IMS Global Learning Consortium

Analysis of 2018 Award Winners Identifies Key Trends in the Use of Educational Technology to Improve Learning Impact

LAKE MARY, Florida, 15 January 2019 — IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS Global/IMS), the world-leading non-profit collaborative advancing edtech interoperability, innovation, and learning impact released the 2018 Learning Impact Report and opened the call for nominations for the 2019 Learning Impact Awards competition.

IMS Global’s annual Learning Impact program recognizes effective uses of technology in support of digital transformation and engagement strategies. The report summarizes the 26 evidence-based technology projects that advanced to the final round of competition for the 2018 Learning Impact Awards. Each project summarized in the report is linked to the IMS Learning Impact Framework, an insightful categorization of technologies being leveraged to advance access, affordability, and quality of education.

"We are pleased to provide this free report based on the latest winners and finalists from the 2018 competition as well as 12 years cumulative learning from the Learning Impact program," said Dr. Rob Abel, chief executive officer, IMS Global Learning Consortium. "Based on the leadership interests of IMS member organizations we are honing the focus of the 2019 competition toward three key criteria: having a demonstrable impact on personalized learning, enhancing institutional processes for improved learning and outcomes, and advancing the of ability edtech products to work together in the digital ecosystem."

The application period for the 2019 Learning Impact Awards is open through 1 March 2019. Award winners will be announced at the annual Learning Impact Leadership Institute, 20-23 May 2019, in San Diego, California.

For more information visit www.imsglobal.org/LIA.

About IMS Global Learning Consortium
IMS Global Learning Consortium is a nonprofit organization that advances technology to affordably scale and improve educational participation and attainment. IMS Global members are leading suppliers, institutions, and government organizations that are enabling the future of education by collaborating on interoperability and adoption initiatives. IMS Global sponsors the Learning Impact Leadership Institute, a global program focused on recognizing the impact of innovative technology on educational access, affordability, and quality while developing the people and ideas to help shape the future of educational technology.

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Leading Platform Companies Set the Stage for the Rapid Adoption of a Smarter and More Secure Approach to Learning Tool Integration

LAKE MARY, Florida, 5 February 2019 — IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS Global/IMS), the world-leading non-profit collaborative advancing edtech interoperability, innovation, and learning impact announced today the first IMS Global members to achieve certification for LTI Advantage.

LTI Advantage is an interoperability standard for learning platforms and application integration. It provides educational institutions and edtech suppliers with a core integration strategy for enabling plug-and-play interoperability that dramatically improves usability and secures data. Leveraging a robust security framework that offers more advanced protection of sensitive student data, LTI Advantage enables the most desirable end-user services—via three unique extensions—to support the delivery of innovative learning tools and applications necessary for digital transformation.

Blackboard, Instructure, Moodle, and Sakai learning management platforms are the first organizations to pass rigorous IMS certification requirements for all components of LTI Advantage—Assignment and Grade Services, Deep Linking, and Names and Role Provisioning Services. The LTI Advantage designation means that a product has successfully implemented and achieved IMS certification for the latest version of the core Learning Tools Interoperability^® (LTI^®) standard, which includes an upgraded security model, and all three extensions. As the foundation for learning product integration, LTI Advantage adoption and certification provides a path for the wide array of tool providers to rapidly scale their integration to work with any LTI Advantage-certified platform.

“LTI Advantage represents an unprecedented collaboration among the leading learning platform, tool, and application suppliers to respond to requirements from institutional leaders for a more secure, reliable, and cost-effective way to integrate learning technology,” said Dr. Rob Abel, chief executive officer, IMS Global Learning Consortium. “Thanks to Blackboard, Instructure, Moodle, and Sakai for their leadership accelerating the transition to LTI Advantage as the new model for extending the digital learning ecosystem.”

"We will look back in several years and realize that the release of LTI Advantage was the moment where the LMS marketplace was truly transformed into an ecosystem of cooperating platforms and tools,” said Dr. Charles Severance, PMC Chair, Sakai Project. “The close alignment of design, engineering, and security efforts by the major vendors for the past several years is why LTI Advantage has the unprecedented scope, quality, and support at its launch."

“Like Canvas, LTI Advantage is anchored in openness,” said Melissa Loble, SVP of Customer Success at Instructure and IMS Board Member. “Through both its scalable technical foundation and services extensions, anyone using edtech tools is able to take advantage of enhanced interoperability, richer integrations, and more accessible teaching and learning. Improving teaching and learning is foundational to who we are at Canvas and why we are proud to be among the first to be LTI Advantage certified.”

“Blackboard is proud to be part of a community of leading educational institutions and technology providers to collaborate on defining and implementing LTI Advantage,” said Jim Chalex, Vice President of Product Management, Teaching & Learning, Blackboard. “We’re committed to enabling institutions to build the right edtech platform to meet their needs and drive learner success and academic innovation. Openness and standards are the foundation of this edtech platform, and we look forward to continuing to work with our partners and developer community to realize the potential of LTI Advantage.”

“Moodle firmly believes in sustainable open solutions and the importance of open standards. We are extremely pleased to be among the first to be certified and ready for LTI Advantage,” said Martin Dougiamas, Founder and CEO of Moodle.

On 7 February 2019, at the IMS Quarterly Meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona, there will be a dedicated LTI Advantage boot camp offering implementation guidance and assistance to all solutions providers working toward IMS certification for LTI Advantage. Another intensive boot camp will take place on 22 May 2019, at the Learning Impact Leadership Institute in San Diego, California.

IMS offers an Alliance membership for educational technology providers that want to implement certified-LTI Advantage now. To facilitate adoption, IMS has developed an innovative test reference implementation for learning tool providers to build out and test their deployment. LTI Advantage will be available to non-IMS members upon its public release.

For more information on LTI Advantage go to www.imsglobal.org/TakeAdvantage.

About IMS Global Learning Consortium

IMS Global is a nonprofit organization that advances technology to affordably scale and improve educational participation and attainment. IMS Global members are leading suppliers, institutions, and government organizations that are enabling the future of education by collaborating on interoperability and adoption initiatives. IMS Global sponsors the Learning Impact Leadership Institute, a global program focused on recognizing the impact of innovative technology on educational access, affordability, and quality while developing the people and ideas to help shape the future of educational technology.

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Leading Organizations Showcase Innovative Solutions to Improve Teaching and Learning Impact and Underscore Emerging Trends in EdTech

LAKE MARY, Florida, 30 April 2019 — IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS Global/IMS), the world-leading non-profit collaborative advancing edtech interoperability, innovation, and learning impact announced today that 32 projects are advancing to the final round of competition for the 2019 Learning Impact Awards.

The Learning Impact Awards recognize innovative applications of learning technology at an educational institution or agency. Projects must demonstrate measurable results on improving personalized learning, institutional performance, and the digital learning ecosystem.

Award nominees represent educational institutions, school districts, states, and product or service providers worldwide. The selection of finalists came from entries received through the open call for nominations and from regional competitions held around the world. Organizations advancing to the final round of competition include:

Advanced Innovation Center for Future Education of Beijing Normal University, Beijing Municipal Commission of Education; AEFIS and University of the Sciences; Apex Learning and Wautoma High School; Boost at IU by UITS; CatchOn, Inc. and Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District; Cerego and Arizona State University; Cisco Networking Academy; Classcraft; GoReact; Indiana University; Istation and Twin Falls School District; itslearning and Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation; JULES Corporation and Carpe Diem; Katy Independent School District; Learning Machine and Central New Mexico Community College; LearningMate Solutions, Inc. and South Carolina Department of Education; McGraw-Hill and Arizona State University, Bunker Hill Community College, St. Charles Community College, St. Cloud State University, and the University of Illinois; NetLearning; Open Assessment Technologies and DEPP-Ministère de l'Éducation Nationale; Phoxel Technologies and E&ICT Academy, National Institute of Technology; Proctorio and California Virtual Campus; Public Consulting Group and Broward County Public Schools; SAFARI Montage and The School District of Lee County; Sony; Tecnológico de Monterrey; University of British Columbia; and the University of Michigan.

