TAO Platform Description
TAO® is the only open source, QTI-native item authoring, item banking, and test assembly system available in the EdTech industry, recognized across the globe as the leading assessment platform for education, career, and industry advancement.
With over 100 million test deliveries in more than 30 languages worldwide, TAO is designed to support the end-to-end assessment cycle through feature-rich modules for test authoring, rostering, delivery and reporting. The solution can be deployed as-is, modified with new features, and integrated with other tools and administrative systems. Thanks to this modular design principle, TAO users can assemble the functionality they require, and/or build on top of a large set of pre-existing features and functionalities.
Unique in the assessment marketplace, OAT also publishes the TAO software under an open license, which guarantees free access to the source code and eliminates expensive software license fees and lock-in to proprietary products. Testing agencies can deploy a system of their own that is based on open TAO components while benefiting from the flexibility to integrate customizations and innovations that meet their needs on their timeline.
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TAO Platform User Reviews
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Likelihood to Recommend to Others1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
The 'leading open source digital assessment solution' is a little misleading. Date: Apr 10 2023
Summary: One of the better open source 'exam solutions'. Little development of new features in their open source version has occurred in many years as is typical of a commercial vendor.
Positive: That they do offer an open source product and do support a standard for question interoperability. Their offering is better than many others in this area.
Negative: Their open source product is not an 'assessment solution' as there is not any analysis of the results provided. Considering the goal of assessment is the 'results', this is the most important information that needs to be conveyed by the software. Support of a single question standard limits your ability to move to other open source systems that may offer additional features.
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Likelihood to Recommend to Others1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
NOT the leading open source assessment solution Date: Jul 16 2023
Summary: This is called 'open washing', where you put forth a semi-functional open source version of your product which gives you the appearance of supporting open source software and being a 'good community player', so people gravitate to your software. There is minimal community behind your open source product and it is only feasible for use for small groups being quizzed. No info. is provided for use past 100 simultaneous users which makes it impractical for most uses. There is no activity on your community blog which speaks volumes about your open source offering.
Positive: Their commercial software is somewhat comparable to other commercial softwares listed here. And appears to offer much the same features.
Negative: That this statement about open source software somehow implies this is a better choice then the others listed here.
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Likelihood to Recommend to Others1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Tao Open Source - is not a commercial grade product Date: Apr 12 2023
Summary: Another vendor with an 'open source' hook to draw you in and then their website mainly describes their commercial product but does not say feature X is only available in their paid cloud product. How come their Open Source version is not here on sourceforge so we can see it's popularity and users comments in regards to it.
'With over 100 million test deliveries in more than 30 languages worldwide' you would think there would be a few reviews praising it. Don't see that anyone has added new functionality to the open source version in the last decade. Don't tarnish the Open Source ethos by offering incomplete solutions and never adding to them. Apache is Open Source not TAO.Positive: Nice that they have an open source product. Adequate for quizzing small groups of users when the results are not important.
Negative: Their open source offering has a limit on the number of users and is not suitable for actual testing, only for simple quizzing (where is the ability to Resume a test if the users computer goes down? What do we tell the student?). PHP 7.x is end of life and should not be used. The QTI question format they use locks you into a limited, specific group of vendors (mostly commercial). QTI, the open standard they refer to is only endorsed by a very small group of commercial vendors worldwide (<800).
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Enterprise level support is only available if you pay. Where is the support for the Open Source version?TAO Platform Company ResponseDate: Apr 17 2023
Hi Amber, We release new features to the TAO Core, our open source platform edition annually. Our latest open source release, TAO 3.6 was released in January 2023 and can be accessed here: https://www.accelerate.taotesting.com/core-docker-install There is a long list of new features, including the upgrade to PHP 8. You'll need to reinstall this environment to take advantage of the new features: https://www.taotesting.com/user-guide/tao-core-2023-release/ Our open source platform is ideal if you have the IT infrastructure to host the system in place, as we do not provide hosting or live support for this edition. We do offer paid support packages, however. Our cloud based platform editions are also completely hosted by OAT with account management for large-scale deployments where you're looking for additional support. Regarding open standards, the benefit of QTI - the Question and Test Interoperability standard - ensures that your content is 100% interoperable and can move with you, unlike proprietary vendors that actually lock you in to their specific format. This makes it difficult to maintain the value of your content should you need to move it into another platform. Especially as the industry pushes more toward incorporating these open standards in an effort to eliminate data silos and reduce You can also compare all of the features across our editions here: https://www.taotesting.com/products/#see-features I hope this helps. Please feel free to contact us to learn more about any of our support services or paid platform editions.