IMS Global Learning Consortium Announces 1EdTech Ecosystem Initiative

World’s Leading Educational Technology Consortium Announces Commitment by Leading School Districts and Digital Learning Providers to Implement Trusted Registry and Connection Service to Enable Digital on Day One for All Teachers and Students

LAKE MARY, Florida, 21 May 2018 — IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS Global/IMS), the world-leading non-profit collaborative advancing educational technology innovation, impact and interoperability announced that it is launching the One EdTech Ecosystem™ (1EdTech™) initiative, a collaboration between school districts and suppliers that will make it radically easier for school districts to make digital resources and applications available to teachers and students. IMS Global refers to this reliable school software integration strategy for the benefit of maximizing teaching and learning time as “digital on day one of learning.”

1EdTech consists of a secure trusted cloud-based registry and connection service that will enable any educational technology provider to connect to any school district’s learning platform, portal, or student system using the IMS OneRoster^® standard. Once a participant organization has integrated they will be able to connect to any of the institutions or suppliers on the other side. 1EdTech will be free to all IMS member organizations that have OneRoster certified products. 1EdTech is a unique approach because it is a trusted community-sourced and governed non-profit connection service that does not compete with existing marketplace solutions, but rather complements existing solutions.

“The unprecedented adoption of IMS OneRoster has led to a desire by both product providers and institutions to ensure plug-and-play integration that takes into account the variability of implementations,” commented Dr. Rob Abel, Chief Executive of IMS Global Learning Consortium. “The 1Edtech collaboration is an indication that the leading providers of digital learning and leading school districts are rallying together to enable “digital on day one” via a set of community-governed open standards and services.”

The development of 1EdTech is being funded through the support of IMS Global Learning Consortium and a set of sponsoring organizations that include suppliers and non-profit educational foundations.

1EdTech will initially support OneRoster connectivity, soon to be followed with support for IMS’s LTI^® Advantage. These standards enable digital on day one via a variety of application launch and data back scenarios that are being used across a majority of school districts and higher education institutions today.  

In the future 1EdTech will support other IMS standards to enable use of the 1EdTech infrastructure to launch specific learning objects (Thin Common Cartridge^® and LTI Resource Search), access published competencies and academic standards (CASE^®), and perform learning data collection and analysis (Caliper Analytics^®).

A list of Frequently Asked Questions regarding 1EdTech is available on the 1EdTech website.

1EdTech is in its initial development phase with rollout of OneRoster-based integrations planned for a pilot set of school districts and suppliers in Fall 2018. The set of districts that are currently leading the charge for 1EdTech are: Edina Public Schools, Escambia County School District, Forsyth County Schools, Gwinnett County Public Schools, Henry County Schools, Houston Independent School District, Neosho School District, Orange County Public Schools, School District of Lee County, and Volusia County Schools.

If your school district is interested in participating in participating in the 1EdTech Ecosystem Initiative advisory group please contact IMS.

Although the 1EdTech collaborative is in early stages, endorsements have been received by the following learning product suppliers: Accelerate Learning, Achieve3000, Cengage, Classworks, Edmentum, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Knovation, McGraw-Hill Education, Pearson, SAFARI Montage, SchoolCity, and Renaissance.

“I am very excited about the 1EdTech collaborative and the possibilities it will open up for HISD.  As HISD matures in its work with interoperability this really is the next logical step.”  —Lenny Schad, Chief Information Technology Officer, Houston Independent School District

"In Gwinnett County Public Schools our focus is on teaching and learning, with an emphasis on learning. To that end, we're glad to be a part of the community developing 1EdTech which will allow for greater integration across technology platforms, putting better resources in the hands of our teachers. This initiative moves us to a new level of digital learning. It is much more than just random hardware and software solutions. 1EdTech, coupled with the increased adoption of the IMS Global standards by vendors, allows us to enhance tools, better turn data into information, and better support the work of our teachers in the classroom." —Dr. Debbie Durrence, Chief Data Officer, Gwinnett County Public Schools

“One of the core promises of technology is the simplification or elimination of tasks that take away time from teaching and learning. One of the most time-intensive tasks for teachers at the beginning of each year is correctly assigning resources to their students. Automating this process returns precious minutes to individual teachers and hours and days at scale to districts.” —Maurice Draggon, Director, Instructional Systems, Orange County Public Schools

“The 1EdTech initiative is a crucial step in building flexible teaching and learning ecosystems that set all teachers and students up for success,” said Rose Else-Mitchell, Chief Learning Officer, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. “As a learning company focused on improving student outcomes, we’re committed to working with our district partners on creating integrated solutions that engage learners and empower educators. Being a part of 1EdTech is another way to enable us as we partner with districts to make day one of school be Day One of Learning so as to better drive achievement and propel student growth.”

“At McGraw-Hill Education, we believe both open standards and easy-to-use tools are essential in helping schools and universities provide access to their digital learning solutions from day one,” said Stephen Laster, Chief Digital Officer, McGraw-Hill Education. “We think the launch of 1EdTech is an excellent step forward in the widespread adoption of OneRoster, which will significantly ease the integration process for education institutions, who often have to work with multiple vendors to integrate various different learning systems and solutions within their own ecosystem.”

“Pearson has a long history of supporting open industry standards and is excited by the growth in customer demand for high quality, blended curriculum experiences,” said Bethlam Forsa, Managing Director of Pearson Learning Services. “The One EdTech Ecosystem Initiative is a great opportunity to simplify integration and place greater value in the hands of our teachers, learners and administrators.”

“Renaissance is pleased to be a part of this very important initiative,” said Mike Evans, chief operating officer at Renaissance. “As we talk with leaders at schools and districts around the world about their technology needs, interoperability is always one of their main priorities. The edtech community has made great strides in recent years to address these needs, and 1EdTech is a natural next step toward a future of seamless technology integration for all educators and students.”

IMS Global Learning Consortium open standards are developed and managed via a partnership among over 450 of the world’s leading educational technology suppliers, school districts, higher education institutions, and states. IMS Global’s 60 plus school district and state members serve approximately 11 million students. IMS state and state consortium members represent 44 U.S. states. IMS higher education institutional members represent 109 universities serving approximately 4.5 million students worldwide.

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.