At the 2019 Learning Impact Leadership Institute in San Diego, California, 20-23 May, all finalists will present their projects and hold a brief Q&A session with a team of evaluators who will assess their level of learning impact. IMS will award eight medals to the projects receiving the highest scores during the awards luncheon on Wednesday, 22 May.

In addition to the expert panel of judges, the broader edtech community is invited to evaluate and vote on the final projects. Public voting closes at noon PDT on Tuesday, 21 May. To view the videos and project summaries submitted by the selected finalists, and to cast your vote, go to imsglobal.org/lia2019vote.

For more information on the Learning Impact Awards go to imsglobal.org/LIA.

About IMS Global Learning Consortium

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Collaboration Among Leading Universities and EdTech Suppliers Enables Better User Experiences and Faster Evolution to Next Generation Digital Learning

LAKE MARY, Florida, 15 May 2019 — IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS Global/IMS), the world-leading non-profit collaborative advancing edtech interoperability, innovation, and learning impact announced today the availability of Learning Tools Interoperability^® (LTI^®) version 1.3, a significant update to the core standard, and three new services that comprise LTI Advantage.

LTI is the most pervasive technology standard in education, enabling secure plug-and-play integration of learning systems in the right place, at the right time, for the right student. LTI Advantage extends the core capabilities of LTI by adding three essential end-user services to support seamless integration and data support. Faculty and students will save time and achieve better insights through the market adoption of LTI Advantage by edtech suppliers. LTI Advantage will provide a trusted, secure, and low-cost foundation across a wide array of learning platforms both now and as the evolution continues toward next-generation digital learning.

LTI 1.3 and LTI Advantage are the first standards to leverage the newly released IMS Security Framework, which ensures the highest level of protection for sensitive and personally identifiable information being passed between applications, reducing both institutional and personal risk.

"Adoption of LTI Advantage by leading platform and learning tool suppliers is helping institutions accelerate the movement toward establishing a fully integrated and innovative digital ecosystem," said Dr. Rob Abel, chief executive officer, IMS Global Learning Consortium. "We're very grateful for the continued commitment and cooperation by IMS Contributing Members who are working together to make next-generation digital learning a reality, faster."

Bolstered by requirements from institutional leaders for LTI Advantage to improve usability, user experience, and data security, along with support from the leading LMS partners, the next wave of early adopters achieving IMS certification for LTI Advantage include AEFIS, Cengage, Kaltura, McGraw-Hill, and VitalSource.

A comprehensive LTI Advantage bootcamp will take place on 22 May 2019, at the Learning Impact Leadership Institute in San Diego, California.

IMS offers an Alliance membership for educational technology providers that want to implement certified-LTI Advantage now. To facilitate adoption, IMS has developed an innovative test reference implementation for learning tool providers to build out and test their deployment.

"LTI has long been the gold standard in interoperability for edtech," said Mustafa Sualp, founder and CEO, AEFIS. "LTI Advantage expands this important standard to new heights allowing our academic partners to lower costs and reduce risk by getting a larger return in investments in technologies on their campuses. As a proud contributing member of IMS Global, we are excited about the leadership role we have been able to play in the development and early adoption of this modern new standard, and proud to be the first Assessment Management Platform to be certified in LTI Advantage."

"Kaltura is proud to be an early adopter of LTI Advantage and other IMS standards, said Jeff Rubenstein, vice president of product strategy, Kaltura, Inc. "LTI Advantage is a quantum leap from earlier versions of the standard, representing a deeper level of integration with other technologies, as well as improved security. As openness is one of Kaltura's key corporate values, we are thrilled to help define and promote IMS open standards."

"McGraw-Hill is thrilled to be among the early adopters to attain LTI Advantage certification, said Stephen Laster, chief digital officer, McGraw-Hill Education. "At McGraw-Hill, we believe in the power of open standards to achieve seamless, interoperable solutions for administrators, instructors, and students. With the LTI Advantage suite of services, we have the means to efficiently deliver empathetic and complete integration solutions that put learning and ease of access at the center of the digital experience."

"VitalSource has long leveraged LTI to provide students with seamless access to course materials, said Andrew Alfers, vice president of product management, VitalSource. "LTI enables us to deliver content quickly and easily to millions of students and faculty across thousands of institutions via learning management systems and other platforms. We are immensely proud that VitalSource is one of the first learning tools and the first content delivery system to be LTI Advantage-certified."

"We're excited to be working with our partner and developer communities to help drive adoption of LTI Advantage, said Jim Chalex, vice president of product management for teaching & learning, Blackboard. "Starting first with an early adopter cohort, we've now transitioned to regularly occurring office hours as well as providing documentation, assistance, and software access in our free, online developer community. Finally, this month kicks off our global schedule of DevCon developer conferences where we'll be showcasing LTI Advantage and open standards on four continents."

"We are committed to adopting and furthering open standards, like LTI Advantage, because they make technical innovation in education possible, said Melissa Loble, senior vice president of customer success, Instructure and IMS board member. "Standards help make Canvas a better platform, and we encourage our users and partners to implement open standards to improve teaching and learning while powering educational advancement."

"We at Moodle are excited about the impact LTI Advantage can bring to better enable tools within the learning ecosystem, said Garnet Berry, partnerships manager, Moodle. "With the three services that have been added as part of LTI Advantage our Certified Partners along with the tools that integrate with Moodle will be able to connect in an even more secure and integrated solution that will benefit both educators and students."

"When LTI 1.1 launched, it was almost six months before the second major LMS announced public support of the specification, said Dr. Charles Severance, PMC chair, Sakai Project. "LTI Advantage is a far broader and more complex specification, and yet several leading LMS vendors and tool providers have already achieved certification. That speaks volumes to the level of energy and commitment invested in the development of LTI Advantage. Once LMS and tool builders start to understand and use the features in LTI Advantage, we will quickly wonder how we ever did LMS integrations without it."

For more information on LTI Advantage, go to imsglobal.org/TakeAdvantage.

About IMS Global Learning Consortium
IMS Global is a non-profit organization that advances technology to scale and improve educational participation and attainment affordably. IMS Global members are leading suppliers, institutions, and government organizations that are enabling the future of education by collaborating on interoperability and adoption initiatives. IMS Global sponsors the Learning Impact Leadership Institute; a global program focused on recognizing the impact of innovative technology on educational access, affordability, and quality while developing the people and ideas to help shape the future of educational technology.

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New Collaborations and Increased Adoption of IMS Standards Contribute to 13 Continuous Years of Growth in Membership and Revenue

LAKE MARY, Florida, 20 May 2019 — IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS Global/IMS), the world-leading non-profit collaborative advancing edtech interoperability, innovation, and learning impact announced today record growth and revenue for the 13th consecutive year. The IMS annual report for the 2018 fiscal year is available at imsglobal.org/ar2018.

Fifty new member organizations joined IMS in 2018, with overall membership growing to 4,401 leaders representing 492 organizations. IMS members are leading educational technology product suppliers, K-12 and higher education institutions, and state education agencies that work together as equal stakeholders to accelerate an innovative and interoperable digital learning ecosystem. Over the last 13 years, IMS membership increased at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.23%. Revenue rose to over 5.4 million dollars, a CAGR of 13.24% over this same period.

“It was another outstanding year of progress for IMS Global and the work our member community is doing to enable a verified, plug-and-play edtech ecosystem that impacts millions of learners across the world,” said Dr. Rob Abel, chief executive officer, IMS Global Learning Consortium. “We look forward to continuing to grow our membership, increase adoption of our standards portfolio, and seek out opportunities to collaborate on new initiatives to improve digital education.”

IMS certification of learning platforms, apps, and tools is another key enabler to building the future digital ecosystem. At the end of 2018, the IMS Product Directory (imscert.org) listed a total of 523 active certifications across all IMS standards. The total number of certifications since the IMS conformance certification program began in 2009 reached almost 1,700.

IMS announced two significant collaborative initiatives in 2018. 1EdTech is a service that provides school districts and suppliers with the processes, tools, and support needed to ensure that digital content and district systems can connect easily and reliably beginning with the OneRoster^® standard. CASE Network is a no-cost, authoring and distribution service for academic frameworks issued in digital format that makes it radically easier for districts, states, and suppliers to align learning standards and edtech products. Both projects are set to launch in 2019.

