Since 2006 Wilbert has been leading the community in the development of the IMS QTI v2.1 specification. A number of national assessment projects are now developing tools with the assessment standard at their core.
There are two main benefits to standardising online assessments. Firstly, it means that having spent time developing good multiple choice questions that discriminate well between candidates, teachers don’t need to re type those questions when they move to a new assessment system. Secondly for the STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) online assessment questions can be shared BETWEEN universities and colleges through subject specific item banks.
Further information on some of the projects in the US and the Netherlands is available in Wilbert’s blog post. Information on how the current Jisc projects have contributed to the adoption of the specification is available on the Jisc blog.