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PIE Framework

Open Source Assessment Items

Modern assessment demands more than multiple-choice bubbles. Choose PIE for interactive, accessible, production-ready question types.

The Challenge

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Commercial Platforms

Great if you are looking for a complete solution and it does what you need, but limited configurability and cost can add up.

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Partial Standards (QTI)

Interoperable data but no guarantee about how it will be rendered. Also doesn't come with authoring capabilities.

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Build from Scratch

Complete control but significant investment. Frameworks like Perseus from Khan Academy can help you along, but PIE was created as an open source project with extensibility and wide adoption from the get-go.

The PIE Solution

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Open Source & Free

ISC/MIT licensed. Zero per-student costs. Full source code access and modification rights.

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Modern & Interactive

Rich Web Components. 20+ production-ready question types. WYSIWYG authoring interfaces.

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Enterprise Proven

Serving millions of learners in production. Battle-tested reliability at Renaissance scale.

Open Source vs Proprietary Comparison

What PIE Provides

Everything you need to build, deliver, and scale interactive assessments

Secure by Design

Server-side scoring protects against tinkering. And controllers filter sensitive data based on user role. Built with security as a foundational principle.

20+ Question Types

Multiple choice to graphing, math input to drag-and-drop. Extensive (and growing) TEI coverage with rich, interactive experiences.

Web Standards

HTML5 Custom Elements, React/ Svelte/ ..., NPM. Use tools you already know. Embed anywhere. Framework-agnostic and future-proof.

Core Architecture

PIE focuses on the frontend: question types, authoring interfaces, and delivery players. You control the backend.

PIE Provides

  • Production-Ready Question Types

    Multiple choice, graphing, drag-and-drop, constructed response, and more

  • WYSIWYG Authoring Interfaces

    Educators create content without code using visual editors

  • Delivery Players

    Render items for students and teachers with built-in accessibility

  • Assessment Toolkit

    Calculator, TTS, accommodations, and test delivery services

  • A framework to build your own

    Contribute to or fork the project and build your own question types

You Provide

  • Item Storage & Retrieval

    Your CMS, item bank, or content repository

  • Authentication & Authorization

    User management, permissions, session handling

  • Reporting & Analytics

    Score reports, analytics, learning insights

  • Infrastructure & Hosting

    Your servers, databases, deployment pipeline

PIE Overall Architecture

This separation means PIE integrates with any backend technology. Use your existing infrastructure or build exactly what you need.

PIE Elements: assessment interaction components

Comprehensive library covering simple to highly complex interactions. Every element includes delivery UI, and controllers, many include an authoring UI, and interfaces like print and list views are either partially supported or planned.

PIE Ecosystem Flow

Simple Response

  • • Multiple Choice
  • • Text Entry
  • • Extended Text
  • • Inline Choice
  • • Math Inline

Matching & Categorization

  • • Match
  • • Match List
  • • Categorize
  • • Placement Ordering
  • • Drag in the Blank

Visual & Graphical

  • • Hotspot
  • • Image Cloze
  • • Drawing Response
  • • Graphing
  • • Number Line

Support Elements

  • • Passage
  • • Rubric
  • • Image
  • • Math Templated
PIE Question Type Examples
Explore PIE Elements

QTI Interoperability

PIE works alongside QTI as the standard for content transport and interoperability.

QTI (Question and Test Interoperability) is the industry standard for exchanging assessment content between systems. PIE complements QTI by providing:

  • Rich Interactive Experiences - Rendering and authoring beyond QTI's specification, with a predictable user experience
  • Bi-directional Conversion - Comprehensive tooling to import QTI content into PIE, export PIE to QTI
  • QTI Assessment compatibility - We are working towards a high degree of compatibility with the QTI assessment model to make imports and exports compatible

PIE-QTI Tooling

We're actively developing importers and exporters to seamlessly move between QTI (2.x and 3.x) and PIE formats.

Explore PIE-QTI Tools

Trusted Partners

PIE was built through collaboration between Renaissance and MCRO, combining educational expertise with technical excellence.

Renaissance

PIE powers assessment delivery for millions of learners at Renaissance. Battle-tested at enterprise scale in K-12 education.

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MCRO

Implementation partner since 2017. MCRO has been instrumental in developing PIE from concept to production-ready framework.

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