IMS created a new community-driven process to examine and share information about the data privacy supported by educational applications. The IMS App Vetting and Privacy service ensures that a minimum standard of privacy and security is met in educational apps and provides assurance that the information gathered is used responsibly. IMS App Vetting has reviewed over 500 products and vetted over 300 policies.

IMS published a major upgrade of Caliper Analytics^® the leading learning analytics framework for standardizing the collection of learning activity data from multiple systems. Leading institutions leverage Caliper data to disseminate knowledge about learning tool activity to support student success initiatives.

IMS certified all of the leading digital badge issuing platforms for the Open Badges 2.0 (OBv2) standard. OBv2 enables a better educational credential by empowering individuals to take their learning with them—wherever they go—building a rich, verifiable picture of their lifelong learning and achievements journey.

Additional milestones and the most recent IMS Global achievements and results will be announced at the 2019 Learning Impact Leadership Institute, May 20-23, in San Diego, California.

About IMS Global Learning Consortium

IMS Global is a non-profit organization that advances technology to scale and improve educational participation and attainment affordably. IMS Global members are leading suppliers, institutions, and government organizations that are enabling the future of education by collaborating on interoperability and adoption initiatives. IMS Global sponsors the Learning Impact Leadership Institute; a global program focused on recognizing the impact of innovative technology on educational access, affordability, and quality while developing the people and ideas to help shape the future of educational technology.

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Trusted Source of Academic Standards in Digital Format Will Transform How States and Districts Adopt Digital Curriculum and Assessments to Meet Learning Goals

LAKE MARY, Florida, 21 May 2019 — IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS Global/IMS), the world-leading non-profit collaborative advancing edtech interoperability, innovation, and learning impact announced today CASE ^® Network, a significant step forward for states, districts, and educational technology suppliers in enabling better accuracy, transparency, and access to state learning standards and emerging competency frameworks.

CASE Network is a no-cost, authoring and distribution service, and extensible online repository, for official identifiers issued by standards authors in digital format using the IMS Competencies and Academic Standards Exchange^® (CASE) standard. By providing this service, anyone can access official academic standards verified by the authoring agency in one trusted source. CASE Network will make it dramatically easier for institutions, state education agencies to support aligned instruction.

“CASE Network brings together state education agencies, institutions, and product suppliers—all with a valid stake in ensuring better learning outcomes—to enable a trusted ecosystem that supports aligned instruction and educational improvement,” said Dr. Rob Abel, chief executive officer, IMS Global Learning Consortium. “This service fills a critical void in K-12 education with identifying official learning standards from different authors and tracking the associations, changes, and updates to those standards over time.”

The newest release of the CASE Network registry includes a verified set of mathematics and English Language Arts standards for all 50 states plus the Common Core. Where states like Georgia, South Carolina, and Texas establish a CASE certified service, CASE Network will mirror those standards and updates verbatim.

The benefits of CASE Network are free for anyone. Individual standards can be viewed and linked to from the public registry by anyone at any time. IMS provides a no-cost registration for standards authors and suppliers for accessing more advanced features of CASE Network and offers powerful tools for authoring and distributing official standards in the CASE format.

IMS Contributing Members will receive reports on changes in the CASE Network registry of standards and can get certified as a CASE Network provider or issuer. A new CASE Network Alliance has been created as a cost-effective way to achieve IMS CASE certification to ensure suppliers start and end with official standards.

The next phase of the collaboration will expand the footprint for CASE Network adding workforce competencies and higher education frameworks that will make it easier to align instruction from kindergarten to career.

CASE Network is possible because of the generous sponsorship provided by IMS members ACT, McGraw-Hill, and SchoolCity powered by Illuminate Education.

Today, May 21, at the IMS Learning Impact Leadership Institute in San Diego California, the Georgia and South Carolina Departments of Education, and the Montana Office of Public Instruction will present, “Unleash the Power of Standards through CASE Network.” The South Carolina Department of Education will also lead a featured session on, “How Can Districts Make CASE Work in My State,” with LearningMate. On Thursday, May 23, Katy ISD, Houston ISD, and Itslearning will discuss how school districts convinced Texas to leverage CASE in, “SEA + 15 LEAs Collaborating = Entire State Wins.”

"Montana is pleased to join the growing number of State Education Agencies who are providing transparent and official access to state standards through the CASE Network. The CASE Network registry allows us to have confidence that Montana's standards can be incorporated into student information systems, curriculum alignment tools, and other applications with fidelity to the standards as they were adopted by the Montana Board of Public Education. Our state is poised to move forward with transformational learning opportunities—CASE is part of the infrastructure that will help our districts to move forward with personalized learning that will transform student success in our state."

—Colet Bartow, Director, Content Standards and Instruction, Montana Office of Public Instruction

“Gwinnett County Public Schools' curriculum is called the Academic Knowledge and Skills (AKS) and is aligned to the state-adopted Georgia Standards of Excellence. The CASE Network and registry will allow us to take digital resources that are aligned to a set of standards in the CASE Network and quickly align the resources to the AKS. This will dramatically reduce the timeframe from acquiring digital resources and making them available to teachers and students with alignment to the AKS. CASE Network will also assist our annual AKS review and change process as a subset of the standards are reviewed for changes and updates each year. Gwinnett looks forward to continued participation in shaping the CASE Network through the work of IMS Global and other member institutions.”

—Mark A. Walls, Executive Director, Information Systems and Solutions, Gwinnett County Public Schools

“CASE Network is a huge step forward for K-12 interoperability efforts to enable equitable access to learning resources. For ACT, CASE Network will support us in our mission to help people achieve education and workforce success. In particular, the ACT Holistic Framework™—now represented in CASE—is more accessible to serve as a guidepost for defining an individual’s preparation and success beyond academics to include factors that encompass college and career readiness and easier to cross reference against other frameworks.”

—Marten Roorda, Chief Executive Officer, ACT

"SchoolCity, powered by Illuminate, is a proud sponsor of the CASE Network. As one of the most open and interoperable education technology companies in the space, Illuminate greatly values IMS Global’s commitment to free, accessible educational standards that will help improve application integrations. This will inevitably empower districts and teachers to seamlessly utilize the tools that best suit their needs for actionable data and analytics."

—Jeremy Lupoli, Ph.D., Vice President, Technical Integration Strategy, Illuminate Education

"Despite improvements in technology that have helped make classroom learning both easier and more analytically robust, entering curriculum standards information from pdfs or websites into those technologies can be a time-consuming task for teachers. The IMS CASE Network, built with support from D2L's Achievement Standards Network™ (ASN), will provide a master record for machine-readable curriculum standards, smoothing the process for better integration into learning technology."

—Jeremy Auger, Chief Strategy Officer, D2L

For more information on CASE Network go to imsglobal.org/casenetwork.

About IMS Global Learning Consortium

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New partnership between IMS Global Learning Consortium and Credential Engine will strengthen standards, facilitate the exchange of information on credentials

LAKE MARY, Florida, 22 May 2019 — IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS Global) and Credential Engine today announced a partnership designed to advance new interoperability and transparency standards for credentials and institutional data systems.

Through the new agreement, the organizations will build interoperability between IMS Global’s widely-adopted standards and Credential Engine’s Credential Transparency Description Language (CTDL)—the first and only common language that enables credential issuers to publish data and information on the content and value of credentials to the public Credential Registry and the open web. Already, 12 states and regions, nearly 400 credential providers, and several federal agencies have joined this cloud-based library that makes information such as competencies, cost, quality assurance, earnings, and connections to occupations, and pathway information searchable to the public.

“To address emerging skills gaps in the new world of work, employers and learners alike need agreed-upon digital representations of competencies, achievements, and credentials,” said Dr. Rob Abel, chief executive officer of IMS Global. “This new integration with Credential Engine is a critical step as we work toward a shared vision of a credentials marketplace that is verifiable by employers, searchable and discoverable, and controlled by learners.”

