Course Archive Format¶

This document describes the NextThought Course Archive (“course archives”, or more simply, “archive”) format. An archive is a ZIP file containing the structure and assets of the course. The archive format is designed to be a full representation of course content. It can be used to back up course content or as a custom intermediate format to move course content to another system.

Course archives can be extracted from the NextThought LMS using the “Export Course” functionality.

The archive contains a number of structured files in json and, XML format (identified by the file extension and contents) as well as folders containing user-provided assets (where those assets are images, documents, PDFs, etc.).

Common Object Properties¶

Many of the json and XML documents in the archive represent objects or collections of objects. The objects have a set of common properties useful for identifying the type of object, as well as other metadata about the object. Common properties include:

Class - A type identifier for the object

MimeType - An RFC-6838 MIME type identifying the type of object

Creator - The creator of the object identified by their unique Username.

CreatedTime - The time the object was created, represented as the time in seconds since the epoch (a floating point number)

Last Modified - The most recent modification time of the object, represented as the time in seconds since the epoch (a floating point number)

NTIID - A global, unique identifier for the object

OID - An internal, unique identifier for the object

Publication¶

Certain object’s track publication state. While publication semantics may vary based on the type of object, publication state is most commonly used to control the visibility of the object. Objects supporting publication provide the following attributes.

Fields¶
Field Name	Type	Description
isPublished	Boolean	Whether or not the object is published.
publishLastModified	Timestamp	The timestamp at which this object updated its publication state.

Additionally some objects may have publication state driven by calendar dates. For example this object is published at a particular date and time. These objects supporting calendar based publication provide the following additional attributes.

Fields¶
Field Name	Type	Description
publishBeginning	DateTime	When present, this specifies the time instant at which this object is to be available.
publishEnding	DateTime	When present, this specifies the last instance at which this object is to be available.

acclaim_badges.json¶

A list of AcclaimBadge objects that are awarded to learners upon successful completion of the course. These objects model BadgeTemplates linked via the Credly/Acclaim integration.

See credly documentation for more information.

assessment_index.json¶

This file is deprecated in favor of evaluation_index.json.

assets (folder)¶

A folder of user-uploaded assets that are used within lessons and readings. This folder is exposed to course admins, and may contain sub-directories or unused assets.

assignment_policies.json¶

Assignment policy information that controls how the included evaluations (see evaluation_index.json) behave in the system. In general values here are merged on top of the corresponding values on the assignment to override behavior the assignment related settings.

This structure provides a mapping from evaluation NTIID to a dictionary of settings with the following possible keys.

Fields¶
Name	Type	Description
auto_grade	Dict	See below
available_for_submission_beginning	String	The ISO-8601 datetime string controlling when submissions begin being accepted for the assignment.
available_for_submission_ending	String	The ISO-8601 datetime string controlling when submissions are no longer accepted for the assignment.
completion_passing_percent	Number [0, 1]	The percentage of questions the learner must get correct for the assignment to be considered completed successfully e.g. passed. For example a value of `0.80` would result in successful completion if a learner gets at least 8 of 10 questions correct.
disclosure	‘never’, ‘always’, ‘termination’, ‘submission’	Only applicable to polls and surveys, controls when users should be able to see the results associated with the pull/survey.
locked	Bool	Deprecated
max_submissions	Number	The maximum number of submission attempts this assignment allows. Assignments with a `max_submissions > 2` is said to be a multiattempt assignment.
maximum_time_allowed	Number	The number of seconds a learner has to complete the assignment after starting it. A maximum_time_allowed > 0 is indicative of a timed assignment.
submission_buffer	Number	The number of seconds of grace period beyond `available_for_submission_ending` that submissions will still be allowed. See Late Submissions

auto_grade Fields¶
Name	Type	Description
disable	Bool	Is auto grading disabled
total_points	Number	The total number of points this assignment is worth.

evaluation_index.json¶

Lists all the evaluation items in the course. The Items array contains zero or more of the following:

Question¶

Fields¶
Name	Type	Description
MimeType	string	“application/vnd.nextthought.naquestion”, “application/vnd.nextthought.question”
content	string	The prompt for the question (May contain HTML).
parts	array	the list of inputs,limited to 1 input per question.

Poll¶

Have the same fields as questions. Polls aggregate the response of every learner, rather than test one learner.

Fields¶
Name	Type	Description
MimeType	string	“application/vnd.nextthought.napoll”

Question Set¶

A collection of questions, used for learners to self test their own knowledge.

