1EdTech’s QTI 3 provides a foundation to support greater equity while also enhancing the integration of real-time assessment into more learning platforms and applications
LAKE MARY, Florida, 8 June 2022 — Allowing educators to take advantage of the latest developments in accessibility and digital assessment innovation is the goal behind the latest standard released by 1EdTech™ Consortium, the leading non-profit educational technology partnership worldwide.
Building on the groundbreaking success of Question and Test Interoperability® (QTI®) 2 as the foundation for large-scale digital assessment conducted for statewide and national testing, 1EdTech has finalized the release of QTI 3. QTI 3 will make it easier for states, nations, institutions, and edtech providers of all types to incorporate high-quality, accessible online assessments into a wide range of learning experiences. To achieve this, QTI 3 solves some major challenges that have been inherent in creating and delivering high-quality digital assessments across platforms, namely consistent rendering, use of the latest web accessibility technology, support for libraries of custom interactions, and more seamless integration.
“High-quality assessment needs to evolve rapidly to be more easily integrated into a wide variety of learning situations and software products used by students, faculty, and assessment organizations to provide timely insights while also meeting the highest bar for digital accessibility to meet the needs of all learners,” explains Dr. Rob Abel, 1EdTech CEO. “Just as QTI 2 enabled large-scale, real-time digital assessment for organizations around the world, QTI 3 is the breakthrough that will enable digital assessment innovation to reach all learners across the widest array of learning scenarios and products.”
Using QTI 3, educators may use digital assessment tools to see how well each student understands a textbook lesson with questions embedded in the text; programs can help a student think through a problem if they answered a question incorrectly; educators may assign online lab experiments that students may not get to in class; and more. All of this can now be done with multiple tools working together under one learning platform, instead of educators and learners having to jump around to different products and systems. The QTI 3 standard allows them to work together without overwhelming IT departments with custom integrations.
“QTI 3 provides Smarter Balanced an industry-standard format for delivering our item content to a diverse set of test administration platforms,” said Tony Alpert, Smarter Balanced Executive Director. “By using an industry-standard format, we expect that service providers will be able to import our world-class content and associated accessibility resources with increased fidelity and less effort.”
“I’m excited by QTI 3’s alignment to HTML5, its expanded and expressive vocabulary for item rendering, and most of all, its improved support for Web accessibility standards. I think QTI 3 has great potential in the marketplace and am looking forward to seeing how it moves forward,” said Jason Craft, principal software architect at Pearson.
“The QTI 3 standard contains significant advances when it comes to creating assessments that support the needs of learners with disabilities,” said Markku Hakkinen, Ph.D., Educational Testing Service Director of Accessibility Standards and Inclusive Technology. “Assessment content creators and delivery systems will be able to leverage the accessibility features of QTI 3 to support, for example, students who utilize screen readers, in a standards-based manner. ETS is proud to be a Contributing Member of the QTI working group and 1EdTech to advance educational technology standards that work for all students.”
All of 1EdTech’s standards are open and available. Access the QTI 3 specification documents here.
Anyone interested in learning more may participate in the QTI 3 Bootcamp & Hackathon at the upcoming Learning Impact Conference in Nashville, June 13-16. There will also be sessions presented by 1EdTech members already leveraging the advanced capabilities of QTI 3 to improve curriculum, instruction, and learner outcomes. Learn more about Learning Impact 2022.