Higher Education Statement of Intent

to Adopt 1EdTech Consortium Standards in a Timely Manner

 
This document is intended to be a resource for higher education IT organizations and procurement offices. It provides necessary background information on the 1EdTech Statement of Intent to Adopt 1EdTech Consortium Standards and sample RFP language that can be used as part of the procurement process. The suggested RFP wording is intended for learning tools and learning management systems (LMS).
 
What is the Statement of Intent?
The statement is a recommendation for higher education institutions to use when negotiating with suppliers that will help to ensure the adoption and support of the most current versions 1EdTech standards. The statement is also a connection point for institutions to collaborate to advance their edtech ecosystems to realize a fully integrated, transformative environment that holds the greatest potential for teaching innovation, deeper student engagement, and better retention strategies.  
 
Why is it Important?
Much like the operating system of a computer or mobile device, the real power of a learning ecosystem comes when the platform, tools, and applications are leveraging the most current and advanced functions. Institutions want to choose the learning tools that best support their institutional mission to improve teaching and learning. Ensuring a more cohesive and effective edtech environment for teaching and learning is realized only when your learning platform and tools are seamlessly working together and support the most up-to-date features. By adopting this statement of intent and requiring suppliers to implement current standards, you will help ensure that your ecosystem’s integrations are secure and your institution is maximizing the benefits of open standards.

 

Standards in a Timely Manner

[Name of Institution] advocates adoption by all suppliers of applicable open interoperability standards provided by the 1EdTech® Consortium (1EdTech) in order to enable safe, flexible, and rapid integrations. 1EdTech standards are evolving under the governance of 1EdTech member organizations, which include a majority of leading educational technology suppliers. The paragraph below describes [Name of Supplier/Company’s] agreement to implement, certify, and “stay current” with the latest releases of 1EdTech standards so that [Name of institution] is not required to communicate on a standard-by-standard basis the availability and requirement to adopt 1EdTech standards in a timely manner.

[Name of Supplier/Company] agrees that [Name of Tool] will become certified as compliant (as evidenced by the publication of certification on the TrustEd Apps Directory) with any final version of 1EdTech Consortium standards (available at https://www.1edtech.org) that are applicable to [Name of Tool] within six (6) months of the public release of each standard (or specific later date if mutually agreed to by the parties), provided that: (a) the proposed modifications to the Solution would not create a security, privacy or accessibility compromise; (b) the 1EdTech standard can be implemented with approximately the same amount of development resource as integration approaches of similar scope and thus does not create an undue financial burden on [Name of Supplier/Company]; and (c) at least three other similar institutions (by direct referral or via 1EdTech) comparable to [Name of Institution] agree that the modifications necessary to [Name of Tool] are desirable. In the determination of (a), (b), or (c) above, [Name of Supplier/Company] will take into account how any proposed modification will affect customers generally, where “Solution” means the product provided by [Name of Supplier/Company] and made available through a URL in a SaaS environment as further described in the Order Form.

 

Definitions

Solution: Product that is being considered for deployment/purchase.
Institution: The higher education institution that is buying the Solution.
Supplier: The organization that is responsible for the ongoing implementation and/or operation of the Solution.