QTI is the 1EdTech standard for representing assessment items, tests and results in a portable form. It covers question types, scoring rules, item banks and outcome reporting, so an assessment authored in one system can be delivered and scored in another.
QTI
QTI is the oldest standard in the 1EdTech family and the one with the highest stakes attached to portability: an item bank represents years of authoring and validation work, and without a portable format it is hostage to whichever platform holds it.
- Item and test representation - Question types, stimulus, interactions and metadata in a defined structure.
- Response processing - Scoring rules travel with the item rather than living in the delivery platform.
- Outcome reporting - Results in a structured form for gradebooks and analytics.
- QTI 3.0 - A substantial modernisation, aligned with HTML5 and accessibility requirements.
Assessment is where education’s regulatory exposure is sharpest — the EU AI Act names assessment and proctoring as high-risk — and in The State of Education & EdTech APIs the assessment, proctoring and credentials segment scores 21.5 with a governance facet of 0.0 and no organizations in the upper three bands. A portable item format is exactly the kind of artifact that would make that segment auditable, and it is not being published.
Referenced in API Evangelist papers
This standard shows up in my published research. These reports read the machine-readable evidence provider by provider — and put this standard in the context of a real sector.
The State of Education & EdTech APIs
Portable assessment items, in the segment scoring 21.5 with a governance facet of 0.0 — and the one the EU AI Act names high-risk.