Moving forward, IMS Global and Credential Engine will lead the development of new tools to publish information on competencies and add linking to the Credential Registry as an IMS standard for digital credentials.

“To tap the full potential of today’s workforce, learners need clear information on the market value of a credential, and that requires us to build out new types of data and technical infrastructure,” said Scott Cheney, executive director of Credential Engine. “This new partnership will accelerate the adoption of critical new standards that make the value, requirements, and competencies associated with all credentials more transparent.”

Founded in 2016, Credential Engine is dedicated to ensuring that all relevant data about credentials are made openly available to the public so credential transparency and literacy can improve, and people can make more informed decisions. IMS Global Learning Consortium, the world-leading non-profit standards organization with over 500 members in 26 countries, has been instrumental in the development of transformational standards for lifelong learning, including the Comprehensive Learner Record, Open Badges (originally developed by the Mozilla Foundation), and Competencies and Academic Standards Exchange^® (CASE^®).

About IMS Global Learning Consortium

About Credential Engine

Credential Engine is a non-profit whose mission is to create credential transparency, reveal the credential marketplace, increase credential literacy, and empower everyone to make more informed decisions about credentials and their value. Credential Engine is also supported by Lumina Foundation, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Walmart, Northrop Grumman Foundation, Microsoft Philanthropies, and the ECMC Foundation.

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EdTech Leaders and Innovators Recognized for Achievement Working to Advance the Next Generation of Education

LAKE MARY, Florida, 23 May 2019 — IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS Global/IMS), the world-leading non-profit collaborative advancing edtech interoperability, innovation, and learning impact, recognized edtech community leaders and innovators at its annual Learning Impact Leadership Institute in San Diego, California.

Bruce Maas, Emeritus CIO and Vice Provost for Information Technology, and Honorary Fellow School of Information, University of Wisconsin–Madison received the William H. (Bill) Graves Leadership Award. This award is granted to an individual making an extraordinary difference in realizing the mission of the IMS Global Learning Consortium. Named after one of its founders, Dr. Bill Graves, it is the highest honor given by IMS.

"For this year's William H. (Bill) Graves Leadership Award we recognize Bruce Maas, whose passion for education and unwavering support for advancing technology in support of institutional leadership, is an inspiration to all," said Dr. Rob Abel, chief executive officer, IMS Global Learning Consortium. "Bruce is a voice for transformational collaboration and leadership to improve learning impact and we thank him for his contributions and continued advocacy and leadership. Congratulations, Bruce!”

As part of the award, Maas will receive $10,000, which he plans to donate to two organizations at the University of Wisconsin–Madison: the Information Technology Academy (ITA) at the Division of Information Technology (DoIT) and the UW–Madison Information School.

In addition, IMS announced eight medalists for this year's Learning Impact Awards program—the only global, expert-judged competition that recognizes breakthrough implementations of edtech at an institution. Winning projects demonstrated progress making a measurable impact on personalized learning, institutional performance, and the digital learning ecosystem. From the 32 finalists, this year's winners are:

2019 Platinum Medals

Boost at Indiana University - Boost at IU by UITS (Video, Paper)
Using Real-Time Data to Impact Instruction at Lee County Schools, FL - SAFARI Montage and The School District of Lee County, FL (Video, Paper)

2019 Gold Medals

My Learning Analytics - University of Michigan (Video, Paper)
Teach Every Child Connector (SII) at Broward - Public Consulting Group and Broward County Public Schools (Florida) (Video, Paper)

2019 Silver Medals

Academic Competency Management Tool (ACMT): Powering & Connecting State Standards - LearningMate Solutions, Inc. and South Carolina Department of Education (Video, Paper)
ComPAIR Peer Review at UBC - University of British Columbia (Centre for Teaching, Learning & Technology) (Video, Paper)

2019 Bronze Medals

Expert-Based Collective Advising Mechanism (ECAM) - Advanced Innovation Center for Future Education of Beijing Normal University, Beijing Municipal Commission of Education (Video, Paper)
ALEKS Assessment and Learning in Knowledge Spaces - McGraw-Hill and Arizona State University (Video, Paper)

2019 Honorable Mentions

Adaptive Learning with Cerego at Arizona State University's Global Freshman Academy (GFA) - Cerego and Arizona State University (Video, Paper)
ALEKS PPL: Placement, Prep and Learning - ALEKS and University of Illinois (Video, Paper)
Apex Learning Technology Courses Prep Students for the Future at Wautoma High School - Apex Learning and Wautoma High School (Wisconsin) (Video, Paper)
Assessing 21st Skills in France by Leveraging Open Standards - Open Assessment Technologies and DEPP-Ministère de l'Éducation Nationale (Video, Paper)
Blockcerts for CNM Community College Graduates - Learning Machine and Central New Mexico Community College (Video, Paper)
BlueMer at ITESM Campus Monterrey - Tecnológico de Monterrey (Video, Paper)
Cisco Networking Academy's Leading-Edge Digital Learning Platform - Cisco Networking Academy (Video, Paper)
Classcraft as an Engagement Management System (EMS) - Classcraft (Video, Paper)
Connect Master Economics: A Paradigm Shift - McGraw-Hill and St. Cloud State University (Video, Paper)
Connect Master: Why Biology? A Relevancy Approach - McGraw-Hill and St. Charles Community College (Video, Paper)
Connect with SmartBook 2.0 Adaptive Learning - McGraw-Hill and Bunker Hill Community College (Video, Paper)
Digital Learning Ecosystem to Support Universal Design for Learning - itslearning and Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation (Video, Paper)
DynaSpace, a service to transform corporate education - NetLearning *IMS Japan Society LIA Regional Competition Finalist* (Video, Paper)
Gaming to Learn - Katy Independent School District (Texas) (Video, Paper)
GoReact Easy Online Video Feedback - GoReact - (Video, Paper)
Integrative Learning Integrity Platform - Proctorio and California Virtual Campus (Video, Paper)
Intervention and Istation at Twin Falls School District - Istation and Twin Falls School District (Idaho) (Video, Paper)
KOOV for Enterprise - Sony *IMS Japan Society LIA Regional Competition Finalist* (Video, Paper)
Quick Check at IU - Indiana University (Video, Paper)
School of Fish Digital Literacy Preschool Curriculum at Carpe Diem - JULES Corporation and Carpe Diem (Video, Paper)
Study Anywhere with the ReadAnywhere App and McGraw-Hill - McGraw-Hill and St. Charles Community College ( Video, Paper)
Transforming Learning Outcomes with a Data-Driven Approach to Digital Learning - CatchOn, Inc. and Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District (Texas) (Video, Paper)
Truth Systems based Dynamic Digital Credentials - Phoxel Technologies and E&ICT Academy, National Institute of Technology (Video, Paper)
Using Comprehensive Learner Record Model to Improve Student Success - AEFIS and University of the Sciences (Video, Paper)

A summary and analysis of trends from all 2019 final projects are presented in the annual Learning Impact Report released in the fall. Nominations for the 2020 competition will open in January.

About IMS Global Learning Consortium
IMS Global is a non-profit organization that advances technology to scale and improve educational participation and attainment affordably. IMS Global members are leading suppliers, institutions, and government organizations that are enabling the future of education by collaborating on interoperability and adoption initiatives. IMS Global sponsors the Learning Impact Leadership Institute; a global program focused on recognizing the impact of innovative technology on educational access, affordability, and quality while developing the people and ideas to help shape the future of educational technology.

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New Executive Leader Brings Educational and Instructional Technology Experience
to Advance District and State Initiatives

LAKE MARY, Florida, 1 October 2019 — IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS Global/IMS), the world-leading non-profit collaborative advancing educational technology impact, announced that Dr. Tim Clark has joined the IMS leadership team to lead all aspects of the organization’s priorities for K-12 school districts and state departments of education members.

As the Vice President of K-12 programs, Tim will drive strategies, initiatives, partnerships, and growth for IMS Global’s K-12 activities. He will be a voice for the K-12 community in ensuring their needs are met as IMS standards evolve and will help district and state members articulate a vision for their digital ecosystems to support students in their learning journeys.

