A TOUR OF LEARNING TECHNOLOGY STANDARDS

1. A TOUR OF LEARNING TECHNOLOGY STANDARDS Robby Robson, Chair, IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee The slides in this work are each separately licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License

2. Outline • Standards in general • Learning technology standards • Some technical details • What’s next • Open discussion A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

3. No results found A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

4. Standards Can … • Specify the form and function of technology • Determine how information is exchanged • Require procedures to be followed • Define acceptable outcomes A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

5. Standards Can… • Specify the form and function of technology • Determine how information is exchanged • Require procedures to be followed • Define acceptable outcomes Learning technology standards define technological infrastructure A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

6. Effective Standards Operate Invisibly A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

7. This …. Screenshot from Dreamweaver™ 8 Design View A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

8. And not necessarily this …. Screenshot from Dreamweaver™ 8 Code View A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

9. We converse today about the details so that we may not converse about them tomorrow and the day after. A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

10. INNOVATION Why Bother With Standards? • Standards define and catalyze new technology • Standards enable new solutions • Standards solve existing problems A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

11. Why Bother With Standards? HELP THE CONSUMER • Standards prevent lock-in • Standards acceleratecommoditization • Standards increase reliability • Standards enable competition A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

12. Why Bother With Standards? BUILD MARKETS • Standards can lower design, development and production costs • Standards help modularize supply chains • Standards buildconsumerconfidence • Standardization distributes effort A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

13. Market moves from underservedtooverserved* * Clayton M Christensen & Michael E Raynor, (2003). The Innovator’s Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth, Harvard Business School Press, Cambridge, Mass. Need arises in an influential community When Does Standardization Occur? INOVATION HELP THE CONSUMER BUILD MARKETS A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

14. “Education” is an influential community (But not the only one) A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

15. What is the state of Learning Technology Standards? INOVATION HELP THE CONSUMER BUILD MARKETS MOSTLY HERE SOME HERE STARTING HERE A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

16. We will now talk about standards organizations and standards A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

17. But must remember … A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

18. Nothing is a standard until it is acknowledged and adopted by the community it serves. A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

19. DLF (1995) History of Relevant Standards Organizations But few new ones since 2001 SISO (1994) EICA OKI IEEE LTSC AICC (1988) CanCore CEN/ISSS WS-LT SIF EdNA (1994) 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 ARIADNE ADL JTC1 SC36 ebXML IMS Dublin Core (1995) HR-XML CONSOR- TIUM AEN OASIS MERLOT ALIC W3C (1994) A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

20. Learning technology standardization efforts have been • Driven by • Young companies* • A few key consumer groups • Focused on • Search & Discovery • Learning Content • Learning Delivery Systems (e.g. LMS) • Specialized to Learning • Relatively little adoption of other standards *including new divisions within large software vendors A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

21. Leading to a diverse portfolio of organizations and standards… A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

22. The Players • ADL (Advanced Distributed Learning initiative) • AICC (Aviation Industry CBT Committee) • CEN (CEN / ISSS Technical Committee on Learning Technology) • HR-XML (The HR-XML Consortium) • IMS (IMS Global Learning Consortium – a consortium representing Higher Education) • LTSC (IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee – an accredited standards body) • SC36 (ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36 – Standards for Learning, Education and Training) • WSIL (Web Services in Learning, a vendor effort) A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

23. Mature Standards with wide Adoption • Metadata • Search & Discovery • SCORM (and AICC equivalents) • Content / LMS interoperability • Made up from IMS & IEEE standards • Question & Test Interoperability • XML representation of Quizzes and test banks A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

24. IMS Enterprise Interface between an LMS and SIS OKI Service Interface Definitions Used in Higher Education Learning Technology Systems Architecture IEEE standard used by some U.S. Defense contractors Learner Information Package Education & Training Records IMS e-portfolio IMS Learning Design High level instructional design IEEE Digital Rights Expression Languages Recommended practice for education and training IMS Repository Really more of an architecture reference model IMS Sharable State Persistence Integration of LMS / SIM Standards & Specifications with Less Adoption* A Tour of Learning Technology Standards * Based on observation, not hard data

