In an ideal situation, a Learning Management System (LMS) provider would integrate directly with an installed Ed-Fi ODS/API system to push new data directly from the source system to the education agency. The Python-based components in the LMS Toolkit exist as a workaround to this ideal case: they allow the education agency to pull data from the LMS source system and then synchronize it with the Ed-Fi ODS/API.

While the Ed-Fi Alliance is pleased to offer the full toolkit, we believe direct integration remains the best option. To this end, the Alliance has created a draft specification for an LMS API, and has published an extension plugin for enabling this LMS API directly inside of the Ed-Fi ODS/API Suite 3, version 5.2 or version 5.3. For extension installation instructions, please see the LMS Toolkit User Guide.