QTIcompliance

QTIcompliance is the degree to which a software product or content conforms to the Question and Test Interoperability (QTI) standard. QTI is an open standard developed under the IMS Global Learning Consortium to enable the encoding, packaging, delivery, and scoring of assessment items and tests in a platform- and authoring-tool independent form.

The QTI standard has evolved through versions, notably QTI 1.2 and QTI 2.x. QTI 2.x provides a richer data model for items, responses, outcomes, feedback, and mapping. A typical QTI package includes an assessment or item definitions encoded in XML, along with metadata and, in some cases, media assets. The standard covers item types such as multiple choice, true/false, matching, and more complex interactive tasks, plus the logic for scoring and feedback.

Conformance and testing: Demonstrating QTIcompliance generally involves validating against formal conformance criteria and test suites published by IMS Global or in community-maintained projects. Practitioners verify correct XML structure, semantic correctness, and proper response processing and scoring behavior. Some vendors pursue official certification, while others rely on open test suites and reference implementations.

Impact and scope: QTIcompliance enables interoperability among learning management systems, assessment engines, and authoring tools, facilitating import/export of items and tests, item banking, and reuse across platforms. The standard supports portability but practical interoperability may be affected by extensions or vendor-specific features.

See also: QTI, IMS Global Learning Consortium, e-learning interoperability.