What is SIS ID's in Canvas Lms

Question

I don't understood the sis id concept in canvas. there are multiple sis types of sis id's in canvas ex: sis_course_id , sis_user_id .

A very small explanation I found which i don't understood is this:

"Throughout the API, objects are referenced by internal IDs. You can also reference objects by SIS ID, by prepending the SIS ID with the name of the SIS field, like sis_course_id:. For instance, to retrieve the list of assignments for a course with SIS ID of A1234:"

Answer 1

SIS stands for Student Information System .

So the idea of an sis id in canvas is that you can link your canvas object to your SIS by setting the id used by the SIS on your canvas object.

Basically it's an attribute in canvas where a school or other institution can store an id for an external system and then perform queries based on it.

Answer 2

In the SIS database there are entries for a user (student, instructor, admin) and for a course. These entries will have IDs that are unlikely to be the same as their IDs in the Canvas database.

The Canvas sis_user_id is the ID of the in the SIS database and the sis_course_id is the ID of the course in that database.

For example, at Columbia University (where I work) the SIS course IDs are based on the department code, semester and year, and the SIS user IDs are based on the user's initials. The Canvas course and user IDs are serial numbers.

Hope this helps!