Category:Standards

Overview
Wikipedia provides the general definition of a standard as "a universally agreed upon set of guidelines for interoperability".

In particular, a FREMA standard is a specification which describes how to represent or implement something in the e-assessment domain. For example, one standard describes how best logistically to organise and deliver summative e-assessments. Another standard details how to write an interoperable item in XML.

Why are standards important in e-assessment? If a process or product complies with one or more standards, then it is deemed to promote recognised good practice, and therefore is more likely to be adopted. Most, if not all, e-assessment practitioners need to know about current standards - indeed promoting awareness of this topic is an important aim of the reference model. FREMA differentiates between two types of standard


 * technical  - not restricted to but used within the development of e-assessment software systems (e.g. XML, WSDL)
 * domain – explicitly applies to e-assessment (e.g. QTI), or to another related e-learning domain, such as content packaging (e.g. IMS CP)

In general, a typical standard
 * is created and maintained by a standards organisation (e.g. W3C)
 * is either open (i.e. free of charge ) or proprietary (i.e. incurs charge to use). The JISC E-Framework  places particular emphasis on compliance with open standards.
 * undergoes constant revision, which generates new versions/releases of the standard from time to time.

The reference model allows you to
 * store information about individual versions of a standard. This is important because different versions of the same standard can (indeed often do) differ markedly in functionality and in compatability with other domain components
 * interrelate different versions of the same standard e.g. record the fact that QTI v1.2 succeeds QTI v1.1, but precedes QTI v2.0
 * associate software components/service descriptions to standards. Whether or not to use a particular component may hinge on the standards with which it complies.

Example of a Standard stored in FREMA
The IMS QTI specification describes how to create interoperable questions and tests.

It offers an XML binding which describes how to specify not only the structural components of an item (such as its rubric), but also operations which can be applied to that item by e-assessment software (such as how to process a learner's response to an item).

In turn, other e-assessment components (which of course are themselves represented in FREMA) comply with this standard. For example, the TOIA assessment management system complies with the QTI standard - by allowing the import and export of items written using the QTI specification.

Attributes
Name – Name of standard e.g. IMS QTI (keep this name consistent amongst all versions of the same standard)

Version – the number or code of this version e.g. 2.0 (no need to prefix with “v” or “version”)

Description – High level overview of this version of the standard.

Type - The reference model distinguishes between two types of standard
 * technical - not restricted to but used within the development of e-assessment software systems (e.g. XML, WSDL)
 * domain – explicitly applies to e-assessment (e.g. QTI), or to another related e-learning domain, such as content packaging (e.g. IMS CP)

Creating a Standard
Create a new standard in FREMA to store information about one version of a domain standard. You can subsequently inter-relate different versions of the same standard (see below).

Note: If you are creating a new standard for the very first time, first create a parent Model