IMS Global: Gary, your organization is participating in an effort through IMS to establish standards for the exchange of question and test items. Can you tell us a little about the Question and Test Interoperability (QTI) initiative and the progress you're making?

GD: We've been involved with IMS for about a decade, and for most of that involvement we have focused our attention on one of the standards and that's QTI. We helped evolve the standard to the level it is today, which is much more robust and comprehensive. What we're doing with QTI is establishing standards for data exchange. Like any other mature organization, we have a combination of legacy and recently developed systems. QTI provides us with a common standard for communicating data back and forth among the various systems. This has been very important in our most recent and ongoing system development efforts.

The other thing that has taken place over the last 20 years or so is that ETS, and a lot of other large testing organizations, had large vertically-integrated infrastructures. We handled the entire assessment process from test development all the way through score reporting. In many of our new assessment efforts, another organization might handle registration while we administer the test and report the results. Interoperating with clients, partners, and suppliers across the assessment process is becoming the norm.

IMS Global: There is a lot of interest today in assessment and measuring learning outcomes. That must keep you and your colleagues busy since this heightened interest is at the very heart of what you do.

GD: It does, and ETS has much to offer. If you read the report, America's Perfect Storm, that I referred to earlier, it addresses why many of these issues are so important.