“I am excited about joining IMS Global Learning Consortium and collaborating with edtech providers and the K-12 educational community to address the issues of interoperability, effective use of data, and high-quality digital learning for empowering equitable instructional opportunities,” said Dr. Tim Clark. “I have implemented and facilitated the use of IMS Global standards in multiple educational environments and have realized their positive impact on teaching and learning.”

“We are excited to welcome Tim Clark to the IMS team to provide strategic leadership to IMS K-12 school district and state members representing over 11 million students,” said Dr. Rob Abel, CEO, IMS Global Learning Consortium. “Tim brings new energy and ideas to advance institutional and supplier collaboration and expand the impact of IMS work on equity, quality, and most importantly, the day to day success of teachers and students.”

Tim brings a depth of knowledge to this role from his more than 25 years in education and technology. He has held various positions that are impacted and influenced by IMS standards, including educator—having taught all grade levels, ESL, and gifted learners—in both private and public schools, district-level leader, and edtech supplier partner.

Before IMS, Tim served as the Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Digital Learning at Chicago Public Schools, and as the Coordinator of Instructional Technology at Forsyth County Schools in Georgia. He was also the Vice President of Learning Innovation at SAFARI Montage, guiding schools and districts throughout the United States to leverage digital instruction and curriculum development.

Tim is an advocate for using innovative digital resources and tools to transform classrooms into equitable, personalized learning communities. He presents and leads workshops on implementing instructional technology for various educational and professional organizations. Tim also authors the BYOTNetwork blog and has been featured in multiple media outlets including NBC News, EdTech Magazine, eSchool News, Scholastic Administrator, and THE Journal.

About IMS Global Learning Consortium

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EdTech Supplier Adoption of LTI Advantage Helps Institutions Accelerate the Movement Toward a Seamless, Secure, and Data-Rich Digital Learning Ecosystem

LAKE MARY, Florida, 14 October 2019 — IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS Global/IMS), the world-leading non-profit collaborative advancing educational technology impact, announced the latest educational technology suppliers to achieve IMS certification for Learning Tools Interoperability^® (LTI^®) Advantage. The rapid adoption of LTI Advantage by leading product organizations enables institutions to prepare their teaching and learning ecosystem for the most secure and engaging end-user experiences.

The latest organizations—joining other early leaders—to implement and certify LTI Advantage are ChemVantage, D2L, Examity, Explorance, IllumiDesk, Marketplace Simulations, Pearson K-12 Learning, SAFARI Montage, SAGE Publishing, Turnitin, Wiley, and W. W. Norton & Company.

LTI Advantage is the next-generation standard for flexible and secure integration of digital learning resources to support an institution's next-generation learning environment. As an institution's digital landscape evolves to meet the needs of learners and the preferences of educators, LTI Advantage offers significant new agility in the design, use, and evolution of essential components for teaching and learning.

"There is a strong demand for LTI Advantage from both institutions and suppliers, which is why we are seeing increased adoption in such a short period," said Dr. Rob Abel, CEO, IMS Global Learning Consortium. "LTI Advantage is designed to enable teachers to teach with the digital assets they want in a way that enhances the teaching and learning process by seamlessly integrating learning tools within the digital learning environment. Add to this simplicity of implementation with world-class security for the exchange of student data, and it's another breakthrough for LTI in helping to spur innovation in edtech."

IMS institutional leaders compiled essential resources that all institutions can leverage to communicate the value of adopting LTI Advantage when partnering with edtech suppliers. The LTI Advantage Toolkit includes sample RFP language and an open letter voicing support for LTI Advantage to evolve their digital learning ecosystem.

Since February 2019, 26 leading learning platform and tools suppliers have passed rigorous testing requirements to become LTI Advantage certified. Organizations exhibiting this week at the EDUCAUSE Annual Conference in Chicago, Illinois, include AEFIS, Blackboard, Canvas (Instructure), Cengage, D2L, Examity, Explorance, Kaltura, McGraw-Hill, Moodle, Turnitin, and VitalSource.

"LTI Advantage paves the way to more reliable, personalized and deeper integrations among learning platforms and tools. The services allow for flexible, yet secure passing of user, assessment and resource data—and it's built to respond to the needs of the market allowing new services that can be added to the LTI Advantage suite."

—Jeremy Auger, Chief Strategy Officer, D2L

"Nearly one-third of all college students now take at least one course online—which means that validating the online learning experience has never been more important. LTI Advantage is establishing a new standard for both security and interoperability in ways that will streamline online education for institutions and students alike."

—Michael London, Founder and CEO of Examity

"In previous implementations, only students who accessed Bluepulse from the LMS would receive and be able to respond to questions sent by the instructor using the tool. Now, with LTI Advantage certification, instructors can immediately connect with all of their students from day one. The results are increased response rates and more opportunities for instructors to engage with all of their students and leverage that data towards improvement."

—Samer Saab, CEO, Explorance

"We at Pearson K-12 Learning are excited to be at the forefront of using open standards to help make the learning experience seamless and secure. LTI has quickly become the industry standard when integrating the vast edtech ecosystem and we are proud to be recognized as one of the first major publishers to achieve LTI Advantage certification."

—Marc Nelson, VP Platform Product Management and Marketing, Pearson K-12 Learning

"LTI Advantage will help us develop a deeper integration for the standards-aligned SMART objects and playlists in our SAFARI Montage Learning Object Repository directly with K-12 LMS's and enterprise platforms to create more personalized user experiences and greater outcomes."

—Tim Beekman, President and Co-Founder, SAFARI Montage

"We are very pleased to be LTI Advantage certified and for the abilities and benefits it provides; both for Marketplace Simulations and our customers. LTI Advantage provides us the ability to link the benefits of the business simulation and products we offer with our customers learning management systems, more easily and at a greater depth than ever before. These abilities, in turn, allow us to continue to develop and improve the services and products we offer while simultaneously making it more easily accessed and relied upon by our customers."

—Ernie Cadotte, Marketplace Simulations author, and President

"ChemVantage has been using the IMS LTI standard to connect students with OER learning resources for nearly a decade. The new LTI Advantage specifications bring new functionality and enhanced security to a thriving educational ecosystem."

—Chuck Wight, ChemVantage LLC

"With the completion of the LTI Advantage certification, IllumiDesk now offers improved integration features, such as one-click server launches from the LMS's assignment links, auto-grading services that post grades directly to the LMS's grades section, and secure user synchronization between the LMS and the IllumiDesk backend. More importantly, the LTI 1.3 Advantage certification creates new opportunities to further enhance the IllumiDesk feature set to quickly support additional tools and services."

—Greg Werner, CEO, IllumiDesk

Learn more about LTI Advantage at www.imsglobal.org/TakeAdvantage.

About IMS Global Learning Consortium

IMS Global is a non-profit organization that advances technology to scale and improve educational participation and attainment affordably. IMS Global members are leading suppliers, institutions, and government organizations that are enabling the future of education by collaborating on interoperability and adoption initiatives. IMS Global sponsors the Learning Impact Leadership Institute, a global program focused on recognizing the impact of innovative technology on educational access, affordability, and quality while developing the people and ideas to help shape the future of educational technology.

Partnership for Interoperable Versatile Open Transcripts (PIVOT) Co-sponsored by the OESIS Network Aims to Make a Transformative Impact on Student Achievement and Equity

LAKE MARY, Florida, 21 October 2019 — IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS Global/IMS), the world-leading non-profit collaborative advancing educational technology impact, announced today at the OESIS Boston symposium a new initiative to enable modern and more relevant academic transcripts in K-12 education.

Sponsored by IMS Global Learning Consortium and the OESIS Network, the PIVOT project provides support and resources for K-12 districts and schools across the United States to accelerate the adoption of emerging models of competency-based, holistic education that enable diversity in conjunction with better capturing of student mastery and achievement. The IMS Global and OESIS partnership brings together an expansive and committed community of stakeholders to collaborate and advocate for K-12 schools that want to "pivot" from the traditional transcript.

