Lab Portal Instructor Help

Linking to an SI Lab Portal Activity from a Moodle Course

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Once the SI Lab Portal LTI link has been configured in your Moodle environment, instructors can add SI Lab Portal lessons and assignments directly into a course. Lesson links are the only link type that support assignment-level grade passback to Moodle.

Important: After setup, test the integration by adding an SI Lab Portal assignment, completing it as a student, and confirming that grades successfully pass back to the Moodle gradebook. Failure to follow the setup process may result in missing grade passback or other limited functionality.

Know Before You Begin

  • Activity mapping creates an LTI link that that directs users to a specific SI Lab Portal lesson or assignment.

  • Each graded SI Lab Portal activity must be associated with a gradebook item in Moodle for grades to be passed back.

  • Students must launch activities from the mapped Moodle activity link rather than the Class Homepage for grades to sync properly.

  • If an activity contains manually graded questions, grades will not be sent until manual grading is completed.

  • Each unit will have two activities and two links: one for Exploration and one for Experimentation and Evaluation.  Lab Kit Inventory is the only unit with one link.

1. Open your Moodle course and turn on Edit Mode

2. Add an Activity

Click the plus sign to open the dropdown and select Activity or Resource.

Note: If the tool does not appear in the activity chooser, navigate to More > LTI External Tools and enable Show in Activity chooser for the SI Lab Portal tool.

3. Select the SI Lab Portal Tool

Within the list of external tools, choose SI Lab Portal (naming conventions will vary by institution) and then click Add.

4. Open the Mapping Menu

Click Select content. The SI Lab Portal Mapping menu will appear.

Open the dropdown to select the SI Lab Portal class that contains the lesson or assignment you want to link.  This setting may be preserved if you have already selected the dropdown in a previous session.

6. Select the Lesson

Open the dropdown to select the lesson or assignment from the available activity list.

You can view the list of units and activities in your course by clicking on the Class Home Page link in your Moodle course, or by logging in to SI Lab Portal directly.

Click Link to Assignment to create the link to the selected activity. 

The Science Interactive activity details will automatically populate in the assignment fields. You're welcome to modify the details as you would like. 

8. Configure the Grade Settings

Complete the required settings within the Grade section of the Moodle activity.  

9. Click Save and Display at the bottom of the page.

Continue this process until all of the labs in your course have been linked. 

To modify a lesson link after it has been created:

  1. Locate the content item within your Moodle course.

  2. Click the three dots to the right of the assignment and select Edit Settings.

  3. Update the destination or availability settings as needed, then Click Save.

All Science Interactive Links must be set to open in a new tab or window.  This should happen automatically because of the way the external tool was configured in Moodle.

Grade Passback Requirements Checklist

For grades to pass back successfully from SI Lab Portal to Moodle:

  • The activity must be mapped using an SI Lab Portal activity link.

  • The student must launch the activity from the Moodle link.

  • The student must submit the assignment using the Submit Assignment button in the SI Lab Portal activity.

  • All questions must be fully graded, including the manually graded questions.

  • The Moodle tool must be configured to accept grades. 

Need Help?

If you experience issues with setup, grade synchronization, or activity configuration, please complete the Instructor Support Form, and a member of our team will reach out to provide assistance.

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