Fields¶
Name	Type	Description
MimeType	string	“application/vnd.nextthought.questionset”
questions	array	the list of questions in the question set

Survey¶

A collection of polls, used to aggregate results from all learners. Has the same fields as a question set plus:

Fields¶
Name	Type	Description
MimeType	string	“application/vnd.nextthought.nasurvey”
title	string	The name of the survey
description	string	Summary of the purpose of the survey
disclosure	string	[policy] field
contents	string	An optional RST string providing rich content to the survey, with `napollref` directives indicating the location of the polls found in the ``questions``property.

Assignment¶

A wrapper around a question set, provides a score contributing to the learner’s course grade.

Fields¶
Name	Type	Description
MimeType	string	“application/vnd.nextthought.assessment.assignment”
total_points	number	how many points the assignment is worth
parts	array	a list of assignment parts containing the question sets
available_for_submission_beginning	string	[policy] field
available_for_submission_ending	string	[policy] field
completion_passing_percent	Number [0, 1]	[policy] field
max_submissions	Number	[policy] field
maximum_time_allowed	Number	[policy] field
submission_buffer	Number	[policy] field

[policy]

(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) See assignment_policies.json for more information

Documents (folder)¶

The default folder for storing user-uploaded documents used as lesson content. This folder is exposed to course admins. It may contain other documents, and some documents may have been moved to other directories.

Images (folder)¶

The default folder for storing user-uploaded images used as cover images for lesson content. This folder is exposed to the user. It may contain other documents, and some images may have been moved to other directories.

Lessons (folder)¶

Contains a json file for each lesson, describing the overview of the lesson. The json files are referenced in course_outline.xml and course_outline.json, to build the full course structure.

The lesson overview has the following hierarchy:

Lesson Overview
└── Overview Group(s)
        └── Lesson Asset(s)

Lesson Overview¶

The lesson’s json file will contain exactly one lesson overview object.

Fields¶
Name	Type	Description
MimeType	string	“application/vnd.nextthought.ntilessonoverview”
title	string	The name of the lesson (should match the name of the outline node)
Items	array	An array of the overview groups in this lesson
isPublished	boolean	If the contents of the lesson are available to learners.
publishBeginning	date	When the contents of the lesson should become available to learners.
publishEnding	date	When the contents of the lesson should become unavailable to learners.

Overview Group¶

The lesson overview’s Items will be a zero or more overview groups.

Fields¶
Name	Type	Description
MimeType	string	“application/vnd.nextthought.nticourseoverviewgroup”
title	string	The name of the overview groups
accentColor	string	A color (in hex format)assigned to the group to help create visual contrast.

Lesson Asset¶

The overview group’s Items will be zero or more lesson assets.

Lesson assets are broken into two categories references and assets. References point to other assets in the course.

Assessment Reference¶

MimeType:	“application/vnd.nextthought.questionsetref”
Target-NTIID:	Points to a QuestionSet in the `evaluation_index.json`

Assignment Reference¶

MimeType:	“application/vnd.nextthought.assignmentref”
Target-NTIID:	Points to an Assignment in the `evaluation_index.json`

Discussion Reference¶

MimeType:	“application/vnd.nextthought.discussionref”
Target-NTIID:	Points to a Discussion in one of the `json` files in the `Discussions` folder.

Related Work Reference¶

Point to either a reading in the course, an uploaded document, or an external URL.

Readings can be found in content_packages.json Documents can be found in the Documents folder

MimeType:	“application/vnd.nextthought.relatedworkref”
targetMimeType:	Tells type of content the ref points to. Either “application/vnd.nextthought.content”, “application/vnd.nextthought.externallink”, or the MimeType of the document it points to.
href:	Either the external URL, or internal NTIID pointing to the resource.

SCORM Content Reference¶

MimeType:	“application/vnd.nextthought.scormcontentref”
Target-NTIID:	Points to a folder in the `ScormContent` folder.

Survey Reference¶

MimeType:	“application/vnd.nextthought.surveyref”
Target-NTIID:	Points to a Survey in the `evaluation_index.json`

LTI Tool Asset¶

MimeType:	“application/vnd.nextthought.ims.consumer.configuredtool”
title:	Name of the tool
description:	Summary of the tool
launch_url:	the URL to launch the LTI tool

Video Asset¶

A Video Fields

Webinar Asset¶

A reference to a GotoWebinar webinar.

