An Aligned Assessment Item Authoring Environment based on Interoperability Standards

Standard representations support sharing assessment items and learning objects among learning environments. Different standards have been developed to provide interoperability-based descriptions for all learning aspects. Designing assessment items or questions using standard representations became a key point in learning/teaching domain. This paper proposes an environment for authoring assessment items using a combination of standards linked together to align the produced questions. The environment consists of a set of tools. The first tool is dedicated for building question body using IMS (Innovation, Adoption, and Learning) QTI (Question and Test Interoperability) standards. An extension to IMS QTI was designed to represent question Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs), difficulty degree, assessed concepts, and target groups. The second tool manipulates competency definitions bank which is used in representing assessment item ILOs. The third tool deals with target groups to whom question will be delivered.