Lessonspace
Documentation
API Reference

FAQ

Should I create a new space or use the same space for multiple lessons?

When calling the launch endpoint, using an id that has been previously used will retrieve the details of that Space and not create a new one. On the other hand, if you want to create a new Space for new lessons, then use a unique id each time. Therefore, should you wish to reuse the same Space for multiple lessons, simply call the launch endpoint using the same id. For example, you might have a course called biology 101 that is run in the first term. A good identifier for this course could be biology-101-term1-20xx and by calling the launch endpoint with this id throughout the term, lessons will take place in the same Space.

Another option would be to have a concatenation of the teacher and the students name or id as id. An example id could be AliceSmith-BobJones-ChrisLi. In this case, the association is with the teacher and the students and not strictly to the course. This works well for one-on-one tutoring; if the teacher or student changes, a new Space is created and the teacher will have a fresh start. The choice is yours as to which approach works best for your use case.

If you programmatically set the id to be a concatenation of the teacher and all students, new students who join a course will change the id and a new Space will be created. This may or may not be the desired effect.

Am I using the correct identifier for a space?

id, uuid, launch_id, room_id, slug... All these terms can be confusing and it is easy to get them mixed up. Let's clear up the different terms and how/where to use each of them appropriately.

id

  • To generate a Space, the Launch endpoint requires an id parameter.
  • This id must be unique to your organisation.
  • A good id would be some sort of relationship identifying the users of the space, for example english_teacher123.
  • If no name parameter is passed in when creating the Space, the name field will be the same as id of the generated Space.
  • If the Space already exists, the details of the existing Space with the corresponding id will be retrieved.
  • The Organisation Session List endpoint makes use of this id as a query parameter where the parameter is launch_id.

room_id

  • The launch endpoint returns a room_id parameter which is a UUID.
  • This becomes the slug attribute of the space object.
  • This same slug attribute is used by the Organisation Session List endpoint as a query parameter where the parameter is space.

slug

  • The space object also has its own id attribute which is a UUID. Currently, this is the same as the slug attribute.
  • To avoid errors, it is advised to use the slug attribute instead of the id unless when dealing with the id from the launch endpoint.