Two pieces of information are needed to complete the integration:
Consumer Key
Consumer Secret
Please contact [email protected] to receive a key and secret for your school when you’re ready to use the integration in real classes.
For testing purposes, we also provide a demo key and secret which are as follows:
Demo Consumer Key: piazza.sandbox
Demo Consumer Secret: test_only_secret
Please note that the values above are for testing purposes only and have limited functionality.
Please contact us if you have any issues with the following instructions, or if you have questions about using Piazza with EdX.
Getting Started
To integrate Piazza into your EdX course, you will need access to EdX Studios. EdX Studios should be available to all instructors who have successfully activated their course with EdX. Once signed into EdX Studios you can begin the Piazza integration as outlined below:
Under Settings in the EdX Studio dashboard header, select Advanced Settings:
In the text field for Advanced Module List enter “lti” within the brackets as seen here:
Further down the page you will see LTI Passports. You will be prompted to input your Consumer Key and Secret, which can be requested by contacting [email protected]. The input into the LTI Passports text field will be structured accordingly: "piazza_id:consumer_key:consumer_secret"
After inputting the Consumer Key and Secret, please save your changes.
Under Content in the EdX Studio dashboard header, please select Outline:
Selecting Outline will navigate you to the Course Outline page, where you can create a new section labelled “Piazza discussion”. In this newly labelled section you will see Add New Component, where you should press the Advanced button and then select LTI:
Choose Edit on the new LTI component:
Copy and paste the following inputs into the corresponding text fields:
Custom Parameters: context_id=your_custom_context_ID
Display Name: Piazza
LTI ID: piazza_id
LTI URL: https://piazza.com/connect
Open in New Page: True
Once you have saved all changes, your EdX class will be integrated with Piazza! You can launch Piazza by clicking the View resource in a new window.
Tips
At the time of writing, edX has an issue where LTI launches only work correctly in published classes. Do not attempt to launch Piazza from within Studio.
You can right click on the “View resource in a new window” button to copy its link. You may use this link in announcements or any other edX content areas that allow standard hyperlinks. This is an extremely convenient way to direct students to Piazza as it avoids having to instruct them to visit the “Discussion” section of the edX course to click the launch button.