Transforming Instructional Support with Interoperability Standards
Alabama Department of Education
Leveraging 1EdTech’s open interoperability standards, the Alabama State Department of Education empowered educators with academically aligned, customizable teaching resources, helping to drive a rise in student performance.
What’s Working
1EdTech Competencies and Academic Standards Exchange® (CASE®) standard
1EdTech Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI)® standard
1EdTech Common Cartridge® standard
The Problem: Finding the Right Edtech Provider Partner
The Alabama State Department of Education set out with a clear goal: to support teachers and students with highquality instructional resources that align with academic standards without limiting educators' autonomy in how they teach. The vision was an online platform that would make it easy for educators to find, select, and implement content that best served their students' individual needs while staying aligned to required learning standards.
However, turning that vision into reality proved challenging. Early attempts to redesign the twenty-year-old platform fell short primarily because a solution that was flexible, scalable, or functional across the state’s diverse systems was difficult for vendors to deliver.
The Solution: Prioritizing Open Standards in the RFP Process
On its third attempt to redesign the platform, the Alabama State Department of Education took a new approach: it centered the RFP process around open interoperability standards. This shift proved to be the turning point. Instead of hoping providers could fulfill broad promises, the department clearly outlined technical requirements backed by open standards and asked for evidence of compliance.
The result was the successful launch of the new and improved Alabama Learning Exchange (ALEX), a dynamic digital platform that empowers educators to find resources directly linked to academic standards. Teachers can now customize lessons, adapt materials, and receive recommendations while remaining aligned with Alabama’s content standards.
“Requiring the standards in the RFP strengthened the process and ensured accountability,” said Hailey Ridgeway, ALEX Project Director, Alabama State Department of Education. “We found providers who understood our expectations, and they delivered.”
How 1EdTech Helps: Open Interoperability Standards and Certification
The Alabama DOE prioritized three key 1EdTech interoperability standards to ensure the platform would meet their goals:
Competencies and Academic Standards Exchange® (CASE®): This standard provides a machine-readable format for publishing and sharing academic standards. With CASE, ALEX allows teachers to click on a standard and instantly find relevant, aligned resources, making standards more actionable than ever.
Learning Tools Interoperability(LTI)®: LTI securely connects learning tools within the state’s digital learning ecosystem, enabling seamless user experiences without repeated logins. It also offers broad compatibility with many widely used edtech products.
Common Cartridge®: This standard ensures that digital content can be easily integrated and accessed across platforms. In ALEX, this means teachers can bring together content from different sources to meet specific student needs while staying aligned with core standards.
“Our goal is to support educators so that they can be masters of instruction in the classroom,” said Sue Ellen Gilliland, Educational Technology Coordinator, Alabama State Department of Education. “And this learning object repository, grounded in 1EdTech standards and aligned to our state content standards, provides the platform to do just that.”
Why It Matters: Improved Student Performance
Since launching ALEX with 1EdTech standards at its core, Alabama has seen measurable improvement, including a leap from 52nd to 32nd in national math rankings (based on NAEP scores).
“Academic alignment to high-quality instructional materials has been a game changer,” said Ridgeway.
By embracing open interoperability standards, Alabama didn’t just build a platform; they built a sustainable, scalable system that respects educator choice, supports student needs, and aligns teaching to measurable outcomes.
With continued investment in ALEX and 1EdTech standards, the state is poised to keep rising, proving what’s possible when technology and pedagogy align with purpose.
About Alabama Department of Education
1,501 schools in 153 districts
48,670 educators for 751,770 students
Standards and Resources
1EdTech Competencies and Academic Standards Exchange® (CASE®) standard
1EdTech Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI)® standard
1EdTech Common Cartridge® standard
This Story from the Field is a supplement to the 2025 Project Unicorn State of the Sector Report which analyzes K-12 school system capabilities and infrastructure for leveraging education data. Read the full report.