MimeType:	“application/vnd.nextthought.webinar”
description:	summary of the webinar
Links:	an array of link object, one will have a rel of `JoinWebinar` that href will launch the webinar
webinarID:	the id of the webinar
webinarKey:	the GotoWebinar key
organizerKey:	the GotoWebinar account

bundle_dc_metadata.xml¶

Incomplete Dublin Core metadata for the course. See course_info.json for more complete catalog information.

bundle_meta_info.json¶

Additional external content referenced by the course. This is only applicable to a subset of legacy enterprise courses.

completable_item_default_required.json¶

A list of content types, specified by MimeType that this course requires completion of by default.

completable_item_required.json¶

A list of required/optional overrides for content in the course.

Interesting Fields¶
Name	Type	Description
optional	String[]	List of NTIIDs for course objects that are explicitly marked as optional.
required	String[]	List of NTIIDs for course objects that are explicitly marked as required.

completion_policies.json¶

The aggregate completion policy for the course. The context_policy field is an AggregateCompletionPolicy modeling the aggregate completion requirement for the course as well as whether or not a certificate is awarded on completion.

AggregateCompletionPolicy¶
Name	Type	Description
percentage	Number	The percentage of required items a learner must successfully complete to complete the course.
offers_completion_certificate	Bool	If true, when successfully completed learners are awarded a certificate.

content_packages.json¶

A list of all the ContentPackages in the course. ContentPackages contain one and only one reading.

Fields¶
Name	Type	Description
MimeType	string	“application/vnd.nextthought.renderablecontentpackage”
title	string	the name of the content package
content	string	A base 64 encoded, gzipped, ReSTructured text

To decode the content, base 64 decode it and unzip the contents. Online tools exist to help with that process.

RST Primer¶

RST is a markup format that adds additional semantic information.

One powerful feature of RST, is the ability to add custom directives. The reading content utilizes custom directives for NextThought specific content blocks.

Code Block¶

Directive Name:	`code-block`
Arguments:	the language
Body:	code block

Photo¶

Directive Name:	`course-figure`
Arguments:	the URL for the image, points to a file in the `assets` folder

Video¶

Directive Name:	`ntivideoref`
Arguments:	NTIID of the video, in the `user_assets.json` file

Iframe¶

Directive Name:

nti:embedwidget

Arguments:

src of the iframe

Options:

width:	how wide the iframe should be
height:	how tall the iframe should be
…others:	other options are passed as attributes to the iframe tag

Directive Name:	`sidebar`
Body:	the contents of the sidebar

course_info.json¶

Metadata and presentation information used to represent this course in the course catalog.

Fields¶
Name	Type	Description
additionalProperties	Deprecated	Deprecated
awardableCredits	CourseAwardableCredit[]	Credit that will be awarded to a user’s transcript on successful completion.
credit	Deprecated	Deprecated
description	String	An optional plain text description of the course.
duration	Deprecated	Deprecated
endDate	String	The anticipated datetime this course will end in ISO-8601 timestamp format.
id	String	The course identifier given to this course.
instructors	Instructor[]	The published instructors for this course.
isPreview	Bool	When true, this course is not avaialble to learners.
is_anonymously_but_not_publicly_accessible	Deprecated	Deprecated
is_non_public	Bool	When true, the course is not listed in the catalog for enrollment.
prerequisites	Deprecated	Deprecated
richDescription	String	An optional rich text (html) description of the course.
schedule	Deprecated	Deprecated
school	Deprecated	Deprecated
startDate	String	The anticipated datetime this course will begin in ISO-8601 timestamp format.
tags	String[]	A list of tags associated with this course.
title	String	The title for this course.
video	URL	The embed url of this course’s promotional video.

CourseAwardableCredit¶

CourseAwardableCredit defines the type and amount of credit a user will be awarded upon successful completion of the course.

Interesting Fields¶
Name	Type	Description
amount	Number	The amount of credit to be awarded.
credit_definition	CreditDefinition	The type of credit to be awarded including type, units, and precision.

Instructor¶

The instructors field defines the set of instructors that show up when viewing course information in the catalog. These instructors are distinct from users actually granted elevated permissions in the course (see role_info.json).

Fields¶
Name	Type	Description
biography	Deprecated	Deprecated
email	String	The public email for the instructor.
jobTitle	String	The instructors job title. For example: Chief Training Officer
name	String	The display name for this instructor.
suffix	String	The isntructors suffix. For example: PhD.
title	Deprecated	Deprecated
userid	Deprecated	Deprecated
username	String	The optional NextThought username for the user this instructor item is associated with.

course_outline.json¶

A json representation of the course outline, lesson structure, of the course. The course outline is a tree structure of course outline nodes representing the nodes in a course. Outline nodes containing other nodes are sometimes referred to as Units. Leaf nodes in the tree, CourseOutlineContentNode objects point to lesson content instead of other nodes.

