Rob Abel, Ed.D. | November 2021
"We're all in this together. It's so easy to see." — Walter Trout
Renewing (Y)Our Commitment to Shaping the EdTech Ecosystem
As we approach the end of 2021, IMS Global is energized from our recent K-12 Leadership Retreat held in person in Denver—the first IMS in-person event since late February 2020. We're also energized by the dramatic growth in IMS membership, as we started the year with less than 590 and are now approaching 700 member organizations. All of the IMS key initiative areas are gaining momentum across HED and K-12.
Yet, as I mentioned in my last post (Clarity), I've never been more enthusiastic and, at the same time, more concerned about where the edtech sector will go from here. A confluence of factors may distract us, not the least of which is "the great resignation." I sense that 2022-23 will be a test of leadership like no other we have seen in terms of each institution, district, state, and supplier setting a path based on the perceived lessons learned from both before and during the pandemic. Where will the leadership come from?
Well, it may come from many places. Still, I know with 100% certainty that the IMS community will once again bring extraordinary leadership in defining "the next leg up" in the growth of the edtech ecosystem. Our recent K-12 Retreat was a reminder of the power of in-person collaboration. We know we can expect big things in 2022 from our annual Digital Credentials Summit in Atlanta, 28 February through 2 March, and the Learning Impact 2022 conference in Nashville, 13-16 June.
Much of what happens in the IMS community I can't predict, but here are some of the themes to engage with going into 2022:
- Curriculum Innovation and Equity: We have seen extraordinary leadership from IMS members in accelerating the deployment of innovative products while enabling new designs for leveraging digital to achieve greater equity and accessibility. It's time to spread these great ideas from both suppliers and institutions to create our future.
- Ensuring Real-time Grades, Scores, Data Across Applications and Platforms: It's time to take full advantage of LTI-Advantage, OneRoster, and Edu-API to enable seeing the right data in the right place to improve user experiences. We've got the foundational standards—but we need more purposeful design and implementation.
- Designing and Connecting Credential Ecosystems: There is nothing the IMS community is more passionate about than shaping the educational ecosystem to enable better recognition of student achievement that opens opportunities for students of all types and ages. The foundation provided by the Open Badges and Comprehensive Learner Record standards, including new work to take advantage of other new and evolving standards, will undoubtedly take us where the leadership from IMS higher education and corporate learning leaders will take this undeniable trend.
- Enabling Embedded and Balanced Assessment: In 2022, the breakthrough QTI 3.0 will be hitting the market in a big way, but the question is how to leverage digital assessment innovation across products and between state and district level systems to enable new models for embedded assessment. QTI 3—and what it can enable—should be on every edtech product company's roadmap. I expect to see robust and collaborative leadership on new models that will prioritize the many available features.
- Foundational Data and Analytics Architectures to Support Educational Design: In 2021, IMS began work on the application of IMS standards coupled with next-generation data architectures to support the understanding and effective usage of learning platforms, learning tools, and curriculum resources.
- Defining and Ensuring a Trusted Edtech Ecosystem: After more than a decade of breakthrough work in enabling connectivity among teaching and learning products, the IMS community is leading the definition and deployment of TrustEd Apps across K-12 and HED. The IMS community is where the leadership on what information is needed and how to get it to the range of "users" that set up and touch an institution or state's ecosystem.
Hopefully, you will note that none of the above areas of leadership are just "nice to have." They are all calls to action for collaboration because it is literally impossible to expect one or a small group of organizations to accelerate widespread progress in any of these.
Our purpose in IMS at every one of our over 500 meetings a year, especially at our in-person events, is to design and facilitate the community collaboration that will shape the future of the edtech ecosystem. It is a future filled with greater diversity, innovation, and personalized experiences.
By working together, we achieve a better understanding of our options, better support from building lasting partnerships, and thus become much more effective leaders.
And, by producing connectivity that we can all leverage, we are building the capacity for change via an unparalleled shared investment. It's a formula that has worked well and will continue to work well for those that engage and are active in our community. As we go into 2022, with all the leadership challenges that will be out there, IMS members must take this to heart and benefit from the amazing progress and resources that we produce together.
I wish you all the best for the holiday season and look forward to seeing everyone in 2022!
