As states migrate to online assessment the QTI and APIP standards help make a state's transition to online testing a reality. Accessibility features, such as text-to-speech, magnification, and color contrast, to name a few, support a state’s commitment to Universal Design and help make online assessments valid and reliable measures of student learning. With QTI and APIP, traditionally underserved populations, such as deaf and blind students, can test online for the first time, ensuring that states remain in compliance with sections 504 and 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.
IMS Global Learning Consortium is revolutionizing assessment by providing the technical specifications that enable high quality interoperable digital assessment, both summative and formative. These specifications, QTI® (Question & Test Interoperability®) and APIP® (Accessible Portable Item Protocol®) have been helping to lead the assessment industry forward for many years.
The goal of the IMS work is not to increase the number of high-stakes assessments, but rather to improve assessment quality and integrate actionable assessment into the daily lives of faculty and students to help them achieve better learning.
Leading states, state consortia, and suppliers around the world are now using IMS standards on a massive scale, realizing significant cost savings, supporting major advances in assessment functionality and improving the response time to receiving results compared to paper-based assessments.
State and institutional leaders have been discovering the power of interoperable digital assessment as being more effective and efficient. This has lead to broad adoption of IMS standards. The collaboration of end-users within IMS has focused efforts on their requirements to better support high-quality assessment, teaching, and learning. This end-user collaboration has also led to breakthrough support for accessibility in digital assessment, or APIP.
State Assessment Innovation Leadership Network
The State Assessment Innovation Leadership Network (ILN) is a collaborative group of state assessment and technology leaders working to make online assessment systems, resources, and tools more efficient and effective. Learn more.
Chair:
- Dale Cornelius, Maryland State Department of Education