The project will deliver a variety of pilot implementations in phases. These phases include developing district or school-specific plans for capturing achievements, partnering with relevant digital technology providers to implement, and enabling colleges and employers to consume the learner-controlled digital records. The pilots will be based on the IMS Comprehensive Learner Record (CLR) standard. CLR is designed to capture a complete picture of a learner’s academic and co-curricular competencies, skills, and experiences—at every stage of learning—in an equitable, secure, and transferable digital transcript. The CLR also enables the inclusion of verifiable achievements using the Open Badges 2.0 standard. A versatile transcript based on widely used open standards ensures the development of a robust and sustainable ecosystem of issuers and consumers, as well as provides the basis for AI and machine learning that may help realize better opportunities for students.

An executive board comprising leaders from school districts, state education agencies, and other educational institutions will promote PIVOT objectives and lead pilot implementations. Currently, members of the PIVOT Executive Board represent Broward County Schools, Chicago Public Schools, Edina Public Schools, Great Schools Partnership, Idaho Digital Learning, LRNG, Michigan Department of Education, Minnesota Department of Education, and Wisconsin eSchool Network.

As the initiative progresses, suppliers of learning management systems, student information systems, ePortfolios, badging platforms, and other learning tools—committed to implementing open standards that enable K-12 districts to more easily pivot to their own holistic transcripts without the expense of custom development—will be announced.

"With student equity in high focus, the time is right for us to take the vision of a Comprehensive Learner Record into mainstream acceptance and adoption in K-12," said Sanje Ratnavale, president, OESIS Network, and co-chair PIVOT. "Colleges are increasingly looking for more holistic validations of admission applicants, and schools are more determined than ever to capture growth in learning across the whole child experience, from leadership to academic achievement. We are excited to marshall the national OESIS Network behind this worthy public-private partnership."

"A next-generation digital transcript is a powerful tool to empower learners to represent their verifiable skills and competencies and to define their pathways for future educational and employment opportunities," said Rob Abel, chief executive officer, IMS Global Learning Consortium. "We are proud to partner with the OESIS Network to introduce and support a framework for enabling K-12 districts and schools to adopt IMS standards, such as CLR, that will have a significant impact on learner agency, equity, and growth."

For more information on the PIVOT project, visit www.imsglobal.org/k12pivot.

About IMS Global Learning Consortium

IMS Global is a non-profit organization that advances technology to scale and improve educational participation and attainment affordably. IMS Global members are leading suppliers, higher education institutions, K-12 districts and schools, and government organizations that are enabling better teaching and learning by collaborating on interoperability and adoption initiatives. IMS Global sponsors the Learning Impact Leadership Institute, an annual program focused on recognizing the impact of innovative technology on educational access, affordability, and quality while developing the leadership and ideas to help shape the future of educational technology.

The Latest Version of the QTI Standard Enables Accessible and Adaptive Online Testing Environments to Support States, Institutions, and Assessment Content and Service Suppliers

LAKE MARY, Florida, 17 December 2019 — IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS Global/IMS), the world-leading non-profit collaborative advancing educational technology impact, announced that the breakthrough Question and Test Interoperability^® (QTI^®) 3.0 standard has progressed to Candidate Final status and is available for IMS member adoption and certification.

QTI is the only interoperability standard for authoring, delivery, scoring, reporting, and exchange of online tests. Advancements in the new version include improved interoperability and increased consistency of rendering, full support for HTML5 and other web-friendly markups, support for technology-enhanced items via Portable Custom Interactions (PCI), and a shared vocabulary for standard presentation, including CSS. The specification enhances accessibility, incorporating the best of Accessible Portable Item Protocol^® (APIP^®), and supporting WC3 specifications and best practices. QTI 3.0 also includes native support for the growing trend of Computer Adaptive Testing (CAT).

“QTI has led advancements in digital assessments on a global basis for 20 years now and QTI 3.0 is yet another breakthrough enabling the most advanced assessment techniques to be fully accessible, provide actionable and timely data, and meet the full range of formative and summative needs,” said Dr. Rob Abel, chief executive officer, IMS Global Learning Consortium.

QTI 3.0 has progressed through successful alpha and beta specification development. A developer community website has been set up for IMS members while the QTI 3.0 work is offered as a candidate final release, providing a rich set of examples that showcase the new features and capabilities of QTI 3.0 and the improved data accessibility model. Technical resources include the specification documents and the conformance certification tests. A conversion tool to move QTI 2.x content to QTI 3.0 and a reference implementation delivery platform are forthcoming.

The QTI 3.0 workgroup is led by ETS, Pearson, OAT, NWEA, ACT, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, with the support of other suppliers and institutions and internal testing being completed by several early adopters. In accordance with IMS policies and procedures, upon successful completion of conformance certification testing by multiple products, the QTI 3.0 specification will become available as a Public Final standard.

QTI has made an impact on digital assessment since its inception. Pearson has used QTI 2.x/APIP in the development of 31 million items in curriculum products, district interim assessments, and items for homeschooling. The average items delivered and scored per minute during school hours were 60,000, with averages significantly increasing during peak assessment windows. In an upcoming product release, Smarter Balanced is building the capacity to make available its test items in the QTI 3.0 format, including scoring and accessibility information.

Another important impact of QTI is assessment item sharing. The Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) exchanged items with the Minnesota Department of Education and the New York City Department of Education, demonstrating successful state-level to state-level and district-level to state-level item exchange. MSDE is also developing a state-owned QTI-based item bank that will enable easier sharing of assessment content within Maryland and with other states.

"Requiring vendors to become IMS certified for QTI has helped Maryland move to 100% online testing, as accessibility supports for text-to-speech, American Sign Language, and closed captioning for online videos—to name just a few—ensure that all students can participate in online assessments. It also enables Maryland to remain in compliance with sections 504 and 508 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act. The QTI standard has enabled Maryland to hold vendors accountable for the functionality of their proprietary item banks and online delivery systems, ensuring that content can be ported between vendor systems and seamlessly delivered to students across multiple device types, operating systems, and network configurations, avoiding large-scale online testing failures. For the past four years, Maryland has tested 100% online, delivering over one million assessments annually, to approximately 2,000 schools. Moving to 100% online assessment means being able to move beyond multiple-choice and more effectively assess content knowledge and critical thinking skills, leveraging technology to develop tests that are more authentic to teaching and learning."
—James Dale Cornelius, Chief Information Office, Maryland State Department of Education

“The QTI interoperability standard allows states to produce higher-quality assessments at a lower cost. The ability to efficiently migrate a state’s assessment assets, including stimuli, questions, scoring information, and accessibility features, across or between vendor delivery platforms and know that the functionality and scoring information will not change creates a more reliable measure of student knowledge and skills. Interoperability through QTI 3.0 will continue to provide more students access to online assessments by providing improved accommodations and accessibility controls to meet the needs of all students.”
—Dawn Cameron, Specialty and Technical Innovations, Statewide Assessment, Minnesota Department of Education

“ACT is very excited about the pending release of QTI 3.0, the next generation of QTI. QTI 3.0 will significantly improve assessment interoperability, ensuring our content renders as it was intended and will enhance our ability to make our content truly accessible to everyone helping ACT continue to close the equity gap. ACT’s vision of building innovation in assessment through the power of open source and open standards can only be realized through the impressive work that IMS Global and its member organizations do. We truly appreciate all the effort that went into realizing the vision of QTI 3.0 and look forward to its broad adoption by the market very soon.”
—Jason Carlson, Vice President Strategy/Enterprise Architecture, ACT

"We are looking forward to the release of QTI 3.0. It was a great experience to be part of the working group and be one of the co-chairs of QTI 3.0. The members are experts with many years of experience working with QTI. The new version represents a significant upgrade to the specification that will provide major benefits. It streamlines and integrates APIP back into the core specification, reducing confusion in the market place and enabling vendors to provide better accessibility support and incorporate best practices into their platforms benefiting learners. It also enables improved interoperability and increased consistency of rendering assessment content across platforms. The new documentation is greatly improved with code examples that also demonstrate how to build-in accessibility. For vendors that are new to the specification, an updated beginner’s guide will help them get up to speed quickly."
—Gary Driscoll, Senior Strategic Advisor, ETS

"In order to improve its interoperability with other assessment companies, NWEA transitioned its item storage and transportation format from a proprietary format to the IMS QTI format a little over five years ago. NWEA is looking forward to supporting the QTI 3.0 format after its release."
—Justin Marks, Senior Director, System & Solutions Development, NWEA

"The new version of QTI is going to help us meet the needs of test makers and test-takers in TAO with even better interoperability and accessibility. Our customers are already eager to take advantage of the new features and we're encouraged that the new certification process will make exchanging assessment content easier for everyone."
—Mark Molenaar, CTO, Open Assessment Technologies

“QTI 3.0 offers our partners and customers vast interoperability and accessibility improvements. Greater precision in item rendering across delivery platforms improves how assessment content is presented. Plus, QTI 3.0's improved adherence with accessibility standards and technology allows assessment content authors and delivery platforms to provide a more equitable assessment experience for all learners.”
—Paul Grudnitski, Vice President, Architecture, Pearson School Assessments

For more information on QTI and related IMS digital assessment standards go to www.imsglobal.org/activity/qtiapip.

