IMS Question and Test Interoperability XML Binding

Version 2.0 Final Specification

Copyright © 2005 IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
The IMS Logo is a registered trademark of IMS/GLC.
Document Name: IMS Question and Test Interoperability XML Binding
Revision: 24 January 2005

Date Issued:	24 January 2005
Latest version:	http://www.imsglobal.org/question/qti_v2p0/imsqti_bindv2p0.html
Register comments or implementations:	http://www.imsglobal.org/developers/ims/imsforum/categories.cfm?catid=23
IPR and Distribution Notices Recipients of this document are requested to submit, with their comments, notification of any relevant patent claims or other intellectual property rights of which they may be aware that might be infringed by any implementation of the specification set forth in this document, and to provide supporting documentation. IMS takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any intellectual property or other rights that might be claimed to pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in this document or the extent to which any license under such rights might or might not be available; neither does it represent that it has made any effort to identify any such rights. Information on IMS's procedures with respect to rights in IMS specifications can be found at the IMS Intellectual Property Rights web page: http://www.imsglobal.org/ipr/imsipr_policyFinal.pdf. Copyright © IMS Global Learning Consortium 2006. All Rights Reserved. If you wish to distribute this document or use this document to implement a product or service, you must complete a valid license registration with IMS and receive an email from IMS granting the license. To register, follow the instructions on the IMS website: http://www.imsglobal.org/specificationdownload.cfm. This document may be copied and furnished to others by Licensee organizations registered on the IMS website provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are included on all such copies. However, this document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing the copyright notice or references to IMS, except as needed for the purpose of developing IMS specifications, under the auspices of a chartered IMS work group. Use of this specification to develop products or services is governed by the license with IMS found on the IMS website: http://www.imsglobal.org/question/qti_v2p0/qtiv2p0speclicense.html. The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be revoked by IMS or its successors or assigns. THIS SPECIFICATION IS BEING OFFERED WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY WHATSOEVER, AND IN PARTICULAR, ANY WARRANTY OF NONINFRINGEMENT IS EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMED. ANY USE OF THIS SPECIFICATION SHALL BE MADE ENTIRELY AT THE IMPLEMENTER'S OWN RISK, AND NEITHER THE CONSORTIUM, NOR ANY OF ITS MEMBERS OR SUBMITTERS, SHALL HAVE ANY LIABILITY WHATSOEVER TO ANY IMPLEMENTER OR THIRD PARTY FOR ANY DAMAGES OF ANY NATURE WHATSOEVER, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, ARISING FROM THE USE OF THIS SPECIFICATION.

1. Introduction
2. References
3. Binding of Complex Types
4. Binding of Simple Types
5. XML Binding Reference

1. Introduction

The information model defines a set of classes and data types in an abstract way. When faced with the real task of communicating data between systems these abstract concepts need to be bound to some physical representation, such as a stream of bytes in a computer file.

The document describes the required method of binding the information model when the physical representation is an XML Document. The binding rules are given primarily in the form of an XML Schema with the following target namespace: http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imsqti_v2p0. To assist developers who wish to check the validity of QTI XML documents using tools that support document type definitions (DTDs) the binding rules are also represented as a DTD, however, the DTD is not able to express all the constraints contained in the schema and document instances should validate against the schema. QTI document instances must validate against one of the schema or DTD.

2. References

MathML: Mathematical Markup Language (MathML), Version Version 2.0 (Second Edition); http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/REC-MathML2-20031021/; Published: 2003-10-21
XHTML: XHTML 1.1: The Extensible HyperText Markup Language

3. Binding of Complex Types

Complex types, those that contain other objects through composition and/or have attributes, are represented in the schema as elements with complex content in a straightforward way. Classes that are used as base classes (typically labeled abstract in the model) are used to define an element group consisting of a single choice listing all the non-abstract classes derived from them. Classes with attributes are used to define attribute groups and those that contain other objects (including through inheritance) are used to define element groups describing them.

Elements defined by [XHTML] are not imported directly from an external schema but are instead re-declared as part of the QTI schema. At the time of writing the use of schema for XHTML is at an experimental stage. However, the math element defined by [MathML] is imported from the MathML schema. Note that the use of the MathML schema excludes the use of the entity declarations for mathematical symbols defined in the original MathML DTD and therefore these should not be used for referring to characters within QTI document instances.

4. Binding of Simple Types

Simple datatypes are bound directly to the closest equivalent type in XML Schema, for example, boolean is bound directly to xsd:boolean. Enumerations are bound as enumerated restrictions of xsd:NMTOKEN.

The information model says nothing about how simple types are to be represented in text. For example, the boolean type is an abstract boolean which can be either logically true or logically false. By binding these simple types using XML Schema they automatically inherit the lexical bindings described there. A lexical binding is just a set of rules for representing the abstract type as a run of text characters. For example, XML Schema allows the following strings to represent the values of xsd:boolean: "true", "false", "1" and "0".

XML DTDs have a smaller vocabulary for defining simple types and is therefore not able to impose the same lexical constraints as the schema. Applications that generate QTI document instances that validate against the DTD must still use the same lexical bindings defined by schema even though these will not be checked automatically by the XML parser. For example, in the DTD the boolean type is bound only to NMTOKEN and therefore the XML parser will permit many more strings than the four listed above. However, strings such as "yes" and "no" are still forbidden.

Title	IMS Question and Test Interoperability XML Binding
Editor	Steve Lay (University of Cambridge)
Version	2.0
Version Date	24 January 2005
Status	Final Specification
Summary	This document describes the QTI XML Binding specification.
Revision Information	24 January 2005
Purpose	This document has been approved by the IMS Technical Board and is made available for adoption.
Document Location	http://www.imsglobal.org/question/qti_v2p0/imsqti_bindv2p0.html

Name	Organization	Name	Organization
Niall Barr	CETIS	Joshua Marks	McGraw-Hill
Sam Easterby-Smith	Canvas Learning	David Poor	McGraw-Hill
Jeanne Ferrante	ETS	Greg Quirus	ETS
Pierre Gorissen	SURF	Niall Sclater	CETIS
Regina Hoag	ETS	Colin Smythe	IMS
Christian Kaefer	McGraw-Hill	GT Springer	Texas Instruments
John Kleeman	Question Mark	Colin Tattersall	OUNL
Steve Lay	UCLES	Rowin Young	CETIS
Jez Lord	Canvas Learning

Version No.	Release Date	Comments
Base Document 2.0	09 March 2004	The first version of the QTI Item v2.0 specification.
Public Draft 2.0	07 June 2004	The Public Draft version 2.0 of the QTI Item Specification.
Final 2.0	24 January 2005	The Final version 2.0 of the QTI specification.