Integrations
Two ways to connect an external system: launch the portal from your LMS with LTI 1.3, or build your own interface on top of a partner API. This page helps you choose.
Current status
Neither integration is generally available. Both are built behind switches that default off. Availability depends on the institution or partner being configured and enabled. We work with pilot institutions and partners by arrangement, and each one needs a signed data processing agreement before it goes live. Nothing on this page is a certification or a commitment to a date. Contact us to discuss a pilot.
The options
For schools whose learning management system (Canvas, Moodle, Schoology, D2L Brightspace or Blackboard) should launch the Cognificance student portal from a course. Learners stay in the LMS course and gradebook; the portal remains the screen they work in.
For platforms such as a tutoring or content provider that keep their own interface and call our API for the conversation, the report and the results. The partner owns the screen; Cognificance supplies the challenges, the AI agents and the evaluation.
A simple rule: if learners should stay inside the LMS course and gradebook, use LTI. If your platform must own the screen, use the partner API. If neither fits, the manual options below need no integration work.
Compare
| Question | LTI 1.3 Advantage | Partner API |
|---|---|---|
| Who it is for | Schools and districts that use an LMS. | Platforms with their own learner interface, for example a tutoring or content provider. |
| Whose interface | The Cognificance student portal, opened from the LMS course. | The partner's own interface. |
| How users sign in | Through the LMS launch. Learners do not sign in to the portal separately. | The partner signs its own users in. Its server authenticates with a signed private-key assertion; webhook delivery uses a separate signing secret. |
| Identity and age | The LMS supplies a stable user identifier. For newly provisioned learners without another age record, the institution can configure a default age band. | The partner supplies an opaque, stable learner identifier and an age band. The partner owns consent for its learners. |
| Grades | The score returns to the LMS gradebook: the overall score, one scoring dimension, or completion, chosen when the activity is set up. | The partner reads results through the API and receives signed webhook events. |
| Rosters | An administrator can sync LMS Learner members into a linked roster when roster processing is enabled. | The partner manages its own learners; there is no roster on our side. |
| Who pays | Normal learner entitlements, including institution seats when Billing is enabled. | A dedicated institution subscription assigned to that partner client, without learner or teacher seats. |
| What the integrator builds | Little. An LMS administrator registers Cognificance as an LTI 1.3 tool; no code. | The most. The partner builds its interface and the integration with our API and webhooks. |
| Status | In development. | In development. |
Option 1
A learner clicks the Cognificance link in their course and arrives in the portal on the right assignment. By default the portal opens in a new browser tab.
A linked teacher can select their own published template or course assignment and choose overall, dimension or completion credit. With the default popup, submit within eight minutes and return to the original course frame to finish the placement.
Overall and dimension scores return after evaluation; completion credit can return as soon as an activity finishes fully or partially. Failed sends are retried automatically with increasing delays, and a platform administrator can retry one that was given up on.
An administrator can pull the course members from the LMS. Learners are added to the Cognificance roster; the sync only adds people and never removes anyone.
An LMS learner becomes a Cognificance student. An instructor can launch as a teacher only when the registration allows instructor access. An administrator links the LMS subject to an existing teacher account to reach its teaching content. An LMS administrator is never given extra privilege in Cognificance.
Embedding the portal inside an LMS page is an option an institution can ask for. It is off by default, and browsers that block third-party cookies are one reason the new-tab launch is the default.
For the LMS administrator this is a standard LTI 1.3 tool registration. We give you the login, launch and public key set addresses, you give us the issuer, client and deployment identifiers your LMS produces. We do not publish LMS-specific click paths, because they change between LMS releases.
Option 2
Your platform registers a learner, lists the first page of up to 20 challenges that learner may take (no paging controls), starts a session, sends turns, asks for hints, pauses, resumes or abandons, and reads the finished report.
AI turns can take a minute or more, so a turn is accepted at once and completes in the background. Your platform checks for the result or waits for a webhook. Re-sending the same turn is safe.
We notify your server when a session completes, when its evaluation is ready, when a turn finishes, and when a safeguarding flag is raised. Each delivery is signed so you can verify it came from us.
Your server authenticates with a private key that only you hold, and receives a short-lived access token. We hold only your public key set. Each partner has its own rate limit and its own subscription.
The API lives under /partner/v1. Download the OpenAPI 3.1 reference, including token authentication, errors and signed outbound webhooks. The live document needs a partner token and an enabled integration.
Pilot partners receive the full technical guide, with routes, request flow and webhook signing samples, as part of onboarding. It is a pre-release draft that will change before general availability.
Data and privacy
LTI launch and partner provisioning identify an account by its source and subject, never an asserted email. Newly provisioned external accounts use a placeholder email. A legacy roster-sync path with automatic provisioning disabled can enroll existing learners using LMS email; it does not merge launch accounts.
A partner learner is identified only by the opaque identifier the partner chose, an age band, and an optional display name and locale. Please do not send an email address or a real name as the identifier.
Not supported yet. Learners must be 13 or older, and an under-13 age band is refused. Challenge templates with an age rating are enforced using the learner's date of birth where known, else the youngest active asserted age band, with the configured LTI default as a fallback only for a newly provisioned LTI link without a band; without a usable age, rated content is refused.
The partner or institution is responsible, as controller, for its own users and for obtaining any consent they need. Cognificance acts for them in processing learner work, under a data processing agreement. Please read the privacy policy and terms of use.
If a learner discloses something serious in a session, the session is flagged for review. For a partner, the safeguard webhook carries fixed category/severity codes, learner subject, session id and a link, without the conversation text or free-text reason. Authorized session/report reads can include the conversation. Human follow-up is agreed during onboarding.
A signed data processing agreement is required before any real institution or partner is enabled. The agreement is a go-live requirement.
Onboarding
Tell us which option fits and about your learners, their ages and your timeline, through the contact page.
We agree the data processing terms with your institution or organization. Nothing is enabled before this.
An LMS administrator registers the tool in the LMS, or a partner publishes its public key set. We then configure the institution or partner client on our side.
A small group runs real launches or API calls end to end, including grade return or webhooks, before wider use.
We enable the integration for your institution or partner. Date and scope are agreed together; neither is fixed in advance.
No integration needed
Schools can already bring students in without an integration: teachers can share a class join code, and administrators can invite teachers and students. Bulk loading people from a CSV file is built but switched off in the beta. Google Classroom is not an LTI platform and is not supported by an integration; a Classroom teacher can use join codes.
Talk to us
Tell us what you use today and what you would like to connect. Contact cognificance.com.