Fields¶
Field Name	Type	Description
AvailableBeginning	String	An ISO-8601 datetime string for the start of when the contents of this lesson are anticipated to be covered. This is purely a display construct. See Course Outline Node Publication for details on node visibility
AvailableEnding	String	An ISO-8601 datetime string for the end of when the contents of this lesson are anticipated to be covered. This is purely a display construct. See Course Outline Node Publication for details on node visibility
title	String	The display name for the lesson/unit in the outline
Items	CourseOutlineNode[]	Child nodes of this node

Additionally CourseOutlineContentNode objects add a src field that references the LessonOverview json file from the Lessons folder.

Fields¶
Field Name	Type	Description
src	String	The filename of the lesson definition file found in the Lessons (folder).

Note

In practice the CourseOutline is typically 2 levels, the first level maps to Units and the second level maps to Lessons. Some legacy courses may have CourseOutlineNode objects that nest more than 2 levels.

Course Outline Node Publication¶

The publication properties on course outline nodes drive the visibility of those outline nodes to learners. Only published outline nodes are visible in the Course’s lesson structure for learners. All nodes are visible to instructors and editors when in editing mode.

course_outline.xml¶

Warning

This file is deprecated and replaced by course_outline.json.

An xml representation of the course structure (units and lessons). This is a legacy format. In general we recommend using the course_outline.json representation as it is more verbose.

course_tab_preferences.json¶

A json file containing overrides to the course’s default tab names (as displayed on the Course page) There is only a names key which maps the tab name to the display name.

Note

Enterprise site may have global overrides not accounted for here

Tabs¶
Name	Default display
lessons	Lessons
assignments	Assignments
discussions	Community
info	Course info

dc_metadata.xml¶

Incomplete Dublin Core metadata for the course. See course_info.json for more complete catalog information.

ims_configured_tools.json¶

A mapping of configured LTI tools in the course keyed by NTIID. Each LTI tool is represented by ConfguredTool which itself contains a PersistentToolConfig

ConfiguredTool¶
Field Name	Type	Description
config	PersistentToolConfig	See below.
config_xml	String	The xml representation of the LTI configuration
consumer_key	String	The consumer key associated with this LTI tool
deleted	Bool	Was this tool deleted. Deleted tools don’t show in the UI.
secret	String	The consumer secret associated with this LTI tool

PersistentToolConfig¶
Field Name	Type	Description
title	String	A displayable title of the tool
description	String	A plain text description of the tool
launch_url	URL	A fully qualified url that can be used to launch the tool
secure_launch_url	URL	A fully qualified https url that can be used to launch the tool

meta_info.json¶

A json file containing metadata about the export archive. The json object has the following fields:

Fields¶
Field Name	Type	Description
CreatedTime	String	The creation time of this archive in ISO-8601 format
Creator	String	The Username of the user that created the export
ExportHash	String	An opaque, unique identifier for this archive
MimeType	String	`application/vnd.nextthought.courses.courseinstance`

For example:

{
     "CreatedTime": "2021-12-22T17:06:26Z",
     "Creator": "admin1",
     "ExportHash": "49115848444338989_1640192784.88",
     "MimeType": "application/vnd.nextthought.courses.courseinstance"
}

presentation-assets (folder)¶

The presentation assets for the course. This includes cover, thumbnail, background, etc. Anything outside the webapp folder (which is found within presentation-assets) should be ignored.

Presentation Assets¶
File Name	Size	Description
contentpackage-thumb-60x60.png	120px X 120px	Used in list presentation of courses
contentpackage-landing-232x170.png	464px X 240px	Used in card presentation of courses
background.png	3000px X 2000px	Used as the background image when on a course, has a Gaussian blur to handle
client_image_source.png	any	The source image used to generate the other images
course-promo-large-16x9.png	Deprecated	Deprecated
course-cover-232x170.png	Deprecated	Deprecated
contentpackage-cover-256x156	Deprecated	Deprecated

role_info.json¶

A json file providing a mapping of course roles and the users assigned to them.

