2020 Learning Impact Leadership Institute

Since 1999, IMS Global has published over 25 specifications designed to improve information exchange and interoperability between EdTech systems, apps and tools. The IMS Specification Suite includes Common Cartridge, LTI Advantage, OneRoster, Question & Test Interoperability (QTI), Competency & Academic Standards Exchange (CASE) and many more. Over the next 12 months several new specification will be released including Computer Adaptive Testing (CAT) and the Comprehensive Learner Record (CLR).  Apart from the documentation set for each specification, IMS also creates a conformance test system so that products can be certified as supporting the specification. Many other artifacts are also available to IMS members to make it easier to adopt each specification. During this session, the IMS Chief Architect will give a brief overview of the Specification Suite and will explain how to make best use of the various documents, test systems and reference implementations that IMS makes available.  He will also explain how IMS is focused on ensuring that the IMS specifications can be used together to support an interoperable digital edtech ecosystem. This is an excellent opportunity to understand the IMS specification roadmap.        

IMS has published hundreds of specification documents containing thousands of pages of definitions, diagrams, images, examples, best practices, etc. These documents are available through the IMS website as HTML pages and can be downloaded for use locally. The IMS ecosystem means that it is increasing common for IMS specifications to be used together to enable many different teaching and learning workflows.  As part of the work by IMS on creating a Unified Model, the first step is to provide a new way to work with the current IMS specifications and documentation. Therefore a new IMS specification visualization tool set has been developed: no longer will the IMS specifications require reading through hundreds of pages of non interactive documentation.  This tool set is being launched at LILI 2020 and as part of this session we will demonstrate how to access this tool set via the IMS website.

During this session attendees will learn how to:

• Access the IMS specifications using this new visualisation tool set
• Identify, understand and use the many relationships between the IMS specifications
• Evaluate the set of APIs that IMS provide as part of the specification documentation
• Identify the cross-mappings between the IMS data models and other data models e.g. CEDS
• How this new visualization tool set can be used to complement the traditional specification documentation approach.

An important part of the IMS specification development process is the creation of the conformance and certification process for that specification. A specification must have several certified products before Public Final Release. Each IMS specification has its own set of conformance testing tools that IMS members must use to demonstrate compliance and therefore gain certification. IMS invests a significant amount of development and support effort on providing these test systems and many IMS members use them an essential part of their own in-house testing. Derek Haskins is responsible for the development and support of many of the IMS certification systems, and he will provide an overview and short demonstration of how to use them.

During this session attendees will learn how to:

• Get ready for successfully completing certification
• Use the 'Conformance & Certification' document created for each IMS specification
• Use the IMS certification tools to get a product IMS certified
• Use the IMS Product Directory to identify products that have IMS certification

The IMS Security Framework defines the security approaches that should be used when implementing IMS specifications. The security framework, published in May 2019, is already being used in the LTI Advantage, OneRoster, and other IMS specifications. IMS has established a Security Framework Group, composed of experts in security and the EdTech domain from within the IMS Members. This Group is monitoring and reviewing how the Security Framework is used by the various IMS specifications, and provides strategic awareness of the broader concerns within the field of security. They are also creating the first, annual, security audit of how security is addressed within the IMS specifications. During this panel session, the members of the IMS Security Framework Group will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the Security Framework. They will give an overview of the planned revision of the Security Framework.  There will also be an opportunity for attendees to quiz the Group members on how they think security issues in the EdTech domain will develop over the next 12-18 month.    

Moodle was one of the first Learning Management Systems to fully support LTI Advantage, but while thorough, the initial implementation did not address some usability issues around content selection, navigation and registration. UCLA, Cengage, Mcgraw Hill & Moodle gathered together to bring that support to a new level, addressing key usability issues and bringing best practices that emerged in the field. Come learn how we worked together and discover first hand the incoming First-class LTI Advantage support in Moodle! What usability challenges exist in the original Moodle LTI Advantage implementation. What's coming soon in Moodle for improved LTI Advantage usability. How to make open source enhancements in Moodle.

1EdTech is a business ecosystem that has at its foundation trusted educational technology products and trusted interoperable connections that enable high return on digital learning for school districts, higher education institutions, and corporations. The 1EdTech ecosystem spans the multitude of product-specific or institution-specific ecosystems.  Initially, 1EdTech is focused on the problems of establishing guaranteed interoperability between rostering systems in K-12 i.e. those systems adopting the IMS OneRoster specification. This service,  launched as a limited pilot in May 2019and to be formally launched in late 2020, will change the way in which IMS enables interoperability between OneRoster-based solutions.  It builds upon IMS’s sophisticated vendor certification process by enabling detailed analysis of the interoperability capabilities of the systems being used. Ian Weddell, the 1EdTech Program Manager, will give an overview of the aims and objectives of the 1EdTech Service. He will explain how it can be used to improve interoperability between OneRoster-based solutions. Ian will also give insight into how, over the next 12 months, the capabilities of the 1EdTech service will be extended. 

CASE Network is a breakthrough collaboration of leading states, districts, and edtech suppliers working to make the alignment of digital resources and edtech products dramatically easier for states and school districts at zero-cost. Through collaboration in the CASE Network, standards-issuing organizations, such as State Education Agencies (SEAs), can author and distribute official identifiers in CASE digital format via a free public registry. CASE Network makes the creation, certification, management, discovery, and distribution of these official learning standards and supporting documentation simple, easy, and free for anyone who wants to use them.  Access to the CASE Network is through an API based upon the IMS Competency & Academic Standards Exchange (CASE) specification. Learn how to to gain access to the learning standards by integration with the IMS CASE Network.

