IT Professionals,
On Thursday, April 6, IU will be upgrading the Top Hat external tool in Canvas to new version LTI 1.3 in courses being provisioned for Summer and Fall 2023. Upgrading now will allow instructors time to set up Top Hat in their upcoming courses. Instructors should wait until April 6 after 10am ET to begin setting up their summer courses. You do not need to take action, as a direct mailing will be sent next week to Top Hat instructors who have used the tool for SP23 and several past semesters.
Note: The IU School of Medicine will not be upgrading at this time. Top Hat will remain the same in all IUSM courses for the foreseeable future.
Instructors currently using Top Hat in their spring courses will continue to use the current version through the end of the Spring 2023 semester. If a course is set up and properly connected to Canvas, no changes are necessary at this time.
What changes will come with the new version of Top Hat in summer and fall courses?
- Connecting students to the correct Top Hat course no longer requires instructors to create a Top Hat registration assignment. Instead, instructors add the new version of Top Hat (simply called Top Hat) to their Canvas course navigation. Students must use this button to access the Top Hat course for the first time. Then, students and instructors may use that button to access the Top Hat course at any time.
- The new version of Top Hat also includes a nightly automatic roster sync, which will reflect any changes to course enrollment. For more information about both automatic and manual roster sync, visit LTI 1.3 (Canvas): Roster Sync.
- Another significant change is where instructors set their gradebook sync preferences. Previously this option (one aggregate Top Hat grade or individual columns) was done in Top Hat course settings. With LTI 1.3, these preferences are set in the Top Hat gradebook. See manual grade sync on the Top Hat LTI 1.3 Grade Sync page for more information.
For more information about the new version of Top Hat, see Get Started with Top Hat at IU.
If you have questions, please contact ithelp@iu.edu.
–IT Community Partnerships on behalf of The eLearning Services team