Partner Collaborations and Affiliations

IMS Global actively collaborates with a number of organizations to ensure that IMS specifications and practices for enabling better learning from better learning technology have a high level of applicability across learning domains and global relevance.

American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) is a higher education member organization that represents approximately 4,600 institutions worldwide to promote best practices for records management, enrollment management, admissions, student services and administrative information technology. IMS and AACRAO are collaborating to extend the traditional transcript as a comprehensive digital record of student achievement to support innovative new education models such as Competencey Based Education.

American Council on Education (ACE) ACE, the major coordinating body for the nation’s colleges and universities, is a membership organization that mobilizes the higher education community to shape effective public policy and foster innovative, high-quality practice. Our strength lies in our diverse base of member institutions. ACE participates on the IMS in the Talent Continuum, an expert advisory council for IMS Global's digital credentials and related standards. It's leading innovators in industry and academia coming together with a mission to ensure a seamless, interoperable user experience in an opportunity ecosystem, removing silos between learning organizations and the workforce.

Association of Public & Land Grant Universities (APLU) is a research, policy, and advocacy organization dedicated to strengthening and advancing the work of public universities in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. APLU is actively involved with the IMS institutional Caliper Analytics leadership group to identify metric profiles needed to support adaptive learning technologies at scale.

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded IMS a 3-year grant in the Fall of 2014 to accelerate deployment of IMS standards that provide a foundation for connectivity of learning platforms, digital courseware, tools and resources so that they can be used together to support the needs of instructors and students. It is anticipated that the results from this grant will greatly increase the number of personalized learning solutions that can be readily integrated by suppliers and institutions, providing greater choice for students, instructors and institutions to improve educational participation and achievement.

CCSSO / EIMAC mission is to ensure all students are well-prepared for college, careers and life, to develop and advocate cross-state collaboration on standards, policies and solutions, partner with state and local education agency leadership and leverage a collective influence throughout the education IT community. Through the CIO Network and EIMAC action groups on Financial Transparency, Education Technology, Data Privacy, and Infrastructure, EIMAC will continue to support states as they advance their strategic state vision by ensuring technology and information is available and effetely used to enhance decision-making and student learning.

CincyTech is one of the most active seed funds in the Midwest and participates in the IMS Start-Up Program. They provide advice and capital to entrepreneurs, helps research institutions commercialize technology through startups, and catalyzes investment from individuals and institutions into regional companies.

Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) is an organization dedicated to supporting the transformative promise of networked information technology for the advancement of scholarly communication and the enrichment of intellectual productivity. Some 220 institutions representing higher education, publishing, network and telecommunications, information technology, and libraries and library organizations make up CNI's Members.

Competency Based Education Network (C-BEN) is a group of colleges and universities working together to address shared challenges to designing, developing and scaling competency-based degree programs. IMS and C-BEN have been collaborating since 2014 to identify the applications, platforms and tools used for CBE programs and to address interoperability challenges.

Consortium for School Networking (CoSN ) is an association of K-12 technology leaders. IMS works closely with CoSN on K-12 initiatives and is a member of CoSN.

Corportation for a Skilled Workforce (CSW) is a non-profit whose mission is to catalyzes nationwide transformative change in education, economic, and workforce development through research and action. IMS and CSW work closely together in the area of digital credentials to support the mission.

Credential Engine and IMS Global have been working closely together and aligning development of specifications to support interoperability and Linked Open Data.

Dublin Core has established a widely accepted technical specification for meta-data for the content of digital libraries. The IMS Learning Resources Meta-data Specification incorporates major aspects of the Dublin Core by defining extensions that are appropriate specifically for educational and training materials.

EDUCAUSE is a non-profit association and the foremost community of IT leaders and professionals committed to advancing higher education. IMS came into existence as a project within EDUCAUSE in 1995. IMS continues to have a close relationship with EDUCAUSE, including a close affiliation with the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI), to align efforts to advance the effective use of technology to support teaching and learning impact.

