Accessible Portable Item Protocol (APIP)


The Accessible Portable Item Protocol (APIP) Standard provides assessment programs and question item developers with a data model for standardizing the interchange file format for digital test items. When applied properly, the APIP standard accomplishes two important goals. First, the standard allows digital Tests and Items to be ported across APIP compliant test item banks. Second, it provides a test delivery interface with all the information and resources required to make a Test and an Item accessible for students with a variety of disabilities and special needs. In this version of the APIP Standard the focus is on:

  • Enabling the exchange of question Items and Tests;
  • Adopting, wherever possible, established learning technology interoperability standards and specifications, and only extending these when required;
  • Ensuring that the solution can be readily expanded, at a later date, to support the exchange of other related assessment information;
  • Ensuring the solution can be combined with other IMS and non-IMS specifications to support new functionality, e.g., the reporting of assessment scores and outcomes;
  • Ensuring that further profiling can be undertaken to tailor the approach to meet the needs of specific state assessment activities without compromising the baseline interoperability requirement and capability;
  • Enabling vendors to adopt the solution without constraining their ability to create market-differentiated products and services.

The APIP standard builds on the IMS Question and Test Interoperability (QTI) v2.1 specification; this in turn makes use of the IMS Content Packaging (CP) v1.2 specification. The APIP Standard expands the QTI model into a comprehensive framework that encompasses the requirements for creating accessible tests. The IMS Access For All Personal Needs & Preferences (AfA PNP) v2.0 specification is also adopted as the basis for supplying the user preferences when using an APIP-enabled system. It is these accessibility preferences that are used by an assessment system to tailor, in real-time, the presentation of the question items to fit the accessibility needs of the user.

The technical specification work has involved the development of extensions to the base IMS specifications and profiling of several IMS and non-IMS specifications. Profiling is the process by which, one or more specifications, are tailored and combined to provide a best practice solution. It is this combination of specifications that makes the APIP a powerful solution.

A conformance program and online validation tool have also been developed and deployed. Organizations that wish to achieve content or system compliance are encouraged to contact IMS. Information on conformance is posted in the QTI2/APIP Alliance.

The APIP Working Group welcomes feedback and advice from the community for the improvement of this proposed standard at the APIP Public Forum.

 

Candidate Final Specification

This version of the document is Candidate Final, meaning the technical solution described in the specification is as definitive as possible in the absence of numerous systems and content that have implemented the specification and achieved official conformance. IMS strongly encourages its members and the community in general to continue/begin developing to the specification now. When a sufficient number of systems have proven the solution works through successful conformance achievement, the Candidate Final specification will be submitted to IMS members for Final approval. IMS expects only minor refinements based on implementation experience during this Candidate Final period.

Revisions to the APIP specification will be posted here on this page.

 

IMS Accessible Portable Item Protocol Specification - Version 1.0 Candidate Final Specification - HTML

APIP Overview

APIP Terms and Definitions

APIP Use Cases

APIP Access for All PNPv2.0 Features

APIP QTIv2.1 Features

APIP Best Practice and Implementation Guide

APIP Conformance and Certification

APIP Technical Specification

 

 

Schemas:

 

Examples:

 

Public comments and questions may be posted at http://www.imsglobal.org/community/forum/categories.cfm?catid=110

 

Conformance:

The IMS QTI/APIP Accredited Profile Management Group maintains the APIP conformance tests. Members, Affiliates and QTI2/APIP Alliance participants have access to the tests in the QTI2/APIP Alliance.