Third-party Tools

Need for Third Party Tool Support

The need for improved third party tool support and integration with campus technologies has emerged as a common theme in campus feedback on instructional technology at UCI.

Options: Rebuild EEE? Adopt Canvas?

One way to improve third party tool support would be to re-architect UCI’s homegrown EEE learning management system to support integration between EEE and third party services.

Re-architecting EEE would be a costly, multi-year undertaking, so before embarking on that project, the campus is piloting Canvas, which has built-in capabilities for connecting to third party tools. If Canvas functions well for our campus as a core learning management system, it may be more efficient to adopt Canvas than to re-architect EEE.

Constraints during Canvas Pilot

While this future potential for third party tool integration is a significant part of why the Canvas Pilot is happening, the scope of the Pilot does not include integrating and evaluating third party tools (with a few exceptions noted below) because the campus must first evaluate the viability of Canvas itself – it’s not very helpful to have smooth interactions between Canvas and third party tool if the campus doesn’t want to use Canvas!

Canvas incorporates a few third-party tools out-of-the-box, including CrocoDoc (as part of the SpeedGrader feature) as well as technologies to help with media recording and playback.

Turnitin.com

Many pilot instructors requested that Turnitin.com be implemented within the UCI Canvas Pilot. We recognized the high value of integrating Turnitin.com and performed due diligence, including exploring the technical and contractual ramifications of this integration, then enabled the integration on April 27, 2015.

Please note that Turnitin.com is somewhat unique among the third-party tools used on campus:

  • The University has a contract covering undergraduate use of Turnitin.com
  • The contract also provides for use within the learning management system
  • Many instructors have been using Turnitin.com for a long time, and rely on it as part of their workflow

Learn more about Turnitin.com in the UCI Canvas Pilot →

Third-party Tools

There are currently no plans to enable additional third party tools within the UCI Canvas Pilot.

However, if there is a tool you would find especially useful, or which you rely on for your teaching, please let us know so that we can include that information in our Canvas Pilot assessment, as well as prioritize it for future consideration.

Learn more about third-party tools