Welcome to eLumen's API Documentation. We're excited to provide new integration capabilities for the benefit of institutions world-wide.

Applications can access eLumen Public APIs to achieve various integrations between eLumen and other systems. eLumen's Public API is still limited at this time, but it does provide access to a full representation of a Course, which can be pulled into a Student Information System (SIS), Learning Management System (LMS), or any other system at any time.

Additionally, eLumen is also capable of accessing your external APIs as well, provided that those APIs are built according to our specifications. Custom integrations can also be built, but this requires custom development - please contact your Customer Success Manager for more information if your institution may require a custom integration.

This guide is intended primarily for developers at eLumen’s client institutions. It is a step-by-step introduction to integrating with eLumen’s RESTful APIs. After completing the steps in the guide you will have learned how to

• Configure your institution’s eLumen instance to accept API calls
• Create client credentials for your institution
• Obtain an auth code and execute API calls

All examples use the API development platform POSTMAN. You may use any other development environment you prefer.

In order to begin development of APIs this feature needs to be enabled in each eLumen environment for your institution. Simply ask your Customer Success Manager to turn on the API Key Management feature for your institution. This flag must be enabled in each environment in which you plan to use APIs. This guide assumes you will be working in your institution’s test environment, typically named [your institution]test.elumenapp.com.

In order to be authenticated and authorized to execute eLumen API calls every call must include credentials for your institution. Obtaining these credentials is a self-service operation in the eLumen web application.

Follow these steps to create the API key:

1. Login as Data Steward.
2. Navigate to System Settings > Security > API Key. (If you don't see this tab, please contact your Customer Success representative).
3. Select the Create API Key button.
4. Input your App Name in the required field.
5. Click the Create button.
6. Copy the Client ID and API Key from the Modal and Save it.

Follow these steps to send data to the server to create or update a resource:

1. Open any API Integration Tool.
2. Such as: Postman, Curl.
3. Perform a POST action to the desired endpoint: “https://api.elumenapp.com/auth “
4. In the body put the clientId and apiKey using the following format:

   {
     "clientId": "{{clientId}}",
     "apiKey": "{{apiKey}}"
   }
   

5. Submit the Message.
6. Copy and Save the generated token.

At this point you will want to explore the APIs that eLumen supports by visiting our OpenAPI specifications at apidocs.elumenapp.com (link to the specifications page).

In order to make any other API calls you must first call the Auth API to request a token. This is commonly referred to as a Bearer token. This Bearer token must then be included in any subsequent API calls. Think of this token as analogous to a user session when you log into a web application. Your session is valid for a fixed period of time. You can continue to use the application until that session expires.

Similarly, your auth token has a lifetime of 24 hours. A token obtained from the auth called can be used to authorize all API calls until it expires. Upon expiration, simply make another call to the Auth API endpoint to obtain a new token.

The Authorization has to be set to "Bearer Token". Then, put the token that was generated by calling the authentication endpoint there.

We know that sometimes it's tricky to build middleware between systems that handle complex problems in the ed-tech world. We hope that these use cases will help you understand what kind of integrations can be built with the endpoints that we offer.

The 3rd Party Integrations follow the same pattern as the APIs, but in the opposite direction. Instead of the Institution initiating the calls, eLumen makes the calls to the Institution. The primary use case for these calls is at the completion of a Course Workflow in eLumen. If your institution utilizes eLumen’s Course Workflow functionality and you want to import the completed Courses into your SIS you will want to implement the code that supports the following two APIs.

• [/course-partial-validation])(#tag/3rdParty/operation/coursePartialValidation)
• /course-full-validation

When a course workflow is completed in eLumen a /course-partial-validation call is made to the institution to validate the course, obtain a unique identifier for the course, and store that identifier in eLumen to be used to keep the two representations of the course in sync. That is followed by a /course-full-validation which sends that completed version of the course to the institution to be stored in the SIS. In the case where the unique identifier is not sent over synchronously, it can also be updated asynchronously using the endpoint to update the curriculum ID.

As with the RESTful APIs, in order to use these Integrations, a developer at the institution will create the program that receives these calls from eLumen and processes them accordingly.

Using a combination of RESTful APIs and 3rd party integration allows institutions to be in sync with eLumen, and by extension with the Partner applications that eLumen integrates with.

