Ready to start creating accounts? See our User Accounts API reference.

User Accounts

A user Account in the Knewton Platform represents an end user of a partner learning application. Most of the resources exposed by the Knewton API are associated either directly or indirectly (through a Registration) with an end user of the application. Hence, the application must create Knewton Platform Accounts via the User Accounts APIs before other operations like creating registrations, sending student events, or requesting recommendations can be performed.

Account Provisioning Timing

Partners may choose to create Accounts for their learning application’s users at any time before they need those Account IDs for use in other requests to Knewton APIs.

Option 1: Lazy Creation

If Knewton-powered features are an optional part of the user experience in the learning application, or if the application has a substantial number of users prior to the application’s integration with the Knewton Platform, lazy Account creation is a good option. With this option, the partner application should associate an optional Knewton Account ID with each of its own user records. Whenever the application needs to identify a user in request to the Knewton API, the application should look up the existing Knewton Account ID associated with the user record, and if none is present, create the Knewton Account through the Knewton API at that point.

Option 2: Eager Creation

If Knewton-powered features are a core part of the user experience in the learning application, and the application does not have a substantial user base prior to its integration with the Knewton Platform, eager Account creation is a good option. With this option, the application should create a Knewton Account through the Knewton API for each new user of the application when the user first signs up, and associate the Knewton Account ID with the user record.

Personally Identifiable Information (PII)

When creating a Knewton Account, the learning application must specify an external_user_id that identifies the user record in the application. This ID must be completely anonymized. For example, it would not be acceptable to use the user’s email as their Knewton Account’s external_user_id. If the application uses the user’s email as the primary ID for their user record, then the application must create a second, anonymized ID containing no PII whatsoever, associate it with the user record, and use it as the external_user_id to create the Knewton Account for the user.