Digital Textbooks | News

VitalSource Now Compliant with Education Tech Interop Standard

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 05/22/12

A company with an e-textbook platform for delivering digital textbooks to students has been certified as conforming to IMS Global Learning Consortium's Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) v1.1 standards. VitalSource, which offers Bookshelf, already has integration with Blackboard Learn and Pearson Learning Studio. Compliance with LTI will make integration with other education applications simpler for schools and colleges.

The basic idea of LTI is to provide a set of standards for integrating learning applications and service with platforms such as learning management systems (LMSs), portals, and other educational environments. That simplifies the development work for organizations delivering those products; it also prevents users from having to log in for each application being accessed; instructors can have grades pass among applications; and LMS administrators don't have to install custom extensions or plug-ins for every new application added to a learning platform.

"LTI v1.1 is a major step forward for students, faculty, and administrators because it sets up a path for usage and progress data to be transferred from the e-textbook application," said Rob Abel, chief executive of IMS. "This makes e-books a much more appealing option in education, and it is great having VitalSource take a major leadership role in making this a reality across the industry."

VitalSource, which is owned by book distributor Ingram, said its platform is in use at 6,000 campuses worldwide.