From: Fred Beshears (fmb@socrates.berkeley.edu)
Date: Tue Mar 26 2002 - 13:41:00 PST
More on Learning Technology Standards
Fred Beshears
-------------------
Highlights from Syllabus Magazine
http://www.syllabus.com/syllabusmagazine/article.asp?id=6134
Demystifying Learning Technology Standards Part I: Development and Evolution
Nishikant Sonwalkar
Part I: Development and Evolution
Standards play an important role in the development of innovative processes
and technologies. Historically, the development of standards indicates that
a particular process or technology is maturing and has achieved a degree of
commercial success, such that there is a need for standards compliance.
Standards provide a measure of quality assurance and build consensus among
stakeholders regarding accepted norms for compliance and criteria for
certification. However, the primary benefits of standards, for both
software and hardware technologies, are interoperability and integration.
Simple examples to illustrate interoperability are the standards for
compact discs (CDs) and what were originally called Digital VideoDiscs (now
simply DVDs), which allow data to be stored and transferred between systems
without any problem. A simple example of integration can be seen in
building IBM-compatible PC systems; in this case, the assembly of PCs is
only possible because of the hardware compatibility specifications. In the
area of hardware, the standards are often measurable parameters of physical
systems and their operational behavior; in the case of information
technology, they emerge more often as normative and informative
specifications for interoperability and integration.
Standards Development
In the context of learning technology, standards are still evolving.
Standards organizations such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers Inc. (IEEE), the International Organization for Standardization
(ISO), and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) keep records
of normative standards that provide references necessary for conformance
and interoperability. As such, the development process of formal standards
is laborious, tedious, time consuming, and requires numerous components
(shown in Figure 1) as described in the IEEE P1484.1/D9 draft standard for
Learning Technology Systems Architecture (LTSA).
In Figure 1, the requirements and functionality steps describe the need for
the intended goals of the specification, the conceptual model proposes the
framework for the development of standards, and semantics are the exact
definitions related to the interoperable components and systems. The
details of the formal standards are then developed in the form of (a) an
application program interface (API) that provides the calling conventions,
(b) the binding coding, provided for the data formats, and (c) binding
protocols that define the communication layers. The
specifications/standards have two kinds of wording: normative, the sections
that describe technical requirements imposed for conformance; and
informative, the sections describing specifications and best practices that
are not requirements for conformance.
There is a common perception that commercial vendors try to make their
technological implementations "inoperable" with other similar products in
order to keep—and in some cases force— customers to stick to their
proprietary products. And consumer organizations have a reputation for
striving to work with "interoperable" standards in order to provide freedom
of choice and encourage competition. There is, however, an inherent
commercial opportunity for innovative companies that put their inventions
in the public domain to become the industry standard (e.g., Red Hat Inc.’s
Linux). Of course, at the end of the day, consumers ultimately decide,
through the widespread adoption of one standard over the other. At the
onset of technological development, there are always competing methods and
technologies vying to become the industry standard; the challenge is to
make a standard that is easy to implement and thus win widespread adoption
in the public domain.
The Organizations
In the past decade, and particularly since 1997, several organizations have
begun work to evolve standards related to learning technologies for the
development of metadata, curriculum taxonomy, course structure hierarchy,
data models, learning objects, assets, sharable objects, content
aggregation and system architecture, and personal and private information.
These organizations present documentation to the IEEE Learning Technology
Standards Committee, P1484, the designated body with a recognized charter
to create standards. The IEEE LTSC P1484 membership has several working
groups to develop specifications and standards related to aspects of
learning (see http://ltsc.ieee.org). The key organizations that are
currently proposing standards for learning technologies are described below.
IMS Global Learning Consortium Inc.—originally known as Instructional
Management Systems (IMS) and now retaining the name IMS but not the
original meaning of the acronym—began its existence as a project of
EDUCAUSE. The group was chartered to provide open market-based standards
relevant to learning technology and, in particular, specifications for
content metadata. IMS proposed and collaborated with the IEEE LTSC to
propose metadata specifications to the IEEE P1484 committee. That work
later became a draft for the Learning Objects Metadata specification.
Similar efforts started in the Alliance of Remote Instructional Authoring
and Distribution Networks for Europe (ARIADNE) on metadata definitions, and
those groups are now closely collaborating with IMS. It is important to
note that the IMS work being done now is not limited to content metadata,
but includes areas such as content packaging, the Learner Information
Package (LIP), the enterprise information model, and others (see
www.imsglobal.org).