25. New Consumer-driven Efforts • Frameworks • Not “standards” but frames for conversations about standards • Quality Standards • Address the development of digital learning content • CORDRA • Content Object Repository Discovery Resolution Architecture • Just an architecture and recommended practice • SCORM / SIM Interoperability • Driven by military simulation community A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

26. New Provider-driven Efforts • Competencies • Defining and modeling learning objectives, skills, knowledge, ability, tasks • Web Services in Learning • Handling LMS / Content Server architecture • Handling “catalog update” • IMS Common Cartridge • Exchange of courses for academic LMS A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

27. And Some Other Work • Search / Query / Harvesting standards • Several of these, many from other communities • Efforts updating standards by updating view points • Research Aggregation Model (ontology) • Content packaging  UML version / some updates • LOM / Dublin Core Abstract Model A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

28. Do I need to pay attention to all that? (Probably Not) A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

29. What does a Consumer need to know? • What problems are being addressed ? • What problems have been solved? • How to ask the right questions • Hint: “Do you conform to X?” is not the right question A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

30. Problems Being Addressed • Separating content from delivery systems • Making it easier (or possible) to find the right stuff • PREVENTING LOCK-IN • Getting learning systems to talk to other systems A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

31. Problems Being Solved • Separating content from delivery systems • This is what IMS Content Packaging, SCORM, IMS Question & Test, and AICC standards do. • So far this works well but not perfectly. • Applies only to Web-based content and assessments • Content still needs to be tweaked for specific systems • Making it easier to find the right stuff • This is what metadata does • The biggest problem is the lack of (good) metadata • PREVENTING LOCK-IN (MORE AND MORE) • Getting learning systems to talk to other systems – not really, not yet. A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

32. How to get an honest and useful answer • Don’t ask about standards, ask about solutions: • After I have developed 100 one-hour courses in your system, what will be the cost to migrate them to a different system? What have you done to make this easy for me? • Don’t ask about conformance – ask for details • What is the minimum set of tags associated with a title in your catalog? Provide a screenshot of your search screen that shows which tags are searchable. Show / explain how authors generate tags in your tools. A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

33. What does a Content Developer need to know? • How content interoperability standards such as SCORM (and its components) work and what they do • Which standards are used by authoring tools and supported by delivery systems A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

34. What does a Technology Developer need to know? • Where standards are along the adoption and implementation curve • Details and best practices for standards relevant to the technology being developed and that are • Being used in the market - or- • Provide solutions to specific problems (e.g. integrating with a SIS) - or- • Confer a competitive advantage A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

35. Example 1 Publishing content as a business … • Accepted standards: • Metadata, DOI, SCORM / AICC, OAI-PMH, SRU/SRW, SQI • Emerging standards: • CORDRA • Possible relevant standards: • Query standards, Digital Rights Expression Language, Quality standards • Standards that address the functionality of content, e.g. Sharable State Persistence if the content interacts with simulations or games or Learning Design • Specifications to watch • IMS Common Cartridge (academic), Web Services in Learning A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

36. Example 2 Building a serious simulation / game … • Accepted standards: • Metadata, High Level Architecture, OpenGL (and Simple DirectMedia Layer) • Emerging standards: • Not sure • Possible relevant learning technology standards: • SCORM, Sharable State Persistence, e-portfolio • Specifications to watch • SIM/SCORM Study Group A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

37. Details on SCORM WHAT IT DOES HOW IT WORKS THESE SLIDES HAVE BEEN REPURPOSED FROM A SCORM TUTORIAL GIVEN IN APRIL, 2006.

38. Some slides in this presentation were produced by and used with permission of the Advanced Distributed Learning initiative (www.adlnet.org). Others were reused / repurposed from previous workshops and presentations A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

39. WHAT IS SCORM? • A REFERENCE MODEL: A set of profiles of standards and specifications that tells you how to do something useful • A SOLUTION: Solves the problem of separating Web-based training content from delivery systems • A STANDARD: • Adopted by most commercial LMS products • Required by government directives (U.S., Korea …) • SCORM 2004, 3rd Edition, is on track to being standardized as an ISO technical report • SCORM means SCORM 2004 in this presentation A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

