Policies / UCI Canvas Policies

UCI Canvas

Professional Programs & UCI Canvas

If you would like to use UCI Canvas for a professional master’s degree program, please Contact Us.

Usage of UCI Canvas by professional master’s degree programs requires a funding agreement between the program and the Office of Information Technology.

Canvas API

Canvas provides a mechanism for you to create or utilize customized connections to the API (Application Programming Interface), which establishes technical associations between your account and the tool provider. These connections allow external tools to interact with UCI Canvas on your behalf and they can provide data from Canvas to the tool provider.

To ensure the integrity of the UCI Canvas system, UCI recommends you provide API access tokens only to those tools that have been reviewed and approved by the Office of Information Technology (OIT). In addition, OIT recommends you set an expiration date on any custom authorizations, to ensure inadvertent access is not extended beyond a reasonable time.

The following tools have been reviewed by UCI and are available for use with UCI Canvas once instructors authorize access:

  • RollCall Prod – Enables use of the Attendance tool
  • iClicker – Enables connections between the iClicker software and UCI Canvas
  • AEFIS (Engineering Only) – Establishes connection between UCI Canvas and AEFIS
  • Canvas Mobile – Enables use of the Canvas mobile app from Instructure

Note: Individuals who use an API connection with a tool that has not been reviewed and authorized by UCI are establishing an agreement directly with the tool provider. OIT does not provide support for use of these tools. Any incidents resulting in data loss or unauthorized activity must be reported to EEE directly.

If you would like to use a tool that requires the use of an API Access Token, please let us know.

Developer Keys

To ensure the integrity of the UCI Canvas system, UCI does not routinely provide developer keys to external tool providers. This decision allows UCI to have confidence that the developer key does not inadvertently expose private student data with unintended consequences.

UCI does, however work with external tool providers to integrate tools and services via the Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) framework. LTI essentially allows developers to embed content and functionality within a Canvas course space, and return information to Canvas as well (i.e. grades, analytics).

Additional information about LTI is available at
https://www.imsglobal.org/activity/learning-tools-interoperability

Increasingly, universities are becoming cautious about granting developer keys and are searching out alternatives routes to integration. Tools equipped with LTI capability can be incorporated into a wide variety of learning management systems, including Moodle, Blackboard, and more.

You are welcome to contact the EEE team with requests for connections to external tools using developer keys, or with additional questions.