Expose API tokens to LMS users

[klemay]

Jon noted in Slack that it is possible to use facet, and other hlib-based tools (e.g. StudentReview, ContributorFocus), as an LMS user. The user needs to grab an API token using a debugging tool, and it's unclear how long that token will work.

I think it would be good to open up uses of our API that first-party users currently have access to.

I'm not sure where/how it would make sense to expose API tokens (we currently do this for first-party users through activity pages.

[seanh]

I don't think we're going to expose these API tokens (which are supposed to be an internal implementation detail) to users and encourage them to paste them into other web pages (which is insecure). We need to figure out what problem(s) this hack has been solving for LMS users and create cards for those problems so that proper solutions can be designed, and prioritised accordingly

[klemay]

The problems we're trying to solve:

• Activity view / profile pages
• Export

Both of these items are in the Near-Term column of our roadmap (https://github.com/hypothesis/product-backlog/projects/6) so it makes sense to close this issue and work on those items instead.

[judell]

I would respectfully ask to reopen this issue for further discussion.

Both of these items are in the Near-Term column

Which is great! Access to tokens is not only for interim activity/export solutions. It's also for partners, like Crowdlayers, who will want to be able to operate in LMS space, and for builders in centers for teaching and learning who want to weave Hypothesis LMS activity into their systems in whatever ways they deem necessary and important.

I don't think we're going to expose these API tokens

As an educational technologist, I want access to those tokens in the same ways and for the same reasons as first-party users have it: so that I can (if I'm capable) enhance my institution's use of Hypothesis.

[klemay]

I re-opened - not saying we have to work on this immediately, but it does have value and should be tackled at some point in the future. Especially as the higher ed world becomes more interested in learning analytics, we'll want to empower technologists & admins to access and use their institutional data in the ways they already do with H in the open (think: CROWDLAAERS or custom tools a school may want to build)

[mkdir-washington-edu]

Request: https://hypothesis.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/6160 https://hypothesis.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/8703

[judell]

Another use case came up today. A teacher has a set of prompting annotations on one or more course readings, he wants to reuse them next term. With an API token he could use a tool like https://jonudell.info/h/CopyAnnotations/ to transfer his annotations from one group to another. I'd need to add the ability to scope the copied annotations to just his, but that's doable. 

[judell]

We need to figure out what problem(s) this hack has been solving for LMS users

I submit it's the same problem that, e.g., the Twitter API solved for lead users of Twitter back in the day. "We don't know exactly how we will want to use this platform, so we need to figure that out by building stuff on top of it."

[HongS1013]

A team of us are working on the forefront of 1) designing pedagogical interventions with the Hypothesis LMS plugin, and 2) designing new tools (e.g. a dashboard) that retrieve Hypothesis data to support interesting teaching/learning activities.

We’d love to see a stable, improved way to access the token. The teacher dashboard we’re currently developing will be co-designed and made accessible to several University of Minnesota instructors. Having a convenient and robust access to the token would help immensely and also boost the development of other apps around Hypothesis.

[robertknight]

@jon-betts and I discussed this recently in the context of supporting Noodle. One issue that came up is that someone building things using Hypothesis data in the context of the LMS will generally want to deal with LMS-related entities such as students, courses and assignments. The Hypothesis h server on the other hand deals with more generic or related-but-different entities such as users, groups and documents. The mappings between these entities is not a simple 1:1 and the generic entities in h often don't have the lms-related information a consumer might want. For some use cases these issues might not be a big deal, and API consumers might be able to figure out a workable solution for their use case if given documentation on how Hypothesis works. In any case, something to think about.

[mkdir-washington-edu]

Related request: https://hypothes-is.slack.com/archives/C01B9TRVATZ/p1696618635480229

The similar ask here is to expose static API tokens professors can use in a set of data dashboards a partner University is building so professors can see Hypothesis data.