About IMS Global Learning Consortium

IMS Global is a non-profit organization that advances technology to scale and improve educational participation and attainment affordably. IMS Global members are leading suppliers, higher education institutions, K-12 districts and schools, and government organizations that are enabling better teaching and learning by collaborating on interoperability and adoption initiatives. IMS Global sponsors the Learning Impact Leadership Institute, an annual program focused on recognizing the impact of innovative technology on educational access, affordability, and quality while developing the leadership and ideas to help shape the future of educational technology.

The IMS Talent Continuum Brings Together Educators and Employers to Extend Groundbreaking Work with Digital Credentials and Workforce Partnerships

LAKE MARY, Florida, 20 December 2019 — IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS Global/IMS), the world-leading non-profit collaborative advancing educational technology impact, announced key developments in IMS-community efforts to enhance partnerships between higher education institutions and leading employers. Recent advances from the IMS community in utilizing digital credentials to address the skills-gap, equity, and talent management are the focus of a two-day Digital Credentials Summit in Atlanta, Georgia, February 11-12, 2020.

The IMS Digital Credentials Summit is a cross-sector leadership event focused on new models and ecosystem development. It features exemplars and experts in stimulating lifelong learning innovation. The event is open to all individuals and organizations that will benefit from learning about the latest collaborative work and trends shaping the workforce of tomorrow.

The Summit will feature the IMS Talent Continuum partnership that brings together leading innovators in industry and academia to ensure a seamless, interoperable user experience in an opportunity ecosystem, removing silos between learning organizations and the workforce. Participating organizations include IBM, Pearson, Stanley Black & Decker, the American Council on Education, the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning, and Education Design Lab.

"The IMS work on digital credentials enables the expansion and acceleration of innovative models that bridge traditional education and lifelong learning," said Dr. Rob Abel, chief executive officer, IMS Global Learning Consortium. “It is gratifying to see the increasing growth of IMS activities across sectors that will have a profound impact on how educators align programs to meet evolving market needs, how employers improve their hiring processes, and how learners advance their educational and career goals.”

For more information on the IMS Digital Credentials Summit 2020 agenda and to register, go to www.imsglobal.org/dc/summit/2020.

About IMS Global Learning Consortium

IMS Global Learning Consortium is a non-profit organization that advances technology to scale and improve educational participation and attainment affordably. IMS members are leading suppliers, higher education institutions, K-12 districts and schools, and government organizations that are enabling better teaching and learning by collaborating on interoperability and adoption initiatives. IMS sponsors the Learning Impact Leadership Institute, an annual program focused on recognizing the impact of innovative technology on educational access, affordability, and quality while developing the leadership and ideas to help shape the future of educational technology.

The event, set for February 2020 in Atlanta, will cover topics from interoperable learning records to the future of the workforce

LAKE MARY, Florida, 14 January 2020 — IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS Global/IMS), the world-leading non-profit collaborative advancing educational technology impact, announced the Digital Credentials Summit 2020: Innovations for Lifelong Learning.

The Summit, which will take place February 11-12, 2020 at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta Perimeter at Villa Christina in Atlanta, Georgia, brings together educators and employers working toward a common vision for a robust, learner-centered opportunity ecosystem.

Highlights of the program include the keynote “Credentials, Education, and Workforce: A Look at the Future,” from Nelson C. Baker, Ph.D., dean of professional education and professor at the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology.

Baker, whose talk will look at the ways higher education must change to serve lifelong learners, is excited to lead a discussion on everything from redefining credentials to keeping adult learners engaged throughout their entire lifespan. “We need to reinvent higher ed,” said Baker. “I look forward to hearing everyone’s ideas and working toward solutions that benefit all learners across the globe.”

The IMS Digital Credentials Summit, which is focused on advancing innovative educational models that bridge learning and career, will include panels on the intersection of work, education, and technology; developing new education models and career pathways; and the future of the registrar.

Other timely topics to be addressed include connecting people to jobs, building a statewide K-12 digital credentials system, crypto-credentials, stackable credential pathways, and advances in open badges.

For additional information and to register, visit https://www.imsglobal.org/dc/summit/2020.

About IMS Global Learning Consortium

New Report Concludes that the IMS CLR Standard Meets the Objectives of an Official Institutional Learning-Focused and Comprehensive Learner Record

WASHINGTON, D.C. and LAKE MARY, Florida, 5 May 2020 — The American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) has issued guidance to its members to adopt the IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS Global/IMS) standard for Comprehensive Learner Record projects and products. Since 2015, a growing number of colleges and universities have developed and implemented new forms of digital student records, Comprehensive Learner Records (CLRs). Developed largely as models or institutional innovations, to date, these CLRs are unique to each creator. While innovative, differences in technical format reduce the usefulness of these records when students seek to transmit their contents to employers or other higher education institutions or licensing agencies.

“It is imperative that colleges and universities follow a single data standard when creating comprehensive learner records (CLRs), so that they may be useful to our learners, as well as to any institution, agency, company or service that may need to receive and consume them in digital file formats,” said Tom Green, Associate Executive Director of AACRAO.

An AACRAO-assembled expert panel, including representatives from NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, concluded that the CLR standard from IMS is the only comprehensive data standard in place today that meets the objectives of an official institutional learning-focused and comprehensive learner record.

In September 2019, IMS Global Learning Consortium, a non-profit collaborative for learning data standards, released the first and only data standard for a CLR. IMS Global’s member organizations completed its development working with colleges and universities in the Competency-Based Education Network (C-BEN) following developments of the CLR taking place in Phases I and II of the AACRAO-NASPA-NILOA partnership. Among its many innovative features, the standard incorporates support for the Competency Transparency Data Language (CTDL), a method for describing credential information for machine-readable applications like the Credential Engine.

According to the review panel’s report, “Postsecondary institutions of all types and at all levels that are currently using any form of micro-credentials, digital diplomas and certificates, or digital student records or other types should work to migrate that information into the IMS CLR standard. New records that are being developed should be written to this standard. Commercial software suppliers should adopt the standard as soon as possible to enable learner-controllable records in the IMS open standard”.

“The IMS community is energized about collaborating at such a deep level with AACRAO and our community partners to empower learner equity, agency, and mastery through our Digital Credentials program and the Comprehensive Learner Record,” says Dr. Rob Abel, IMS Global CEO. “Best of all, the CLR is completely interoperable across higher education, K-12, and corporate learning, thus enabling more effective collaboration across boundaries to build better lives for all learners.” The IMS CLR standard will evolve as experience and new use cases emerge over time. Early adopters and institutions committed to empowering lifelong learners can learn more at imsglobal.org/clr as well as the AACRAO website.

About AACRAO

AACRAO is a non-profit, voluntary, professional association of more than 11,000 higher education professionals representing approximately 2,600 institutions in more than 40 countries. Its commitment to the professional development of its members includes best practice guidance on admissions strategies to meet institutional diversity objectives, delivery of academic programs in innovative ways to meet the needs of a changing student body, and exemplary approaches to student retention and completion.

