help logoLON-CAPA Help

Although LON-CAPA is a fully functional LMS/CMS, which provides all the tools needed to run a fully online course, or a hybrid course, other use cases may simply require access to individual LON-CAPA resource(s) without a need for course management functionality.

For such use cases, the standard LON-CAPA course container will continue to be employed by a Course Coordinator to organize resources, set parameters, and control content availability, but students themselves may access the resource(s) from some other context, by simply following a direct link to a particular LON-CAPA resource or folder.

To support the use of deep-linking to an individual resource or folder, URLs of the form: /tiny/ < domain > / < unique code > can be generated within a domain. The < unique > code is a six character code which internally maps to either the LON-CAPA's unique identifier (or "symb") for an instance of a resource in a course, or the path to a folder within a course.

As Course Coordinator display the Course Editor menu, and click the "Content Utilities" tab, and then click the "Display/Set Shortened URLs for Deep-linking" link in the "Adminstration" panel. From there check the checkbox(es) for resource(s) for which deep-link access is needed, and push the "Create Tiny URL(s)' button.

If your LON-CAPA domain has multiple machines, then one machine may have been designated by the Domain Coordinator as a LON-CAPA load-balancer, and/or may operate as the LON-CAPA portal for the domain. In that case the href attribute to set in a link in a web page outside LON-CAPA should point at: https:// < yourportalserver > /tiny/ < domain > / < unique code > . Otherwise, the href attribute should point at https:// < yourloncapaserver > /tiny/ < domain > / < unique code > .

If a deep-link is followed from a web browser without an active LON-CAPA session, the user will be prompted to log-in to LON-CAPA. Once authenticated, the user's role in the course to which the deep-link belongs will be selected automatically, and the resource which the deep-link references will be displayed. If the deep-link is for a folder instead of a resource, then a listing of available items in that folder will be displayed as clickable links. If a user has an active Coordinator role in a course, then that role will be selected automatically. Otherwise, if a user nas more than one (non-Coordinator) active roles in the specific course referenced by the deep-link, then a listing of the available active roles will be shown, with the option to select one. Once selected, the resource will be displayed.