Interoperability
The questions and answers for this section were adapted from the Learning and Teaching Scotland website.
What is interoperability?
Interoperability is the ability for different systems to work together sharing data and services. Interoperability is not about defining the functionality of a system but about how it communicates with other systems. Two systems usually communicate by exchanging data in a file format they both understand. For example pupil records from a primary school sent to a secondary school.
Why is interoperability important?
Unfortunately there is no single vendor with a solution for the entire education system. This leads to the situation we have at the moment with many different systems from multiple vendors. However, many systems use and have a need to share data with other systems. Using systems that can interoperate with others prevents what is known as 'vendor lock-in', where to change to another system is too costly and problematic meaning you are stuck with the current one! It is also important that legacy systems can continue to work alongside new systems. Interoperability also provides the possibility for data to be reused for purposes other than those originally envisaged. For example, learning resources created for a lesson under one curriculum could be used in another curriculum teaching a similar topic.
Who is involved with interoperability?
Organisations like IMS Global are heavily committed to interoperability. Their process for creating information models is:
- look at the work of research and development projects to identify areas for new information models
- arrange a working group who construct an agreed information model that will suit many contexts
- bind this model to XML to allow people to try it out.
There are a variety of different models being developed to assist with the interoperability of many aspects of education.
What does interoperability mean for assessment?
The IMS Question & Test Interoperability (QTI) specification provides a standard information model for describing questions and tests allowing the interoperability of assessment content between assessment systems. For more information see: http://www.cetis.ac.uk.