40. SCORM 1.2 / AICC ADOPTION COMPILED IN 2004 A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

41. May 00, Implementation Plan submitted to Congress Jan. 04, SCORM 2004 released June 00, Plugfest 1 Jan. 00, SCORM 1.0 released Feb. 04, International Plugfest, Zurich ADL Timeline Jan. 99, Executive Order 13111 tasking DoD to lead collaborative standards development Nov. 97, White House Co-sponsors ADL Kick-off Meeting Dec. 04, SCORM 2004 2nd Edition Jun 01, Executive Order 13218 21st Century Workforce Initiative 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 1997 1998 1999 Jan. 98, Executive Memo citing ADL as a model for federal agencies Feb. 05, Plugfest 9 Apr. 99, Opened the ADL Co-Lab in Alexandria, VA A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

42. SCORM 1.0 SCORM1.1 SCORM 1.2 SCORM 1.3 SCORM 2004 3rd Edition SCORM 2004 DIRECTIVE TO CREATE SCORM (13111) SCORM 2004 2ND Edition • “C” is for “Content” • Metadata Harmonized • Bugs Fixed • CMI Data Model Pared back (removed pre-requisites and completion requirements) • Simple Sequencing • Metadata Harmonized • Bugs Fixed • Conformance program getting started • Course Structure Format (XML Version of AICC Course Structure Files) • Runtime API – developed jointly among AICC, IEEE, and ADL • Metadata based on IMS Version 1.0 • Added Content Packaging • Deprecated Course Structure Format • Created Test Suites • Bugs Fixed A SCORM IS BREWING 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

43. SCORM ASSUMES … • A particular content lifecycle (next slide) • Web-based content • A single learner • A small set of pedagogically relevant data: • Time spent with content • Scores on tests • Status of objectives A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

44. SCORM CONTENT LIFECYCLE Repository Learning Content Authoring Tools Create Existing Content Repurpose Chunk Assemble & Sequence Learning Catalog Find Import LMS Track Deliver A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

45. A SET OF BOOKS A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

46. Content Aggregation Model • Learning Object Metadata (IEEE 1484.12) • Content Packaging (IMS Specification) Describe, export, transport and import Run-Time Environment Application Programming Interface(IEEE 1484.11.2) Data Model (IEEE 1484.11.1) Launch, track, communicate learner info Sequencing & Navigation IMS Simple Sequencing Adaptive learning, instructional design THE SCORM BOOKS A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

47. Organization 5 5 5 SCORM Content Aggregation Model Content Package Manifest SCOs (XML document) <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF -8" standalone="no"?> All the physical <metadata> files needed for <schema>ADL SCORM</schema> <schemaversion>1.2 this package </schemaversion> 8 Including the structure with <lom xmlns=”http:// Content sequencing behaviors/rules www.imsglobal.org/imsd_rootv1p2"> Package </metadata> Metadata <manifest identifier=”IRS_IFS_COURSE”> CD-ROM <organizations default=”xp_man0_toc1"> Package Interchange Format A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

48. SCORM Runtime Environment Learning Management System (LMS) LMS Server Server Side Launch Client Side Data Model: Actual data sent Web Browser back and forth between a SCO and LMS Asset Communication SCO with backend Asset Asset server is not specified in API Asset SCORM. ECMAScript Instance API: Communications Link between a SCO and LMS Data Model: Data retrieved from and stored in the LMS from the SCO A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

49. Course Module 1 Lesson 1 Lesson 2 Module 2 Lesson 1 Part A Part B Lesson 2 Glossary Assessment Sequencing & Navigation • Activities are aggregated and organized into a tree. • A default traversal path can be modified by a learning designer. • Traversal is triggered by a sequencing request. • Request is triggered either by the learner through navigation events or by the delivery system. • Sequencing rules are evaluated at runtime and can be conditional. • Activities are delivered one at a time. • Actual content resides in leaves of the tree A Tour of Learning Technology Standards

50. Objectives Obj_1 Obj_2 Remediation Using Objectives Rule: Exit if Obj_1 AND Obj_2 are Satisfied. Else, Continue. Rule: Skip Lesson 1 if Obj_1 is Satisfied Rule: Skip Lesson 2 if Obj_2 is Satisfied Rule: Set Satisfaction Status for Obj_1 Rule: Set Satisfaction Status for Obj_2 A Tour of Learning Technology Standards