1.1 Status of this document

This document is in IMS Final release status, meaning the technical specification is also in Final release status. IMS members are currently working towards successful completion of conformance certification

IMS strongly encourages its members and the community to provide feedback to continue the evolution and improvement of the OneRoster standard. To join the IMS developer and conformance certification community focused on OneRoster and the other related IMS standards please visit the IMS EduERP alliance online here: https://www.imsglobal.org/lis/alliance.html

1.2 Where Can I Get Help?

If you have questions or need help with implementing OneRoster or achieving conformance certification, here are some available resources:

• Public Forum - for all parties interested in OneRoster.
• OneRoster Support - for EduERP Alliance, Affiliate, and Contributing Members.
• OneRoster Developer FAQs - series of articles published by the IMS staff answering frequently asked implementation questions.
• IMS Contributing Members have access to private GitHub repositories and a Slack channel for OneRoster Project Group discussions and collaborations. Contact an IMS staff member to gain access.

1.3 Conformance Certification

IMS offers a process for testing the conformance of products using the IMS certification test suite. Certification designates passing a set of tests that verify the standard has been implemented correctly and guarantees a product’s interoperability across hundreds of other certified products. The OneRoster 1.2 Conformance Certification Guide [OR-CERT-12] provides details about the testing process, requirements, and how to get started.

Conformance certification is much better than claims of “compliance," since the only way IMS can guarantee interoperability is by obtaining certification for the latest version of the standard. Only products listed in the official IMS Certified Product Directory can claim conformance certification. IMS certification provides the assurance that a solution will integrate securely and seamlessly into an institution's digital learning ecosystem.

In order to become certified a paid IMS membership is necessary. Here's why: while conformance certification provides a "seal" for passing prescribed tests it is much more than that. It is a commitment by a supplier to the IMS community for continuous support for achieving "plug and play" integration. Certification implies ongoing community commitment to resolve problems, revise implementations and retest as need. For that reason, only IMS Contributing Members, Affiliate Members and Alliance members are eligible to apply for conformance certification. Details and benefits of membership are listed at https://www.imsglobal.org/imsmembership.html.

As well as sections marked as non-normative, all authoring guidelines, diagrams, examples, and notes in this specification are non-normative. Everything else in this specification is normative.

The key words MAY, MUST, MUST NOT, OPTIONAL, RECOMMENDED, REQUIRED, SHALL, SHALL NOT, SHOULD, and SHOULD NOT in this document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].

An implementation of this specification that fails to implement a MUST/REQUIRED/SHALL requirement or fails to abide by a MUST NOT/SHALL NOT prohibition is considered nonconformant. SHOULD/SHOULD NOT/RECOMMENDED statements constitute a best practice. Ignoring a best practice does not violate conformance but a decision to disregard such guidance should be carefully considered. MAY/OPTIONAL statements indicate that implementers are entirely free to choose whether or not to implement the option.

1.4 Product Directory Listing

The IMS Certified Product Directory is the official listing of products that have passed IMS Global conformance certification testing. Products that are listed in this directory are guaranteed to meet the IMS standards for which they have passed testing. If you experience an integration issue with a product listed here, IMS will work with the supplier to resolve the problem. If a product is NOT listed here it has either not passed IMS testing or its certification has expired.

1.5 Acronyms

The following acronyms are used in this document

2.1 REST Documents

• Rostering Service Documents
• OneRoster 1.2 Rostering Service Information Model
• OneRoster 1.2 Rostering Service REST Binding
• Gradebook Service Documents
• OneRoster 1.2 Gradebook Service Information Model
• OneRoster 1.2 Gradebook Service REST Binding
• IMS Assessment Results Profile for Gradebook Service
• Resource Service Documents
• OneRoster 1.2 Resource Service Information Model
• OneRoster 1.2 Resource Service REST Binding

2.2 CSV Documents

• OneRoster 1.2 CSV Binding

2.3 Supporting Documents

• OneRoster 1.2 Implementation Guide
• OneRoster 1.2 Conformance and Certification Guide

3.1 OneRoster Process Flow

OneRoster defines two roles, a Provider and a Consumer. Technical administrators or other users of the CSV will export from the Provider system such as a student information system and import to a consumer system, such as an LMS or a digital text. REST API-based products adopt the same concepts but users are not handling files directly since the exchange is system-to-system.

3.2 Additional Product Considerations

When selecting products it is very important to understand what OneRoster product type you are considering purchasing. Will the product be a OneRoster Provider or a OneRoster Consumer? Or is the product performing an Aggregator service, which is a Consumer of data from one system and Provider of that data to another system? An Aggregator service usually performs additional value-added services to help make the onboarding and enrollment of students in multiple platforms easier and more efficient. Because of their intermediary role, to be compliant, Aggregator product types must be certified as both Consumers and Providers.