About IMS Global Learning Consortium

IMS Global Learning Consortium is a non-profit organization that advances technology to scale and improve educational participation and attainment affordably. IMS members are leading suppliers, higher education institutions, K-12 districts and schools, and government organizations that are enabling better teaching and learning by collaborating on interoperability and adoption initiatives. IMS sponsors the annual Learning Impact program focused on recognizing the impact of innovative technology on educational access, affordability, and quality while developing the leadership and ideas to help shape the future of educational technology.

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Annual Program Recognizes Innovative Educational Technology Providing Real-World Solutions to Digital Transformation in Education

LAKE MARY, Florida, 4 June 2020 — IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS Global/IMS), the world-leading non-profit collaborative advancing educational technology impact, announced today the winning projects from the Learning Impact Awards 2020 competition.

The IMS Learning Impact Awards celebrate the fusion of innovative teaching and learning solutions with a bold strategy for digital transformation to improve educational outcomes. Winners are voted on by a panel of experts—who observe and evaluate presentations of each project—and the edtech community-at-large.

From 23 finalists, eight projects were selected for showing a high impact on personalized learning, institutional performance, or the digital learning ecosystem in K-12, higher education, or lifelong learning. This year's medalists are Southern Alberta Institute of Technology and XtremeLabs; TAFE NSW; UC Berkeley; MagicBox; PlayPosit; Florida Virtual School, Broward County Public Schools and Public Consulting Group; and Mashpee Public Schools and CatchOn.

2020 Platinum Medals

Digital Hands-on Learning Labs for FAST Track IT Programs — XtremeLabs LLC and Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) (Video, Paper)
Virtual Reality in Vocational Training: Evaluating Effectiveness and Efficacy — TAFE NSW (Video, Paper)

2020 Gold Medals

Berkeley Online Advising (BOA): Transforming Data for Student Success — Berkeley Online Advising (BOA); Research Teaching and Learning, UC Berkeley (Video, Paper)
MagicBox — Digital Education Solution for Student Success - MagicBox (Video, Paper)

2020 Silver Medals

Interactive Video, Reimagined — PlayPosit (Video, Paper)
Simply Speak — Simply Speak and Florida Virtual School (Video, Paper)

2020 Bronze Medals

Broward OpenCLR Lab — Public Consulting Group and Broward County Public Schools (Video, Paper)
Leveraging Actionable Data to Transform and Safeguard Learning Environments — CatchOn and Mashpee Public Schools (Video, Paper)

2020 Honorable Mentions

ACE and Credly Bridge the Gap Between Employer-led Learning and Academic Credit with Standards-based Digital Credentials — Credly and American Council on Education (Video, Paper)
Achieve — Macmillan Learning (Video, Paper)
Bernalillo Public Schools and Istation — Istation and Bernalillo Public Schools (Video, Paper)
Blockcerts as Stackable Credentials for High-Impact Learning Experiences — Hyland/Learning Machine and Lehigh University (Video, Paper)
Cal Poly Digital Transformation Hub — Cal Poly Digital Transformation Hub and California Polytechnic State University (Video, Paper)
How Wiris Quizzes Helped to Build a New Formative Assessment Paradigm for Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) — WIRIS (Video, Paper)
Hylable Discussion for Quantitative Discussion Visualization — Hylable Inc. (Video, Paper)
Large-Scale Academic Ability Assessment Platform for Measuring Four Foreign Language Skills — UCHIDA YOKO CO., LTD., Institute For Education Research (Video, Paper)
Mindfulness Cabin — Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (Video, Paper)
Miraimon: An Exam Question Predicting AI — SiGHTViSiT Inc. (Video, Paper)
My Spartan Story and the Spartan Experience Record — Michigan State University (Video, Paper)
Online Learning Provides Rigorous, Equitable Learning Opportunities to Rural District in South Carolina — Apex Learning and Spartanburg County School District One (Video, Paper)
Squirrel AI Intelligent Adaptive Learning System — Squirrel AI Learning (Video, Paper)
Tec Now — Tecnológico de Monterrey (Video, Paper)
Vocabulary Progression — Wayside Publishing (Video, Paper)

A summary and analysis of trends from all final projects are presented annually in the IMS Learning Impact Report. The 2020 report releases in the fall. The nomination period for the 2021 competition opens in January.

For more information on the IMS Learning Impact Awards visit imsglobal.org/lia.

About IMS Global Learning Consortium

IMS Global Learning Consortium is a non-profit organization that advances technology to scale and improve educational participation and attainment affordably. IMS members are leading suppliers, higher education institutions, K-12 districts and schools, and government organizations that are enabling better teaching and learning by collaborating on interoperability and adoption initiatives. IMS sponsors the annual Learning Impact program focused on recognizing the impact of innovative technology on educational access, affordability, and quality while developing the leadership and ideas to help shape the future of educational technology.

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Global Grid for Learning Becomes the First Integration Services Preferred Partner in New Program to Guarantee Interoperability for Districts and Suppliers Using IMS OneRoster

LAKE MARY, Florida, 20 August 2020 — IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS Global/IMS), the world-leading non-profit collaborative advancing educational technology impact, announced today new services to verify and guarantee proper implementation of the popular IMS OneRoster^® standard in school districts. The Ecosystem Accelerator Program is a first worldwide—going beyond product certification to ensuring that products integrate reliably across the edtech ecosystem. Global Grid for Learning (GG4L) is the first edtech integration services provider to include the new OneRoster Compatibility Check in GG4L products. Existing preferred partners Savvas Learning and McGraw-Hill Education already included their full set of digital curriculum products in OneRoster Compatibility Check through the program.

OneRoster Compatibility Check is an integration testing and issue resolution service that empowers school districts to put digital resources into the hands of teachers and students on day one of learning. The OneRoster Compatibility Check services identify integration requirements between a district and its certified products and display the results in a user-friendly dashboard to show technical gaps and steps to ensure compatibility. Thus, school districts can compare the compatibility of their data with any digital resource or tool provider implementing OneRoster. Edtech suppliers can similarly check the compatibility of their rostering requirements with district data systems. IMS provides issue resolution, working with both suppliers and districts to guarantee that products integrate successfully.

As an IMS Preferred Partner, GG4L provides seamless integration between IMS OneRoster Compatibility Check and GG4L’s Connect Platform to guarantee compliance and compatibility of OneRoster data. Verifying rostering information using the GG4L Connect Platform and OneRoster Compatibility Check helps districts identify and resolve data, compliance, and compatibility issues with supplier partners before they become costly problems. IMS and GG4L are working together to onboard suppliers and districts into the program to ensure transparency and confidence when implementing the IMS OneRoster standard.

"The IMS Ecosystem Accelerator Program provides the clarity, trust, and transparency that educational institutions expect to help them build a seamless digital ecosystem," said Dr. Rob Abel, CEO, IMS Global Learning Consortium. "Working together with organizations like GG4L—the first authorized IMS Ecosystem Accelerator Program Preferred Partner for integration services—we're supporting districts and suppliers with faster, more reliable ways to identify and resolve gaps in their OneRoster data exchange, so they can ensure equitable access to digital learning materials when teachers and students need them."

“We are honored to be a Preferred Partner for the IMS Ecosystem Accelerator Program to assist both schools and vendors to plug-and-play using IMS OneRoster Compatibility Check,” said Robert Iskander, Chairman and CEO, Global Grid for Learning. “Schools can now enforce open interoperability standards compliance from all of their vendors without any hesitation.”

The Ecosystem Accelerator Program is currently available to IMS Contributing Members. Learn more about the program and how to participate at https://www.imsglobal.org/about/eap.

About IMS Global Learning Consortium

IMS Global Learning Consortium is a non-profit organization that advances technology to scale and improve educational participation and attainment affordably. IMS members are leading suppliers, higher education institutions, K-12 districts and schools, and government organizations that enable better teaching and learning by collaborating on interoperability and adoption initiatives. IMS sponsors the annual Learning Impact program, which focuses on recognizing the impact of innovative technology on educational access, affordability, and quality while developing the leadership and ideas to help shape the future of educational technology.

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