Moodle: How to add a LearnSci LabSim or Smart Worksheet

Moodle: How to add a LearnSci LabSim or Smart Worksheet


The LearnSci resources fully integrate with your Moodle platform. All of your resources are hosted, maintained and updated by Learning Science and are added to Moodle as external tool activities in just a few steps. Please also follow this guide if you need to add a link to your Learning Science Homepage.

For help and support email support@learnsci.com or call on +44 (0)117 325 8954

Before you start

You will need the LTI URL for your LearnSci LabSim or Smart Worksheet.
  1. LTI URLs for your LearnSci LabSims can be found on your LearnSci Homepage(s). 
  2. If you do not have access to your homepage or need help finding the LTI URL for your LearnSci resource please get in touch.
  3. If you would like the student grades for the LearnSci LabSim or Smart Worksheet to appear in a new column in your Moodle gradebook you need to request this by contacting support@learnsci.com. We will provide you with a unique LTI URL for this and a different instruction guide.

 1. Navigate to the Moodle course/module where you want to add your LearnSci Homepage, LabSim or Smart Worksheet and select "Turn editing on".



2. Select "Add an activity or resource".



3. Select "External tool".



4. Select "Show more…" to reveal all of the fields in the General section of the form.

The External tool form may have additional fields but you only need to complete the ones below.



5. Add a name for the LearnSci Homepage, LabSim or Smart Worksheet. This will be the name seen by students on your Moodle VLE/LMS.

6. (Optional) Add a description for the activity.

If a description is added, "Display description on course page" will also have to be ticked.



7. Ensure "Automatic, based on tool URL" is selected in the "Preconfigured tool" field.

8. Add the LTI URL for your LearnSci Homepage, LabSim or Smart Worksheet into the "Tool URL" and "Secure tool URL" fields. 

9. You must select "New window" as the launch container.



It will only be possible to open LTI URLs in a new window as the cookies generated are considered 3rd party and are blocked on many browsers by default.
Note: A green tick by the Tool URL field (after the LTI URL has been added) means the Learning Science LTI tool configuration has been recognised and you do not need to add a Consumer Key or Shared Secret (skip steps 10 & 11).

If you are not sure, get in touch to check your configuration at support@learnsci.com

10. Add the "Consumer key".  There is no need to add this if you see a  beside the "Tool URL" field as shown in step 8.

11. Add the "Shared Secret". There is no need to add this if you see a  beside the "Tool URL" field as shown in step 8.



Once you have entered the Consumer key and Shared secret, make sure a green tick appears beside the Tool URL field to indicate the Learning Science LTI tool has been recognised before continuing to the next step.

12. Select "Privacy" to reveal all of the fields.



13. Tick "Share launcher’s name with the tool". If it's already ticked, move on to the next step.

14. Tick "Share launcher's email with the tool". If it's already ticked, move on to the next step.

Sharing the launcher's name and email with the tool will allow you to distinguish users within the Moodle Gradebook. If these settings are not ticked, students will be given anonymised names and email addresses.

15. Make sure "Accept grades from the tool" is not ticked.

If you are looking to add a grade synced activity and want to have a grade column created within the Moodle Gradebook then follow this guide instead.



16. Select "Common module settings" to reveal all of the fields.



17. Set the visibility of the activity to "Show on course page" or "Hide from students".

An example of when you may wish to set the visibility to "Hide from students" is when you are adding semester 2 content during semester 1 and do not wish for students to see this content. Once you are ready for the students to view the semester 2 content, you would set the visibility of the activity to "Show on course page".



18. Select "Save and return to course" to verify that the link is working correctly.