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PROMISING PERSPECTIVES
question remains to what extend this specification
adequately supports emerging new and complex
assessment forms like APL. Miao et al (in press)
argue that QTI does not posses sufficient expres-
siveness, since it only addresses the task aspects
of APL, but does ignore process-oriented aspects
such as who performs what kinds of assessment
activities in what sequence. Thus QTI can not
independently support APL. However, as Miao
et al (in press) propose, combining QTI and IMS
Learning Design (LD) seems to increase sig-
nificantly the level of expressiveness to represent
complex assessment forms, but even then, serious
issues need to be addressed. Apart from technical
issues there is the issue of the user-friendliness,
since average teachers are not able to model their
teaching and assessments with QTI and LD; they
need a high-level assessment modelling language
that can be transformed into an executable model
represented in LD and QTI.
One way out of this dilemma is to design as-
sessments in such a way that they can be shared
amongst assessment developers and re-used in
other contexts (Williamson, Bauer, Mislevy &
Behrens, 2003). A model for re-use in assess-
ment is the educational model for assessment
(Joosten-ten Brinke, Van Bruggen, Hermans,
Burgers, Giesbers, Koper, & Latour, 2007). This
model gives the opportunity to understand others'
assessments by using the same concepts of as-
sessment and to exchange parts of an assessment.
The educational model for assessment is built on
several sub models, each fit to the following stages
in the assessment process: assessment design, item
construction, assessment construction, assessment
run, response rating and decision-making. In Fig-
ure 3, the model for the assessment design part is
given as an example. For the entire educational
model for assessment, we refer to Joosten-ten
Brinke et al. (2007).
The educational model of assessment is cast
in terms of UML class diagrams (the UML
classes are the squares and the lines indicate the
In this section, two promising perspectives will
be presented.
In the description above, specifications for
Interoperability are given for different instruments.
All these specifications are specified for a single
component of the whole procedure. The leading
specification for the exchange and interoperability
of entire assessments is the Question & Test In-
teroperability specification (IMS QTI, 2004). One
of the core concepts of this model is the assessment
structure model that defines Assessment, Section
and Item layers. The QTI specification includes
a set of XML bindings to describe questions and
tests. It does so by (a) providing a well documented
content format for storing items independent of
the authoring tool used to create them; (b) sup-
porting the deployment of items and item banks
across a wide range of learning and assessment
delivery systems, and (c) providing systems with
the ability to report results in a consistent manner
(Joosten-ten Brinke, Gorissen & Latour, 2004).
The primary goal of this specification is to enable
the exchange of questions (called 'Items') and
tests (called 'assessments') between Learning
Management Systems. QTI supports different
types of questions and it is split up in two parts,
the content of the evaluation part and the results
from the evaluation part. Both parts can be used
separately or together. The QTI specification is
more or less limited to those assessment types
for which an unambiguous definition in technical
terms can be specified. Interoperability is limited to
classical multiple choice items and their variations
(Gorissen, 2003). The structure of multiple choice
items proved to be well-suited for storage in item
bank systems and delivery in digital format as the
structure was not complex. The QTI specification
offers good opportunities for exchange of items in
standardized assessments. Though IMS QTI can
be regarded as the leading specification for the
exchange and interoperability of assessments, the
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