staff without fee because IU or a sponsoring unit is covering the licensing costs. Exceptions (noted below) include online textbooks and digital courseware and learning tools offered by textbook publishers.

A few of the tools on this page are either included in your course navigation menu, or appear in other parts of the Canvas user interface. Most, however, are hidden, which means you'll need to expose them if you want to use them. For more about installing and exposing external tools, see Add an external app to your course in Canvas.

Important:

As an instructor, if you use an application managed by a vendor with whom IU does not have a contract, and it collects protected student data, you may be subject to sanctions, according to university policy Disclosing Institutional Information to Third Parties (DM-02). If your intended use will collect any FERPA-protected data in a third-party tool, do not use it before working through appropriate institutional offices to get a contract with the service. For guidance, see Cloud resources for teaching and/or consult your campus teaching and learning center.

Tools under review

The following tools are currently being evaluated and are available on a limited basis through the Next.IU pilot program or campus-specific pilots. To learn more about the Next.IU initiative or sign up for a pilot, go to Next.IU.

Delphinium: Gamify your gradebook to increase student motivation in courses, personalize communication with students based on data, and visualize progress with customizable dashboards and a leaderboard.
My Learning Analytics (MyLA): Monitor your academic progress and compare it to others in your class.
Terracotta: Embed studies in course sites to conduct experimental research on teaching and learning.

Assessment

Akindi: Auto-grade bubble-sheet exam forms without using a high-capacity scanner
- Available to all courses in Bloomington and Indianapolis
- Available to departments at regional campuses for a fee; see About Akindi at IU
- Not available at Fort Wayne or the School of Medicine
Course Questionnaire (OCQ)
- Course Questionnaire (OCQ): Conduct mid-term and end-of-semester course evaluations/questionnaires
- Questionnaire Responses: View Course Questionnaire results
- Both tools available to all courses, except:
  - Not available at the School of Medicine
  - In Fort Wayne, OCQ and Questionnaire Responses are limited to courses in the Schools of Health Sciences, Nursing, and Social Work.
Examity: Third-party proctoring of online tests
- Available under certain conditions; for current policy and procedure, see About online proctoring at IU.
ExamSoft: Create and analyze computer-based exams, and prevent students from accessing local and online resources while taking exams
- Available only at the IU School of Medicine
Gradescope: Grade bubble sheets, hand-written assignments and problems, and coding assignments
- Available to all courses
Kaltura Quizzing: Add auto-graded questions to a video stored in Kaltura
- Available to all courses
LockDown Browser: Prevent students from accessing external resources while taking quizzes in Canvas
- Available to all courses
QM Advantage: Conduct an informal review of your online course using the Quality Matters standards
- Available to all courses
Quick Check
- Available to all courses
RegisterBlast: Schedule proctored exam times at the IU Indianapolis Testing Center
- Available only on the Indianapolis campus
Taskstream Learning Achievement Tools
- Taskstream: Assess student performance based on established outcomes and standards
- Taskstream Assignments: Create, submit, or grade a Taskstream assignment in Canvas
- Both Taskstream tools are limited to Schools of Education at the Indianapolis and South Bend campuses
- The Taskstream service is no longer widely used at IU, and is no longer supported by UITS. Support is now provided directly by the departments using the service. Additionally, you can email Watermak Support at support@watermarkinsights.com.
Top Hat: Ask questions and collect student responses in class
- Available to all courses
Turnitin
- Turnitin Plagiarism Framework: Use Turnitin for plagiarism detection
- Turnitin LTI tool: Use grading and feedback tools available in Turnitin Feedback Studio (PeerMark, QuickMarks, Turnitin Rubrics, and automated spelling and grammar checking)
- Both Turnitin tools are available to all courses
View'em: Post a spreadsheet with scores, feedback, or other types of data for students to view
- Available to all courses

Assessment digital learning tools

GoReact: Assess or collaborate with students on performance-based skills
- Must be ordered through IU eTexts; involves a student fee
- Available to all courses
- Must be added to your course by a Canvas administrator

Communication (real-time and asynchronous)

Canvas Notifier: Send a Canvas message to a specific list of users
- Available to all courses
InScribe 2.0: Create a learning support system that connects educators and learners
- Available to all courses
- Must be added to your course by a Canvas administrator
Microsoft Teams
- Microsoft Teams Classes: Create a team in Microsoft Teams and synchronize it with your Canvas course roster
- Microsoft Teams Meetings: Create an online meeting room for your class in Microsoft Teams
- Both tools available to all courses
Multicourse Announcements: Post an announcement to multiple courses at the same time
- Available to all courses
Multicourse Messages: Send a Canvas message to two or more courses at the same time
- Available to all courses
VoiceThread: Asynchronous discussions with a focus on visual media, such as documents, photographs, slides, and videos
- Available to all courses
Zoom: Participate in real-time web conferencing sessions
- Available to all courses

