As school districts transition to digital there is growing demand for easier access to a wide variety of digital applications and exchange of data among systems to support personalized learning. To address this demand, IMS Global Learning Consortium, (IMS Global/IMS), the world leader in EdTech interoperability and impact, recently announced the creation of the K-12 Open Tech Ecosystem Initiative with the support of leading suppliers and districts to create an interoperable ecosystem of educational apps, digital resources and learning systems to make it easier for schools to access preferred applications, content and resources without requiring timely and costly custom integrations. To advance progress towards the call for industry wide adoption of open standards, IMS has released two new resources to help Districts accelerate the transition to integrated digital curriculum.

IMS has published a “How to Guide” titled, How to Transition to Integrated Digital Curriculum Using IMS Standards, which provides an overview on how to put IMS standards in place to establish an open architecture to support digital curriculum, tools and use of data to improve student success. 

“Houston ISD started requesting Common Cartridge™ (CC™), Thin Common Cartridge™ (TCC™) and Learning Tools Interoperability® (LTI®) integrations from its partners in July of 2014 to make it easier to access and integrate digital curriculum from a wide array of resources. The first TCC took the better part of 6 months. We are proud to say, that this spring, our vendors were able to deliver TCC just two months after we announced which materials we were going to adopt,” said Beatriz Arnillas, Director, IT – Education Technology, Houston ISD. “Today, Houston ISD has TCC and CC from eleven vendors and LTI links from four additional vendors. This adds up to approximately 200 cartridges and more than a million digital learning objects.”

A common barrier districts experience in transitioning to digital is the costly and time consuming process to extract custom CSV data files from the district’s Student Information System (SIS) or other systems to roster a myriad of tools, content and platforms in order to personalize education. To address this barrier to educational innovation, IMS Global has worked with leading districts and suppliers to create a new interoperability standard, called OneRoster™, to simplify the exchange of roster data by eliminating the need for multiple custom formats – and the associated costs. With OneRoster, a district has complete control over the use of its data versus other proprietary solutions in the market that take control away from the district.

OneRoster is being rapidly adopted by leading districts, such as Orange County Public Schools, Brevard Public Schools, and Houston Independent School District. To further accelerate adoption of OneRoster, IMS Global is extending a limited time promotion to help suppliers and districts fast track implementation of OneRoster, obtain IMS Conformance Certification, and help evolve the standard to meet market needs. 

“ClassLink is a leading proponent for open standards, especially IMS standards,” said Berj Akian, CEO of ClassLink. “Through the use of OneRoster and LTI launch link connectors developed by IMS Global, ClassLink delivers one-click account provisioning and single sign-on to McGraw-Hill Education’s content in less than a second. Students and teachers in Brevard use ClassLink to have instant and secure access to all their content.”

“We contractually oblige providers of curriculum, tools and platforms to be certified to the IMS Global OneRoster standard. It significantly simplifies how we exchange student information with a wide range of digital resources, thus eliminating the time-consuming process of creating custom student-data files," said Orange County’s Maurice Draggon, Director of Instructional Management Systems. "As a result, it is easier for us to enable a truly integrated digital teaching and learning experience.”

“As districts transition to digital they need an ecosystem of interoperable digital curriculum, tools, apps and learning platforms that they can rely on to achieve “plug and play” integration in a few simple steps,” said Rob Abel, CEO of IMS Global Learning Consortium. “With the release of OneRoster and the How to Transition to Integrated Digital Curriculum Using IMS Standards, more districts can transition to enabling the next generation digital curriculum that they desire and require.”