The Aviation Industry CBT Committee (AICC) is a group formed in 1988 to
provide interoperability standards for computer-managed instruction (CMI)
systems, now more widely known as learning management systems or course
management systems. AICC primarily caters to the CMI systems developed for
the aviation industry and related vendors, and it provides AICC guidelines
and recommendations. The contribution of AICC is particularly important in
the CMI database schema and the interoperability of the database objects
extending to several computer-based training course management and
assessment systems. AICC is working closely with the IEEE LTSC in several
areas of mutual interest. It also provides test suites for AICC
certification (see www.aicc.org).
The Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) effort, started by the White House
Office of Science and Technology Policy in 1997, received initial support
from the Department of Defense (DOD), though it now falls within the
Department of Labor. The activities of ADL Co-Labs focus around the
development of the Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM)
specifications, which include metadata standards from IEEE LTSC P1484 (as
submitted by IMS) and CMI database schema (submitted to IEEE by AICC).
The ADL Co-Laboratory Network supports the ADL initiative with a network of
collaborative laboratories (Co-Labs). This network currently has three
independently supported entities with distinct operational
responsibilities. They are: the DOD ADL Co-Lab in Virginia, the Joint ADL
Co-Lab at Orlando, Florida, and the Academic ADL Co-Lab at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison.
The ADL Co-Labs are collaborating closely with ARIADNE, IMS, AICC, and
IEEE. At present, SCORM 1.2 is distributed and includes the content
packaging and sequencing recommendations proposed by IMS. The specific goal
for SCORM is to create learning technology standards for creation of
durable, reusable, interoperable, and accessible courses for defense and
industry training. ADL also provides a test suite for checking conformance
to SCORM 1.2 specification. The ADL Co-Labs regularly organize "plugfests"
for commercial and university systems to demonstrate SCORM conformance (see
www.adlnet.org).
Process and Evolution
In 1999, the ISO Joint Technical Committee 1 created Subcommittee 36 to
address and create ISO standards in the area of learning technology to
support automation for learners, learning resources, and learning
institutions. It is expected that the specifications and standards
developed by IEEE will be submitted to ISO for formal
internationalization—a process that may take several years until final
acceptance.
The organizations highlighted above are working closely together to promote
standards for learning technologies. All are trying to achieve essentially
the same overall objective, but each one has a specific expertise it brings
to the host of issues that need to be addressed for the future of learning
technology standards.
Figure 2 shows a schematic of the integrative collaboration model adapted
by most learning technology standards organizations. The procedure
illustrated is as follows: (1) write specifications within AICC, IMS, or
ARIADNE; (2) integrate, extend, and test in SCORM/ADL; and (3) formalize
nationally and internationally in ISO/IEEE. It is expected that this
process will lead to a formal ISO standard in a few years. As illustrated,
the technical specifications originate in the consortia. The Co-Labs then
create and operate test beds for conducting conformance testing. The test
results generate reference models for selected technologies. The reference
models, or applications profiles, are then submitted to the standards
bodies for accreditation.
Associated Efforts
Besides the work of the organizations already described, there are other
efforts focused on developing standards related to learning technology. The
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), headed by Tim Berners-Lee at MIT’s
Laboratory for Computer Science, is devoted to pushing the technological
forefront ahead and has provided numerous useful specifications and
standards. These include standards relating to Extensible Markup Language,
Web accessibility standards, and standards and a framework for Synchronized
Multimedia Integration Language implementations (see www.w3c.org).
Another emerging organization of note is the Open Knowledge Initiative
(OKI), started at MIT with major funding through an Andrew W.Mellon
Foundation grant (see http://web.mit.edu/oki). OKI now includes several
prominent universities as partners, and it is focusing on an approach to
creating an open API environment as a glue for a host of support activities
related to online education.
These efforts are intended to encourage interoperability of both the
educational content and the underlying technology that will support the
deployment of online courses. Standards will point toward the best
practices that allow educational content to be used, reused, and deployed
online. The educational content objects that enhance the learning process
can be incorporated into the curriculum to enhance the educational
experience. If existing content objects can be converted to adhere to
interoperable standards (e.g., SCORM), then they may be used by a large
number of community colleges and universities, as well as by the online
training initiatives of the DOD.
Success will depend on demystifying standards in terms of implementation
for instructional design and on the development of content sequencing
models that allow multiple learning strategies that address individual
learning needs. Part II of this article will focus on the acceptance and
implementation of standards for instructional design, management of
learning objects, metadata, and content aggregation.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to:
Dan Rehak (Carnegie Mellon University), Jeff Merriman, Vijay
Kumar (MIT), Bill McDonald (AICC), Judy Brown (Academic ADL
Co-Lab), and Philip Dodds (DOD ADL Co-Labs) for their contributions
to this article and for permission to use SCORM 1.2 figures
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