Learning Technology Standards

A Layperson's Guide to

Who’s Who and What’s What

Updated November 25, 2002

by Jonathan Dean

Oracle iLearning Product Management

The Standards Conundrum

There are many competing learning technology standards groups!

– Fortunately, all these groups talk to one another and are in cooperation more than competition

– This presentation will briefly cover “who’s who”

There are many standards-based specifications (with too many acronyms)!

– Fortunately, these can be broken in to a few broad categories: tracking, course interchange, and “other”

– Often, what may appear as different standards are, in fact, the same standard in disguise

– This presentation will briefly cover “what’s what”

IMS

IEEE

SCORM

Who’s Who

The Aviation Industry CBT Committee has been around since 1988 and has a set of specifications adopted well beyond the aviation industry.

The IEEE is the only organization that can publish eLearning-related standards.

IMS is a global consortium supported by members’ fees. (Oracle is a “Contributing Member” with voting rights.)

ADL is sponsored by the Dept. of Defense. Since government contracts will be required to conform, they carry a lot of weight with vendors.

What’s What – The Categories

Tracking– How can learner performance data be passed between

learning content and a Learning Management System? Course Interchange

– How can catalog information about a course and its internal structure be specified? (Metadata)

– How can the files that make up a course be sent from system to system? (Packaging)

Other– How can tests and questions be passed from system to

system?– How can user and organizational data move between an

HRMS and an LMS?

What’s What – The Specifications

Next we will: Walk through the standards-based specifications

published by each group in each category– Just the highlights, many details will be glossed over

See several cases where one group has adopted another group’s specifications as its own

Find out which standards-based specifications Oracle iLearning has implemented

– At a high level, not concerned w/ specific versions

Interchange Other

Course Structure

IMS

IEEE

SCORM

Tracking

AICC has a set of text files (pre-XML) that describe courses and their files.

Interchange Other

Course Structure

IMS

IEEE

SCORM

Tracking

The two-type content model underlying this has been adopted by all other standards:

Organization

Resource

IMS

Topic Group

Topic

Oracle RCO

AggregationBlock

Sharable Courseware Object (SCO)

Assignable Unit (AU)

SCORMAICC

Interchange Other

Course Structure

IMS

IEEE

SCORM

File

HACP

JS CMI

Tracking

AICC CMI offers 3 different ways for content to communicate with an LMS:

Files – for legacy LAN-based systems

HACP – uses HTTP over the web

JavaScript API – easy for HTML-based content to implement

An Aside for Acronym Geeks

H = HTTP Based = Hypertext Transfer Protocol Based

A = AICC = Aviation Industry CBT Committee = Aviation Industry Computer Based Training Committee

C = CMI = Computer Managed Instruction

P = Protocol

All together now: Hypertext Transfer Protocol Based Aviation Industry Computer Based Training Committee Computer Managed Instruction Protocol

Interchange Other

Course Structure

IMS

IEEE

SCORM

Metadata

File

HACP

JS CMI

Tracking

IEEE has created a learning object metadata standard (LOM) that specifies what the data elements are to describe a course.

CMI

IEEE has adopted the AICC CMI tracking data and supports both a JavaScript and HTTP binding.

Interchange Other

QTIMetadata

Packaging

QTI = Question & Test Interoperability

Enterprisewithdrawn

Course Structure

IMS

IEEE

SCORM

Metadata

File

HACP

JS CMI

Tracking

The IMS proposal for tracking drew criticism from vendors for being too hard to implement.

IMS has adopted the metadata standard from IEEE and added a packaging spec for how files get transferred.

The Enterprise spec deals with import and export of user data.

CMI

Interchange Other

QTIMetadata

Packaging Enterprisewithdrawn

Course Structure

IMS

IEEE

SCORM

Metadata

File

HACP

JS CMI

Tracking

ADL primarily chooses which of the existing specifications are combined to created the

Sharable Content Object Reference Model. This model is to be followed for all government contracts.

CMI

Interchange Other

QTIMetadata

Packaging Enterprisewithdrawn

Course Structure

IMS

IEEE

SCORM

Metadata

File

HACP

JS CMI

JS CMIMetadata

Packaging

Tracking

CMI

JavaScript CMI adopted from AICC

Metadata and packaging from IMS

Note: SCORM 1.1 had its own packaging. SCORM 1.2 uses IMS packaging.

Interchange Other

QTIMetadata

Packaging Enterprise

IMS

SCORMJS CMI

MetadataPackaging

Tracking

JS CMIMetadata

Packaging

QTI

Enterprise

Standards in Oracle iLearningOracle iLearning implements SCORM and IMS standards, including: JavaScript CMI API, SCORM & IMS metadata and packaging, and the IMS Enterprise and QTI specifications.

A Caution about Versions

These standards-based specifications have gone through multiple versions

Versions are often not compatible, either forward or backward

This presentation provides no information about which versions are and are not implemented by Oracle iLearning

When responding to an RFP or talking to customers or partners do not assume that iLearning implements a particular version of a particular specification.

Check which versions are implemented by iLearning before answering any questions about this

For more info on standards:

IMS

IEEE

SCORM

www.aicc.org

ltsc.ieee.org

www.imsproject.org

www.adlnet.org

ilearnweb.us.oracle.com