LMS & EdTech glossary

An AI homework solver is a software tool that uses a Large Language Model (typically Claude or GPT-4o in 2026) to answer academic questions automatically. Categories include general chatbots (ChatGPT, Claude), math-specific tools (Mathway, Photomath), Q&A databases (Chegg, Course Hero), and LMS-native solvers (FastSolve).

ALEKS (Assessment and LEarning in Knowledge Spaces) is an adaptive learning platform from McGraw Hill used for math, chemistry, and statistics coursework. It uses adaptive testing to map each student's knowledge state and assigns personalized topics — knowledge checks demote topics you don't actually know.

Blackboard Ultra is the modern UI for Blackboard Learn, gradually replacing the legacy "Original Course View." Ultra rewrites the entire course page, navigation, and quiz interface with a cleaner design but a fundamentally different DOM than Original. Schools commonly run both UIs in parallel during migration.

Brightspace by D2L (Desire2Learn) is a Learning Management System used in roughly 30% of North American higher-ed and a majority of K-12 deployments. Brightspace's quiz UI has unusual question formats — combined questions, arithmetic with significant figures, and multi-select widgets — that other LMS tools sometimes mishandle.

Canvas is a Learning Management System built by Instructure, used by thousands of colleges, universities, and K-12 schools. It hosts courses, assignments, quizzes, grades, and discussion boards. Two quiz engines run in parallel: Classic Quizzes and the newer Canvas New Quizzes (LTI 1.3).

Canvas New Quizzes is the LTI 1.3 quiz engine Instructure built to replace Canvas Classic Quizzes. It adds categorization, hot spot, and stimulus question types. New Quizzes runs in an iframe with a different DOM than Classic, so generic LMS tools that don't have a dedicated New Quizzes adapter often fail.

Honorlock is an online proctoring service that runs as a Chrome extension on a student's regular browser during an exam. It records webcam, audio, and screen activity, and uses a separate browser process to detect search-engine activity. Honorlock does not lock the browser the way Respondus LockDown does — extensions and the clipboard remain functional.

Invisible mode is the FastSolve setting that makes the extension's interaction undetectable on screenshare and screen recording. There is no overlay, no popup, no DOM modification a screen recorder can capture — answers appear in the input as if typed. Invisible mode does not work inside Respondus LockDown Browser (which disables every extension).

Knewton Alta is an adaptive learning platform from Wiley used for college-level math, statistics, chemistry, microeconomics, and business courses. Alta is often deep-linked from Canvas or Blackboard via LTI. Math response uses the MathQuill editor — the same one used by Learnosity-powered publisher products.

Learnosity is the assessment engine behind a long list of major publisher platforms — Pearson MyLab, McGraw Hill Connect, Cengage MindTap, Macmillan Achieve, Sapling Learning, and many institutional LMS deployments. If your assessment looks branded as the publisher's product but the question types are Cloze, drag-and-drop, or MathQuill math response, it's almost certainly Learnosity under the hood.

LTI 1.3 is the IMS Global standard for embedding third-party learning tools inside a Learning Management System. When Canvas "deep-links" a Knewton Alta assignment, or when a publisher quiz appears inside Blackboard, those are LTI launches. LTI 1.3 is the modern replacement for LTI 1.1, with OAuth 2.0 and JWT-based auth.

MathQuill is a widely-used JavaScript math equation editor. It renders WYSIWYG math input — fractions, exponents, integrals, matrices, summation symbols — in a regular HTML input. Knewton Alta, Learnosity-powered publisher products, and several other adaptive math platforms use MathQuill for student answer entry.

Moodle is the most-deployed open-source Learning Management System in the world, used by universities, K-12 schools, and corporate training programs. Because every institution self-hosts (or uses MoodleCloud), Moodle deployments vary widely — your school's Moodle isn't quite anyone else's. Moodle is on version 4.x in 2026.

Proctorio is an online proctoring service that runs as a Chrome extension. Like Honorlock, it monitors webcam, audio, screen activity, and browser-level events during an exam. Proctorio in its default configuration does not disable other Chrome extensions or block the clipboard — tabs and extensions remain accessible unless the instructor explicitly configures full lockdown.

Respondus LockDown Browser is a closed-environment proctoring browser. While a student is taking a LockDown-protected exam, the browser disables every Chrome extension, blocks the clipboard, prevents screen recorders, and shuts off other applications. Tools that depend on browser extensions (FastSolve, password managers, etc.) cannot run inside LockDown.

Safe Exam Browser (SEB) is an open-source locked-down browser commonly paired with Moodle for high-stakes online exams. SEB locks the operating system into a kiosk mode, disables extensions, and blocks navigation outside the exam URL. It's similar in spirit to Respondus LockDown Browser but focused on Moodle and other open-source LMS deployments.

Schoology is a Learning Management System owned by PowerSchool, predominantly used in K-12 education and a smaller share of higher ed. Schoology's assessment tool supports drag-and-drop, ordering, matching, fill-in-the-blank, multiple choice, multi-select, and short and long response questions.

Screenshare detection is the broad category of techniques proctoring software uses to determine whether a student is showing their screen to a third party (or recording it) during an exam. Modern proctoring tools use a mix of webcam analysis, audio detection, OS-level screen-capture API monitoring, and behavioral signals. Detection is imperfect.