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1EdTech Consortium Announces Public Final Status of Basic Learning Tools Interoperability Standard

1EdTech Consortium Announces Public Final Status of Basic Learning Tools Interoperability Standard


Conformance testing and certification for breakthrough LTI standard enabling interoperability between educational applications and learning management platforms and portals is now live

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Lake Mary, Florida, USA – 17 May 2010 – The 1EdTech Consortium (1EdTech GLC) today announced the achievement of public final status of Basic Learning Tools Interoperability (Basic LTI) enabling open and seamless integration of educational web applications with learning management platforms and portals. Basic LTI addresses the most common roadblocks to achieving a seamless experience for teachers and students. It provides a common application launch and single-sign-on framework to supplement or replace vendor-specific APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) across learning/course management systems, course authoring apps, collaboration apps, e-Book apps, homework apps, assessment apps, e-Portfolio apps, etc.

The final public release indicates completion of extensive prototyping and testing among the industry leaders, developed open source code to aid implementation, establishment of conformance testing and certification, and incorporation of feedback from public comments over the last 90 days.  Basic LTI is also approved as a component of the Common Cartridge v1.1 standard, enabling incorporation of LTI-enabled application interfaces into reusable courses, lessons, and other educational materials.

Educational institutions and school districts, as of today, can require suppliers to be LTI-enabled and expect the full backing and support of the world’s largest consortium of educational technology suppliers, users, and government organizations. They can also develop and share their own educational tools and applications. Providers of web-hosted educational applications can now easily incorporate their applications seamlessly into an institutional or district learning platform or portal, and automatically provision cohorts of students with their teacher – separate from the other students and teachers.

“The educational community worldwide owes a debt of gratitude to the 1EdTech member organizations for cooperating on a standard that addresses the number one technical roadblock: the lack of a simple and consistent approach for integrating diverse learning applications together into a seamless user experience tied to the enterprise learning platform or portal,” said Dr. Rob Abel, Chief Executive Officer of 1EdTech GLC. “In a nutshell LTI is all about enabling increased innovation by making it easy to put together and mash-up cooperating learning tools and applications. The fact that the leading educational platform companies, tool providers, and publishers have invested in this to allow all comers to benefit is a watershed moment that heralds a new era. And, the 1EdTech member organizations are eager to sponsor an open application exchange to create opportunity for any and all comers – as Basic LTI conformant tools and applications are easy to create.”

A previous release details the unparalleled support for LTI (see http://www.imsglobal.org/pressreleases/pr100216.html ). The following products have already undergone conformance testing for Basic LTI v1.0:
PowerLink for Blackboard WebCT v8
Building Block for Blackboard Learn v9
Desire2Learn Learning Environment v8.4
Desire2Learn Learning Environment v9.0
Jenzabar JICS v7.2
Learning Objects Campus Pack v4
Sakai v2.7
Sakai 3 v0.4
SpACE v0.5 (Spatial Activities in Course Environments, map application)
WebPA v1 (online peer assessment application)

Ongoing certification status is made available and updated on the 1EdTech web site here: http://www.imsglobal.org/cc/statuschart.cfm

The final public Basic LTI specifications are available here: http://www.imsglobal.org/lti/ . Support for achieving implementation, conformance, and certification for Basic LTI is available from the Common Cartridge/LTI Alliance – see http://www.imsglobal.org/developers/alliance/welcome.cfm. A technical workshop on achieving conformance to Common Cartridge and Basic LTI will be held on Thursday, May 20 at the upcoming 1EdTech Learning Impact conference – see http://www.imsglobal.org/learningimpact2010/index.html

About 1EdTech Consortium (1EdTech GLC)
1EdTech Learning is a nonprofit member organization that strives to enable the growth and impact of learning technology in higher education, K-12, and corporate education worldwide. 1EdTech GLC members are leading corporations, higher education institutions, school districts and government organizations worldwide that are enabling the future of education by collaborating on interoperability standards and major adoption projects for the digital support of education and learning.  1EdTech GLC also sponsors Learning Impact: a global awards program and conference that recognizes the impact of innovative technology on educational access, affordability, and quality. For more information, visit www.imsglobal.org. For inquiries about LTI or Basic LTI, including advice for end-user institutions and school districts, use the web form here: http://www.imsglobal.org/contactus.cfm