tl-its-umich-edu/canvas-app-explorer

A Web application that presents a list of Canvas external (LTI) tools with details. When integrated within Canvas, the user can search for specific LTI tool(s), and add or remove those tools from Canvas courses.

Usage

Development mode

Development mode for this application starts up 2 processes in the same container, one running on port 5000 (Python/Django backend) and one that writes to the disk and recompiles the frontend. This allows for changes to be picked up and re-built from the mounted local volumes.

With Docker installed run docker-compose down; docker-compose build && docker-compose up

Then the app in development should be accessible on http://localhost:5000/

Now you can make changes to files in frontend and the changes should show up in the browser automagically.

This app can currently only be launched via LTI. Please see the Wiki for instructions on configuring with LTI.

Using OpenAPI and Swagger

The backend uses the Django Rest Framework to build out a REST API. When DEBUG is equal to True in Django settings, the application leverages the drf-spectacular library to document existing endpoints and provide for API testing using Swagger.

The OpenAPI schema can be downloaded as a YAML file from http://localhost:5000/api/schema. To use the Swagger UI, do the following:

1. Launch the tool from a course in Canvas.
2. Right-click in the iframe and select "View Frame Source" in Chrome (or your browser's equivalent).
3. Change the URL to navigate to /api/schema/swagger-ui.

Once on the page, requests can be made against the API using the "Try it out" functionality.

Testing production (Openshift) build

The openshift build compiles all of the frontend assets into the container during the build. It uses whitenoise currently to serve up the content.

To build, use the separate docker-compose-openshift-test.yml file. This uses a slightly different dockerfiles/Dockerfile.openshift that uses a static path and disables DEBUG.

docker compose -f docker-compose-openshift-test.yml build

Then to start it you can run docker compose -f docker-compose-openshift-test.yml up

This should start up as expected on http://localhost:5000

canvas-app-explorer's Issues

Student should be able to see all tools added by an instructor to course

Integrate with PyLTI to Launch 1.3 from Canvas

Admin should be able to add new tools

Pull a list of tools available in Canvas and configure from this rather than configuring manually.

Have a place for admins to store internal metadata (like notes and tool configuration information)

Django Data Model + Metadata

Define the table structure

LtiTool
  Id INTEGER
  Name VARCHAR
  LogoImage BLOB
  MainImage BLOB  
  ShortDescription TEXT
  LongDescription TEXT
  PrivacyAgreement TEXT
  Support Resources TEXT
  CanvasPlacement INTEGER

CanvasPlacement
  Id INTEGER
  Name VARCHAR

Create this as a Django Model

Create the migrations
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/topics/db/models/

BLOB will be BinaryField

In Canvas Admin, display the name rather than the object id in the list

Rather than show the object id, we should show the name. This is in the Django admin and easy to tell the difference.

Implement Learn More Window

Instructor should be able to search for tools

Students should be able to select between card and list view

Make Privacy Agreement its own table

Privacy agreement has a limited number of values.

These seem to include:

It seemed like it was better to make this a separate editable table (like Canvas placements) rather than have this the textbox that it is now for consistency between items.

• Covered under Data Protection Addendum for Canvas
• Covered under Unizin Master Services Agreement
• Data Protection Addendum
• FERPA Acknowledgement Agreement
• Not required.
• Not required (U-M hosted)
• No identifiable FERPA data exchanged with tool provider.
• Pending

Instructor should be able to see all tools configured by admin as cards

Instructor should be able to see all tools configured as a list

Add a wait process in localhost to wait for the database to start before starting the Django app

We've usually either used the wait-for or nc to implement a wait. It's possible that the database will take a little longer to be available.

tl-its-umich-edu/canvas-course-manager-next#125

Query tools already added to navigation to determine if you don't have to add it yet

Provide a public view similar to an instructors view but with no actions

The idea of this is that this app could eventually replace a page like https://documentation.its.umich.edu/node/1222

It would not have any actions (like enable/disable) and not be part of a course context.

Refine spacing and margins of cards

Instructor should be able to see license agreements

Prepare an ITS Knowledge Base article as the help documentation for Canvas App Explorer

• Prepare for a public viewable tool documentation in ITS Knowledge Base, with following subsections:

• Information for Faculty
• Information for Account Admins
• Support contact/email address

• Link the KB documentation article inside T&L web page
• Include a "Help" link inside Canvas App Explore tool to the above KB article

Allow performing LTI launch from tool

A future feature idea was to allow this tool to launch LTI apps straight through. The easiest way might be to launch them using the Canvas sessionless_launch.

Instructor should be able to add tools to their course navigation

Allow for access with no login

Tools should contain name, logo image, primary image.

OAuth to allow usage of Canvas API

Instructor should be able to launch without adding (Relies on PyLTI)

Tools should have a description

UX Iteration + Application refinements

Fix Card to not have weird spacing, and fix Learn More

Improve PyLTI as Middleware

MVP - UI + Django + Docker

Students should be able to launch the tool directly without it being added to navigation

Admin page isn't able to load static css files

When logging into http://localhost:5000/admin/ the css isn't working and it's not able to get some files from static. This is probably either because these aren't being collected or the path isn't exposed correctly. Will look into fixing this.

LTI Integration with Canvas and Openshift

This is an epic from Zenhub

The issues related are

• #14
• #2
• #3
• #49
• #84
• #40
• #87
• #1
• #80

Appears node modules not in container

Error in terminal:
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/code/frontend/webpack-stats.json'

Error shown on webpage:
OSError at /
Error reading /code/frontend/webpack-stats.json. Are you sure webpack has generated the file and the path is correct?

Additional views to see more specific tool feedback (who left feedback) and reviews

Add some migration file to pre-populate the tables with known values

It would be nice if we pre-populated the stables like CanvasPlacement to have a few of the known defined placements. We also should pre-populate any other tables.

Instructor should be able to remove/disabled tools from their navigation

Create the Django Data Model

Instructor should be able to see support agreements and contact

MySQL package missing from requirements

In #41 MySQL was switched but the package to support it wasn't in requirements. We need to add it.

Fix description and header of design

Ranking feature for rankings (1-5 or just up down)

Tools should have a Privacy Agreement, Canvas Placements and Support Resources (links)

Display usage statistics from UDP

Make Django Secret and other variables configurable

This needs to be configurable before releasing to production.

We've typically used hjson and it's just worked. We've also used constance for variables that could be defined in the database.

Perhaps rather than hjson we can just use a .env file, in the past we used https://pypi.org/project/python-decouple/

canvas-app-explorer/backend/settings.py

Line 24 in 68c8370

SECRET_KEY = 'django-insecure-&24ubb46zaej*fd9jz1^mw1t0)-@zd9g74f!hcs1a48-7loo0r'

Instructor should see that some tool is deprecated

Admin should be able to provide ordering or feature tools (like WA)

Filter by type of tool/category

Instructor should be able to see student data collected

Switch project to using MySQL in dev instead of SQLLite

Will need to switch the Docker Compose and the Django settings.

Example where we are doing this: https://github.com/tl-its-umich-edu/my-learning-analytics/blob/master/docker-compose.yml