Month: July 2012

Finding common understandings is a perennial issue for those of us working in educational technology and lack of understanding between techies and non techies is something we all struggle with. My telling some of the developers I used to work with the difference between formative and summative assessments became something of an almost daily running joke. Of course it works the other way round too and yesterday I was taken back to the days when I first came into contact with the standards world and its terminology, and in particular ‘bindings’.

I admit that for a while I really didn’t have a scoobie about bindings, what they were, what the did etc. Best practice documentation I could get my head around, and I would generally “get” an information model – but bindings, well that’s serious techie stuff and I will admit to nodding a lot whilst conversations took place around me about these mysterious “bindings”. However I did eventually get my head around them and what their purpose is.

Yesterday I took part in a catch up call with the Traffic project at MMU (part of the current JISC Assessment and Feedback programme). Part of the call involved the team giving an update on the system integrations they are developing, particularly around passing marks between their student record system and their VLE, and the development of bindings between systems came up. After the call I noticed this exchange on twitter between team members Rachel Forsyth and Mark Stubbs.

so @thestubbs has just explained to me that ‘binding’ info in system 1 means telling system 2 to do something special with relevant data

— Rachel Forsyth (@rmforsyth) July 2, 2012

@rmforsyth establishing a ‘binding’ between data in system 1 and data in system 2 lets them know they are dealing with the same thing

— Mark Stubbs (@thestubbs) July 2, 2012

@rmforsyth …so you can infer in an assignment submission is received in system 1, the the related submission in system 2 should be updated

— Mark Stubbs (@thestubbs) July 2, 2012

@thestubbs got it – crucial information for designing assignment specs & allowing those who prefer system 1 choicesabout procedure. Thanks

— Rachel Forsyth (@rmforsyth) July 2, 2012

I just felt this was worth sharing as it might help others get a better understanding of another piece of technical jargon in context.

As conference season is upon us projects from the current JISC Assessment and Feedback programme are busy presenting their work up and down the country. Ros Smith has written an excellent summary post “Assessment and Feedback: Where are we now?” from the recent International Blended Learning Conference where five projects presented.

Next week sees the CCA Conference and there is a pre-conference workshop where some of the assessment related standards work being funded by JISC will be shared. The workshop will include introductions to:

• A user-friendly editor called Uniqurate, which produces questions conforming to the Question and Test Interoperability specification, QTIv2.1,

• A way of connecting popular VLEs to assessment delivery applications which display QTIv2.1 questions and tests – this connector itself conforms to the Learning Tools Interoperability specification, LTI,

• A simple renderer, which can deliver basic QTIv2.1 questions and tests,

• An updated version of the comprehensive renderer, which can deliver QTIv2.1 questions and tests and also has the capability to handle mathematical expressions.

There will also be demonstrations of the features of the QTI Support site, to help users to get started with QTI.

The workshop will also provide an opportunity to discuss participants’ assessment needs and to look at the ways these might be addressed using the applications we have available and potential developments which could be part of future projects.

If you are interested in attending the conference, email Sue Milne sue.milne@e-learning-services.org.uk with your details as soon as possible.