The use of IMS QTI in the UKOER programme

IMS Question & Test Interoperability Specification http://www.imsglobal.org/question/ is a standard used to support the interoperability and exchange of digital assessment items (questions, answers, and data). Based on the technical conversations we’ve been having with projects, here’s a brief overview of the use of IMS QTI in the UKOER programme based on the data we have.
Eight projects identified themselves as using QTI in some form.

The use of QTI in these projects does not however follow a single pattern, there are three rough groups of the occurrence of QTI in the Open Educational Resources being released in the programme.
Some projects have acquired OERs which already use QTI and they are managing and passing them on as they are. These projects are:

  • Skills for Scientists
  • CORE-Materials
  • Evolution

Some projects are using tools which support the export of QTI, and they could export items they have in that manner. These projects are:

  • TRUE
  • Open Educational Repository in Support of Computer Science
  • OLE Dutch History

Some projects are explicitly creating or releasing OERs which are QTI assessment items. These projects are:

  • FETLAR (particular focus on Math related items and using some Math-specific tools )
  • brome OERP (are taking items they have been given in in QuestionMark and exporting as QTI to make more open before sharing)

FETLAR’s work builds on cutting edge development on how to use QTI with Math items.

8 thoughts on “The use of IMS QTI in the UKOER programme

  1. Hi Peter,

    Fetlar are using QTI 2.1 and MathML – more overview details are available at http://prod.cetis.org.uk/projects/fetlar

    The other project’s didn’t specify but I’d guess the projects mediating existing content will be using 1.2.

    Virtual Dutch is exporting from Moodle/Hot Potatoes, brOME is moving stuff from QuestionMark, and OERSCS is exporting from Blackboard so they’ll be using whatever those tools support.

  2. Hi all.

    A colleague brought your blog to my attention – my name is Paul Neve and I am Senior E-Learning Software Developer (a fancy way of saying Researcher/Codemonkey!) at Kingston University working on FETLAR.

    FETLAR’s focus in terms of content production is indeed on maths-related materials, and obviously our tools extend QTI 2.1 in order to deliver them. However, our tools also work well for non-maths purposes.

    Our development work has built on past projects such as QTITools and MathAssess, which were mainly about piloting/proof-of-concept implementations. In contrast to these projects,our focus is content-oriented so in turn, our development efforts have been about turning these proof-of-concepts into working, usable tools.

    Consequently, we now have an end-to-end solution for electronic assessment via QTI, starting with the authoring of questions, assembling them into assessments, publishing them alongside other learning content on a (Moodle) VLE, delivering them to students and then examining student performance.

    One of the main methods by which we deliver these tools is via the FETLAR Virtual Appliance. This is a virtual machine image which contains *all* of the tools in a ready to run, preconfigured package. It can be run using freely available virtualisation software (e.g. VMWare Player or VirtualBox) on a tutor’s own computer, for testing/evaluation purposes. Later, it can be deployed on an institutional virtualisation infrastructure. Essentially, the Virtual Appliance takes out all of the inherent headaches involved in configuring the server-side software, and allows an institution to concentrate on producing their content and publishing it to their students.

    Some useful links for those who may be interested follow:

    http://aqurate.kingston.ac.uk/fetlar (overview of the FETLAR technologies – gives links to all the technology web pages and downloads)

    http://aqurate.kingston.ac.uk (focus on QTI work at Kingston University, particularly authoring apps and the Virtual Appliance)

    http://www.screencast.com/t/OTgzYTYzYWI (Screencast outlining the use of all the FETLAR tools to deliver the end-to-end process of electronic assessment with QTI. Fair warning: this is 45 minutes long!)

    http://fetlar.cms.livjm.ac.uk (Hosted instance of the Virtual Appliance. Log into the Moodle as a student – details given – to see an example of how a course might be constructed/delivered)

    http://fetlar.bham.ac.uk (“official” FETLAR site. This is a Moodle installation, you can log in as a guest, but it is primarily intended to be discussion/collaboration area for FETLAR project partners and developers. However some useful information might be gleaned from it.)

  3. Hi everyone

    I am interesting about IMS QTI and reading specification v1.2 about best practice & implementation guide.

    I have some doubts that which LMS can i use the examples that was given in this document with, because i tried to use them with moodle and atutor, it still did not work properly. Do you have any advices?

    One more question, if i want to create some tags to work with specification. Does LMS can understand my tags? Are there other ways to create some tags that LMS can understand

  4. Hello Nathapong,

    QTI v1.2 is quite old by now, and 2.1 addresses a lot of the problems with that earlier version, so it would definitely be worth considering looking at v2.1 instead. 2.1 also incorporates a profile of IEEE LOM for managing metadata in line with other educational content rather than relying on the internal metadata used by 1.2.

    The best place to raise questions about the specification and implementing it are either on the IMS QTI discussion list at http://lists.ucles.org.uk/lists/listinfo/ims-qti or on the CETIS Assessment discussion list at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cetis-qti-sig

    I hope this helps!

  5. another update about finding QTI items, from the BioScience project (who aren’t listed above, so i’ve some editting to do):
    Search “bioukoer AND qtixml” (sans quotes) on #jorumopen will bring up all of ours. #ukoer