{
     "nti.roles.course_content_editor": {
             "allow": [
                     "editor1",
                     "instructor1"
             ]
     },
     "nti.roles.course_instructor": {
             "allow": [
                     "instructor1",
                     "grader1"
             ]
     }
}

UI Labels:

Instructor:	Has access to edit content and assign grades. Appears in both `nti.roles.course_content_editor` and `nti.roles.course_instructor`.
Editor:	Has access to edit the content. Appears only in `nti.roles.course_content_editor`.
Assistant:	Has access to assign grades. Appears only in `nti.roles.course_instructor`.

user_assets.json¶

A list of additional assets in the course, typically videos

Video Fields¶
Field	Type	Description
MimeType	string	“application/vnd.nextthought.ntivideo”
title	string	Name of the video
sources	VideoSource[]	List of possible sources for the video (typically only one)
transcripts	Transcript[]	List of transcripts attached to the video

Video Source Fields¶
Field	Type	Description
service	string	The service hosting the video; either ‘kaltura,’ ‘vimeo,’ ‘wistia,’ or ‘youtube’
source	string	The service-specific ID

To generate the video src, combine the source with the service’s base URL

Note

Youtube

service:	“youtube”
base URL:	“https://www.youtube.com/{source}”

For Example:

source:	“aqz-KE-bpKQ”
video src:	https://www.youtube.com/aqz-KE-bpKQ

Note

Vimeo

service:	“vimeo”
base URL:	“https://www.vimeo.com/{source}”

For Example:

source:	“798022”
video src:	https://www.vimeo.com/798022

Note

Wistia

service:	“wistia”
base URL:	“https://fast.wistia.com/embed/iframe/{source}”

For Example:

source:	s3lqfi0zn7
base URL:	https://fast.wistia.com/embed/iframe/s3lqfi0zn7

Transcript¶
Field	Type	Description
lang	string	The language of the transcript
purpose	string	The purpose of the transcript (either ‘captions’ or ‘normal’) * - filename string the name of the .vtt tile
contents	string	base64 encoded gzip of the .vtt file (specification)

To decode the contents, base 64 decode it and unzip the contents. Online tools exist to help with that process.

vendor_info.json¶

Additional custom vendor information specific to the NextThought Platform. This data structure is deprecated.

ScormContent (folder)¶

The SCORM content files uploaded as part of this course. The folder contains a unique folder for each SCORM package in the course containing metadata about the package and the original SCORM content package itself.

ScormContent
└── tag_nextthought.com_2011-10_NTI-ScormContentInfo-1BC4CCEA431F1E6166205A94AC39402C174C67AF4E1CBEEB692E501C5D17F8AF_0087
        └── scorm_content.json
        └── myscorm_package.zip

The metadata for this scorm package is found in the scorm_content.json file and has the following structure.

scorm_content.json¶
Field	Type	Description
NTIID	string	The unique identifier for this scorm package.
ScormArchiveFilename	string	The filename of the SCORM original content file.

For example:

{
"NTIID": "tag:nextthought.com,2011-10:NTI-ScormContentInfo-1BC4CCEA431F1E6166205A94AC39402C174C67AF4E1CBEEB692E501C5D17F8AF_0087",
"ScormArchiveFilename": "myscorm_package.zip"
}

Course Archive Format¶

Common Object Properties¶

Publication¶

acclaim_badges.json¶

assessment_index.json¶

assets (folder)¶

assignment_policies.json¶

evaluation_index.json¶

Question¶

Poll¶

Question Set¶

Survey¶

Assignment¶

Documents (folder)¶

Images (folder)¶

Lessons (folder)¶

Lesson Overview¶

Overview Group¶

Lesson Asset¶

Assessment Reference¶

Assignment Reference¶

Discussion Reference¶

Related Work Reference¶

SCORM Content Reference¶

Survey Reference¶

LTI Tool Asset¶

Video Asset¶

Webinar Asset¶

bundle_dc_metadata.xml¶

bundle_meta_info.json¶

completable_item_default_required.json¶

completable_item_required.json¶

completion_policies.json¶

content_packages.json¶

RST Primer¶

Code Block¶

Photo¶

Video¶

Iframe¶

Sidebar¶

course_info.json¶

CourseAwardableCredit¶

Instructor¶

course_outline.json¶

Course Outline Node Publication¶

course_outline.xml¶

course_tab_preferences.json¶

dc_metadata.xml¶

ims_configured_tools.json¶

meta_info.json¶

presentation-assets (folder)¶

role_info.json¶

user_assets.json¶

vendor_info.json¶

ScormContent (folder)¶