Communication digital learning tools

Piazza: Ask and answer questions in an asynchronous discussion format
- Must be ordered through IU eTexts; involves a student fee
- Must be added to your course by a Canvas administrator

Content creation, presentation, and management

Academic Video Online: Access over 70,000 videos in subject areas including anthropology, business, counseling, film, health, history, and music
- Available only at IU Indianapolis
Adobe Creative Cloud: Access Adobe Creative Cloud tools to create presentations, graphics, and videos
- Available to all courses
Ally: Learn how to make your course more accessible
- Automatically added to all courses, with no way for it to be removed
Broadcast: Distribute files to student accounts in Microsoft OneDrive at IU
- Available to all courses
Canvas Commons: Store, find, import, and share course materials via the Canvas learning object repository
- Available to all courses
Cidi Labs DesignPLUS suite
- DesignPLUS Sidebar: Advanced editor for any Canvas tool that uses the rich content editor, except New Quizzes. Primarily for instructional designers.
- Multi-Tool: Easily create/edit course templates and module structure and manage availability dates for all dated items
- TidyUp: Find, download, and remove unused files, folders, and Canvas content (pages, assignments, quizzes, and discussion topics) in your course
- Upload/Embed Image: Find, upload, download, size, crop, and rotate images in the Canvas rich content editor
- All tools available to all courses
EBSCO LTI: Create and manage course reading lists of library resources
- Available to courses at the Bloomington, Indianapolis, Columbus, East, Kokomo, South Bend, and Southeast campuses
Google at IU
- Google Assignments: Create Google at IU My Drive assignments and embed Google My Drive content
- Google Course Tools: Create Google Drive folders and Google Groups for your course
- Google Drive: Access, share, and collaborate on content stored in Google at IU accounts
- All Google tools available to all courses
IU Media Collections Online: Access audio and video recordings from IU collections and select scholarly projects
- Available to all courses except at the IU School of Medicine
Kaltura
- Kaltura: Media Gallery: Create and manage a media collection for your course
- Kaltura: My Media: Create and manage media in your personal collection in Kaltura
- Both tools available to all courses
LinkedIn Learning: Make LinkedIn Learning courses available to students as graded assignments or as part of a module
- Available to all courses
MediaSite: Create and manage media in MediaSite, a video capture and management platform
- Available only to courses in the IU School of Medicine and the IN-DAST, IN-DENT, and IN-DHYG departments at IU Indianapolis
PlayPosit: Incorporate questions, reflections, web overlays, and other types of interactions into course videos
- Available to all courses
Pressbooks: Create an eBook and share it with your class
- Available to all courses
- Must be added to your course by a Canvas administrator
YouTube: Search for, embed, and view publicly accessible YouTube videos
- Available to all courses

Content creation, presentation, and management digital learning tools

Hypothesis: Collaboratively annotate PDFs and web resources or assign annotation tasks to students
- Must be ordered through IU eTexts; involves a student fee
- Must be added to your course by a Canvas administrator
- Available to all SIS-provisioned courses associated with any campus (including the IU School of Medicine)
- Not available to courses that are not associated with a campus, such as IU Expand courses, manually created courses, or IU Online template courses

Course management

Apply Course Template: Apply a custom template developed by UITS, your campus, school, or department to your course
- Available to all courses
Blueprint Manager: Create and manage course templates in Canvas
- Available to all courses
Bulk Remove Users: Remove all or selected users from your Canvas course
- Available to all courses
Canvas and Expand Provisioning: Create and update non-credit courses, sections, enrollments, and guest accounts for Canvas and IU Expand
- Available to Canvas administrators upon request
Course Attribute Editor: View and edit course identity attributes, including SIS IDs
- Restricted to Canvas administrators only; located in the account navigation menu
Course Setup Wizard: Help with common first steps in building your courses
- Available to all courses
Cross-listing Assistant: Cross-list course sections in Canvas
- Available to all courses
Edit/Delete Course Apps: Edit or delete web redirects and external tools imported or added to your course
- Available to all courses
IU Photo Roster: View and export course rosters with official university photos and email addresses
- Available to all courses
Reapply Default Template: Reset your course navigation, settings, and content back to their defaults
- Available to all courses
Roster Status Report: Track when students were added to or removed from your Canvas course roster
- Available to all courses
Search, Filter, and Manage Courses: View, filter, search, and group your course enrollments in this alternative to the Canvas "All Courses" page
- Available to all courses
Start a New Course: Create a new course site in Canvas
- Available to all courses
Syllabus Supplement: Add a syllabus supplement to Canvas for your campus, school, or department
- Available to all courses
Unlock Course: Unlock or relock course after the term or course end date has passed
- Available to all courses

Digital courseware and learning tools