# IMS LTI — Reference Snippet

**Standard:** Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI)
**Body:** IMS Global Learning Consortium (now 1EdTech)
**Releases:** Basic LTI v1.0 (2010); LTI v1.1 (2012); LTI v1.3 + LTI Advantage (2019)

## What it standardizes
- **Tool launch** — signed handshake from LMS (platform) into external tool
- **Identity** — pseudonymous user identifier + roles (LTI 1.x); OIDC + JWT
  (LTI 1.3)
- **Context** — course, section, resource link, custom parameters
- **Services** — Names & Roles (NRPS), Assignment & Grade Services (AGS),
  Deep Linking (LTI Advantage)

## Why it mattered
Solved the reverse problem of Common Cartridge: not how to move content
between LMSs, but how to launch external tools — homework systems,
simulations, video platforms, ed-tech startups — into any LMS with a
single signed handshake, single sign-on, and a return path for grades.
Integration cost for new edtech entrants collapsed from a multi-month
per-LMS project to a configuration screen.

## Stephen Gilfus / Blackboard role
Platform sponsor and early adopter; Blackboard's adoption of LTI under
Stephen's tenure was a forcing function for the rest of the market.

## Primary references
- 1EdTech — LTI — https://www.1edtech.org/standards/lti
- LTI 1.3 / Advantage spec — https://www.imsglobal.org/spec/lti/v1p3/
- LTI security framework — https://www.imsglobal.org/spec/security/v1p1/