Deep Linking (formally Content-Item Message in earlier LTI versions, now called LTI Deep Linking in LTI 1.3) is the LTI Advantage service that solves a specific usability problem: how does an instructor add a specific video, quiz, or resource from an external tool into their LMS course without leaving the LMS interface? Without Deep Linking, the instructor must copy and paste a URL into the LMS — fragile and error-prone. With Deep Linking, the LMS opens the tool in a picker dialog, the instructor navigates the tool's content library and selects an item, and the tool returns a signed content-item message to the LMS containing the launch URL, title, thumbnail, and any custom parameters for that item. The LMS stores this and renders a launch link in the course. For video platforms this means an instructor can browse a video library and embed individual videos or playlists into different course modules, with each link tracked separately in the gradebook. Deep Linking is a prerequisite for integrations where the content library lives in the tool rather than the LMS, which covers most third-party video platform scenarios. It is part of the LTI Advantage bundle but can be implemented independently of NRPS and AGS.
The handbook · 7 volumes
Fora Soft Video Engineering Handbook
Deep linking lets an instructor pick one specific video from your library and drop it into an LMS course without copying URLs. We wrote seven volumes that cover the whole video stack; for LTI tools built on deep linking start with Volume 3 on players and embedding, with Volume 1 on encoding and Volume 4 on audio and captions. Written by Nikolay Sapunov, CEO at Fora Soft.
Want instructors to embed your videos in any LMS through LTI deep linking?
We will review your LTI setup and give you a deep linking implementation plan with content selection UI, launch flow and LMS test matrix. 250+ video products shipped since 2005.