European Committee for Standardization/Information Society Standardization System (CEN/ISSS) is an international association, formally recognized by the European Community, managing the cooperation amongst the national standards bodies of the 15 EU states, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and the Czech Republic. ISSS was formed to focus specifically on "Information Society" standardization requirements, and has established a number of open workshops. IMS is a participant in the CEN/ISSS Workshop on Metadata for Multimedia Information. In addition, IMS is involved in consideration of a Memorandum of Understanding with CEN/ISSS and other organizations to build consensus for educational technology, improving access to lifelong learning across Europe.

European University Information Systems (EUNIS) is an organisation focused on helping member institutions develop their IT landscape by sharing experiences and working together. IMS is frequently invited to participate in the their programs to expand awareness for IMS standards and practices.

GÉANT is a fundamental element of Europe’s e-infrastructure, delivering the pan-European GÉANT network for scientific excellence, research, education and innovation. Through its integrated catalogue of connectivity, collaboration and identity services, GÉANT provides users with highly reliable, unconstrained access to computing, analysis, storage, applications and other resources, to ensure that Europe remains at the forefront of research.

HERDI - The mission of HERDI is to provide better products and services for students, faculty and staff of America's Community Colleges by facilitating frank and critical dialogue between Community College leaders and the business community that seeks to serve them. IMS and HERDI collaborate to generate broader Community College awareness for the work of the IMS community to improve interoperability.

International Organization for Standardization (ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36) is a network of the national standards institutes of 157 countries, on the basis of one member per country, with a Central Secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland, that coordinates the system. IMS GLC is a Category A Liaison.

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) publishes K-12 curriculum standards to help guide the integration and application of tools and curriculum that are aligned with teaching and learning goals. The goal for ISTE and IMS collaboration is to help districts create a framework for technology adoption for teaching and learning that addresses both the critical infrastructure and pedagogy factors.

MERLOT is a community of educators in higher education who collaborate to develop and disseminate high quality online resources for faculty to incorporate into their courses.

Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization that promotes openess, innovation and participation on the Internet. Mozilla is best know for the Firefox browser, but they advance their mission through other projects. IMS and Mozilla collaborate to extend the work around Open Badges to unlock the full potential of the web by making it easy for users to get recognition for skills they learn online and offline.

New Markets Venture Partners is an early and growth stage venture capital firm that invests in and actively supports education, information technology, and business services companies to help startup organizations participate in the largest edtech innovation ecosystem. IMS and New Markets Venture Partners are partnering to extend special membership terms as part of the IMS Startup Program to New Markets Venture Parnters' portfolio of early and growth-stage startups as a low barrier entry into the world’s largest and most effective member collaborative. The new program and partnership streamlines path for startups to become edtech market leaders.

Online Learning Consortium (OLC) The Online Learning Consortium is the leading professional organization devoted to advancing quality online learning providing professional development, instruction, best practice publications and guidance to educators, online learning professionals and organizations around the world. OLC and IMS are collaborating to align the IMS Centers of Excellence with OLC's Digital Learning Innovation Awards.

SETDA The State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit membership association launched by state education agency leaders in 2001 to serve, support and represent their emerging interests and needs with respect to the use of technology for teaching, learning, and school operations. IMS and SETDA are collaborating to drive adoption of IMS standards by states.

The Learning Counsel is a research institute and news media hub, focused on providing context for the shift in education to digital curriculum. Our membership is comprised of over 170,000 Superintendents, tech and instructional administrators, curriculum specialists, thousands of publishers, and interested enthusiasts anywhere in the teaching and learning field. IMS and The Learning Counsel collaborate in various ways to promote the importance of interoperability as K-12 districts transition to digital.

WCET is a national, member-driven, non-profit which brings together colleges and universities, HED organizations and companies to collectively improve the quality and reach of e-learning programs. WCET and IMS actively pursue joint activities to raise awareness for the importance of open standards to enable educators to innovate with open digital content and educational technologies to improve outcomes.

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) establishes specifications for the web. It is responsible for specifications such as HTML, XML, and RDF. It is not accredited but its specifications constitute industry standards. W3C creates specifications at a lower level than IMS. For example, IMS uses XML as a language for representing meta-data, profiles and other structured information.