Qti

QTI stands for Question and Test Interoperability. It is an IMS Global Learning Consortium standard designed to encode assessment content and associated metadata in a machine-readable XML format, enabling exchange and interoperability among learning management systems, assessment engines, and authoring tools. By separating content from presentation, QTI allows a single item or test to be delivered and scored by different systems.

The QTI data model covers items and tests, including the item body, various interaction types (for example, multiple choice, true/false, short answer, numeric, matching), response declarations, outcome declarations, and response processing and feedback rules. It also supports metadata, accessibility information, localization, and result reporting. Content is typically packaged in a ZIP with an IMS manifest (often referred to as IMS Content Packaging) to enable import/export across systems.

QTI has evolved through several versions, with a widely adopted 2.x series that provides a rich, extensible XML schema for representing questions, test sections, scoring rubrics, and outcome reporting. It is designed to be extended via profiles and mappings to accommodate different assessment workflows, while remaining a vendor-neutral standard.

Use and impact: QTI is used by many LMSs, assessment platforms, and authoring environments to exchange question banks, tests, and results, reducing vendor lock-in and enabling interoperability across institutions and tools. While not a content authoring standard itself, it supports robust integration for assessment lifecycle management and analytics.