CURRICULAR CONFIGURATION and SIS INTEGRATION

eLumen’s SIS integration suite is comprised of three major components today:

1. Data Delegation Service

The Data Delegation Service allows eLumen to delegate the management of certain sets of data to an external system. In other words, eLumen periodically fetches the data from the source (PeopleSoft Campus Solutions for example).

eLumen calls APIs on SIS that were specifically built to return various sets of lookup data. These lookups are used directly in the eLumen Course Workflow, and are based on Swagger specifications designed by eLumen.

There are no modules pre-built for code-less inclusion by future integrators at this time. The following enumeration describes the objects that are currently supported:

3RD PARTY API SPECIFICATIONS

The /GetReference/* API endpoints define the APIs the institution must build for the Data Delegation Service to access the objects in the remote system.

2. elumen Curriculum API:

Our APIs allow external systems to take action on our platform at will - the capabilities are currently limited to retrieval (GET list OR by id), whereas future capabilities will include read and write (POST, PUT, DELETE) operations.

A client can call an API on eLumen to retrieve Course information (/fullcourses GET) both in real-time (ad hoc) as well as a nightly batch reconciliation operation (safety-net to avoid synchronization drift.)

The /fullcourses API endpoint is live, the rest are under proposal.

eLumen Curriculum API

3. eLumen Course Workflow validation & save:

eLumen calls an API on PeopleSoft to validate the course workflow, and then to save it to the SIS.

3rd Party API Specifications

The /CourseOperation API endpoint defines the API the institution must build for the eLumen Course Workflow validation to work.

eLumen is a data-driven solution for managing curriculum and course catalog, assessment, continuous improvement and student success.

eLumen can be the system of record for Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) or Competencies, program requirements, the course catalog, student Education Plans, and student competency scores.

In order to manage this data, eLumen requires data from other systems at the institution, but the most important is the data within the Student Information System (SIS). This guide reviews how SIS data is initially populated within eLumen during implementation and how this data is kept up to date during ongoing use. eLumen will provide additional guidance to the appropriate personnel on importing SLOs and curriculum data.

STEP 1: Set Up Authentication

Please refer to THIS GUIDE to set up authentication, in order to connect to eLumen's endpoints.

STEP 2: Load or Create Organizations, Academic Terms and Key Users

Before loading courses, eLumen requires at minimum the list of the organizations that own courses, a current academic term, and any other key users who will access eLumen during implementation. Each of these can be manually created by users or loaded using endpoints.

See Endpoints Documentation:

• Academic term endpoint.

• Users endpoint.

STEP 3: Create Courses

Courses in your course catalog are necessary so they can receive SLOs, sections, and other curriculum data.

STEP 4: Load Enrollment Information

See Endpoints Documentation:

• Create faculty and students.

• Create sections.

• Create section attributes.

• Assign faculty to sections.

• Enroll students to sections.

• Creating terms.

• Creating campuses.

• Creating Demographic Categories

• Creating Demographic Element inside a Category.

Follow these steps to operate on a specified resource:

1. Configure a REST verb action, like GET, POST, PUT, to the desired endpoint.
2. Add the generated token as a Bearer Token.
3. Submit the message.

If the authentication is correct and your token is not expired it will either display all requested information from the site, or will attempt to perform the stated operation.

Below you will be able to see all the APIs that are available right now.

eLumen's Common API allows an application / user to perform standard operations on common aspects of the eLumen platform.

https://apidocs.elumenapp.caaom/index.html#tag/Assessment

eLumen's Curriculum API allows an application / user to perform standard operations on key Curriculum elements including Courses and Programs and related objects.

https://apidocs.elumenapp.caaom/index.html#tag/Courses

eLumen's Student API allows an application / user to perform standard operations on key Student elements.

https://apidocs.elumenapp.caaom/index.html#tag/Enrollments

eLumen can integrate with external systems by pulling data from those systems into eLumen. Provided that your service adheres to these specifications, eLumen can pull data from that external system.

https://apidocs.elumenapp.caaom/index.html#tag/3rdParty

Operations about authentication

Operations about students and faculty

Operations about demographic categories

Operations about academic terms

Operations about campuses

Operations about organizations

Operations about Courses