During this session attendees will learn about:

• How to obtain the learning standards by implementing the CASE API;
• How to create a consumer implementation using the OpenAPI file definition supplied by IMS as part of the CASE specification;
• How to get your CASE Network consumer application IMS Certified.

With student information systems and other mission critical applications moving to the cloud, and the need for holistic views of data increasing, it’s clear that current integration standards need to be updated and enhanced. The IMS community launched the Edu-API initiative with the goal of defining a new, flexible and robust way to integrate ERP systems with the larger digital ecosystem on campus. Now, that work is nearing completion. Come participate in a technical review of the draft specification, including entity and resource models, service definitions, use cases covered in v1, and how subsequent expansions are being planned. 

With the introduction in OneRoster 1.2 of the Assessment Results Profile addition to the Grading Service, system provider now have an API for the real-time send/receive of an entire hierarchy of test results. Whether you are an assessment system provider, an LMS provider, an SIS provider, or any learning platform provider, your users will benefit from being able to send or receive assessment results in real time. This session introduces the profile and is led by members of the IMS task force responsible for it, as well as supplier members who have implemented the profile. Come and learn from them.

In May 2019, LTI Advantage was released to the public as a new Final Release specification. LTI Advantage is a key component in the IMS Ecosystem and there is rapid adoption. While the new LTI Advantage provides similar functionality to the earlier LTI 1.1 there are several key changes including use on the new IMS Security Framework features. As part of the new specification IMS have made available a new developer toolkit and a new Tool and Platform certification test system. Martin, from Turnitin, Co-chair of the LTI Advantage Working Group and an LTI Advantage Tool supplier, will give a masterclass on how to convert a standalone tool into an LTI Advantage compliant tool. During this live coding session he will show how to use a set of open source PHP libraries to provide the LTI Advantage capabilities. He will demonstrate how to support the new security features and how to use the IMS toolkit to ease the development and testing.

One of the principles adopted when creating an IMS specification is that the solution must be extensible. While the use of extensions limits interoperability, no specification is the perfect fit for all deployments. In many cases, localisations are required to get full interoperability.  Including such localisations would make the specification too complex for broad adoption. The form of the ways in which extensibility is provided varies depending of the technology base of the interoperability: extending a JSON payload is different from extending a CSV file, or an XML payload, etc. When the IMS provided extensions mechanisms are used it is also possible for IMS to create tailored versions of our Conformance Test Systems to test compliance with those extensions. Bracken will give an overview of the ways in which IMS specifications can be extended so that local requirements can be supported using the same interoperability solution.  He will then introduce the new IMS Extensions Framework which brings together all of the available extension mechanisms into a single reference document.  All of the IMS specifications will then be required to reference and adopt the extensions mechanism suitable. As new specifications are created and new versions of published specifications are created, the many approaches to extensibility will be rationalised. These, standardised extensibility patterns will make it easier to extend an IMS specification to meet your localisation needs.

1EdTech has its roots in the IMS OneRoster specification. OneRoster has very broad adoption in K-12. The IMS certification of OneRoster compliant products is essential in establishing real interoperability. However, experience has identified some weaknesses in that certification and that there are many proprietary extensions being used. 1EdTech is designed to remove these weaknesses and to ensure guaranteed interoperability as part of the system procurement and deployment process. A key feature of 1EdTech is characterization. Characterization builds upon certification but provides a detailed, precise, definition of the interoperability capabilities of a OneRoster compliant solution. Furthermore, 1EdTech provides a way for users to use these Characterizations to compare and visualise the compatibilities, and more significantly, the incompatibilities between the systems that are required to interoperate. Ian Weddell, the 1EdTech Program Manager, and Phil Nicholls, the 1EdTech Architect, will explain how 1EdTech achieves this characterisation for OneRoster.  They will demonstrate how vendors and K-12 Districts will use 1EdTech to achieve guaranteed OneRoster interoperability.  Attendees will learn how 1EdTech can help then deploy better rostering solutions in K-12.

Distributed access to digital content is a key component of the IMS ecosystem. The IMS Thin Common Cartridge (TCC) is at the heart of this access. When combined with the use of the Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI), LTI Advantage, LTI Resource Search and Competency & Academic Standards Exchange (CASE) specifications a powerful mechanism for the provision of distributed digital content is created. The provision of the appropriate metadata within the Thin Common Cartridge is essential to enable this content distribution and access.

During this session attendees will learn:

• How to use Thin Common Cartridge to distribute the details of remotely hosted content
• How to use the metadata features in Thin Common Cartridge to enable content access
• How to use LTI Advantage to obtain access to the remotely hosted content
• How to make use of the LTI Resource Search specification to locate suitable content
• How to get your content and your systems certified for Thin Common Cartridge

An important part of the development of an IMS specification is the set of resources that are created to make the use of the specification as simple as possible. These resources include reference implementations, reference test sets, conformance test systems, code libraries and API definitions. Using these resources will reduce the effort and time required to implement IMS specifications. Becoming aware of all these resources and how they can be used is the first step in adopting an IMS specification. Learn how your IMS membership can help your developers.

During this session attendees will learn about:

• The set of developer resources that are made available to IMS Members to ease adoption and implementation of an IMS specification
• How to work with the IMS staff to make the best use of the member resources 
• How to use the IMS resources for rapid prototyping of a solution for your product
• Using the IMS reference implementations to support your in-house integration testing
• Preparing for using the IMS Conformance Test Systems for certification.