2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Enhancing the LTI Protocol to Support Alternative Grading Practices in Online Learning Tools

Presented at CIT Technical Session 11: Tools, Platforms, and Technologies.

Educators are increasingly adopting alternative grading practices designed to increase student engagement, put greater focus on learning outcomes instead of points, and ensure all students have access to the same learning opportunities. Such practices often include performance-based grading scales that do not use points, flexible deadlines, resubmission of low-scoring work, and clear, actionable feedback. Unfortunately, existing online educational tools often focus on points-based grading only, with numeric scores being the primary feedback mechanism. The Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) protocol is a key communications protocol between learning management systems and other online educational tools that embodies the points-based focus of tool builders. Lack of tool support for alternative grading practices is a significant impediment to the widespread adoption of these practices. This paper introduces the EGP broker, an innovative, intermediary tool designed to use a proxying strategy to inject sophisticated support for new grading schemes and enhanced feedback into the LTI protocol by operating between various online learning tools and the corresponding learning management system, effectively bridging the technological gap that currently hinders pedagogical progress. The primary goal of the EGP broker is to serve as a universal translation layer, normalizing data and communication between disparate educational applications to facilitate alternative grading workflows. The tool is implemented as a robust web services application built on a Nuxt 4 and Nitro architecture with a PostgreSQL backend. It supports both LTI 1.3 and legacy LTI 1.1 applications to facilitate cross-protocol communication. The system's design is highly modular, allowing for complex grade transformations such as converting multiple tool attempts into a single categorical mastery score. This paper describes the limits with the existing LTI protocol with respect to newer alternative grading practices, explains how a middleware approach can help bridge the gap, presents the design of the EGP broker itself, and describes early experiences with the approach using scenarios based on non-points-based grading, flexible deadlines, resubmission of work, and enhanced feedback.

Authors

Ilse van Duijl Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Dr. Bob Edmison Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [biography]

Dr. Edmison is a Collegiate Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech. His research focuses on alternative grading practices, accessibility, and the tools to support them.
Prof. Stephen H Edwards http://orcid.org/https://0000-0002-5162-9314 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [biography]

Stephen H. Edwards is a Professor and the Associate Department Head for Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech, where he has been teaching since 1996. He received his B.S. in electrical engineering from Caltech, and M.S. and Ph.D. in computer and information science from The Ohio State University. His research interests include computer science education, software testing, software engineering, and programming languages. He is the project lead for Web-CAT, the most widely used open-source automated grading system in the world. Web-CAT is known for allowing instructors to grade students based on how well they test their own code. In addition, his research group has produced a number of other open-source tools used in classrooms at many other institutions. Currently, he is researching innovative methods for giving feedback to students as they work on assignments to provide a more welcoming experience for students, recognizing the effort they put in and the accomplishments they make as they work on solutions. The goals of his research are to strengthen growth mindset beliefs while encouraging deliberate practice, self-checking, and skill improvement as students work.
Dr. Adrienne Decker http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0822-4813 University at Buffalo, The State University of New York [biography]

Adrienne Decker is a faculty member in the newly formed Department of Engineering Education at the University at Buffalo. She has been studying computing education and teaching for over 15 years, and is interested in broadening participation, evaluating t
Audrey Rorrer http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0600-6545 University of North Carolina at Charlotte [biography]

Audrey Rorrer, PhD, is a Research Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at UNC Charlotte, where she also serves as Assistant Director of the Center for Education Innovation & Research. Dr. Rorrer’s scholarship areas include the science of broadening participation in computing, SoBP, which is a recognized domain of critical importance in STEM workforce development and educational programming. Her work has focused on educational programs, outreach and collective impact activities that expand the national pipeline into STEM careers. College student development and Faculty career development are central themes across her body of work.
Dr. Manuel A. Pérez-Quiñones http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1786-203X University of North Carolina at Charlotte [biography]

Dr. Manuel A. Pérez Quiñones is a Professor of Software and Information Systems at UNC at Charlotte. His research interests include diversity issues in computing, CS education, and human-computer interaction. He currently serves on the Committee on Women in Science, Engineering and Medicine at the National Academies and served as Program Officer at the National Science Foundation. His efforts to diversify computing have been recognized with an ACM Distinguished Member status (2019); the CRA A. Nico Habermann award (2018); and the Richard A. Tapia Achievement Award (2017). He is originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Note

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 21, 2026, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 24, 2026

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