May 10, 2002Les Smith, SCTlsmith@sct.com

Standards in Distance Education

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Overview

Learning Mgt. Standards process What are all these acronyms?

SIF AICC ADL-SCORM IEEE-LTSC subgroup IMS

• Enterprise Specification How does SCT use these specifications?

Helpful url’s Q & A

Stakeholders in Standards

Labs, Test-beds

DomainConsortia

Standards Bodies

Learning Providers

Technology Vendors

Researchers

ContentProviders

GovernmentAgencies

STANDARDS

Standards Evolve

Requirementsand

Technology

Testand Use

Define RefineStandard

Technology

What is SIF?

The SIF is not a product, but an industry initiative to develop a technical blueprint for K-12 software that will enable diverse applications to interact and share data

SIF interoperable applications

Support real-time and batch data exchange

Creates a platform-neutral wire HTTPS default transport protocol XML messages

SIF Working Groups

Data Analysis & Reporting Exceptionalities Food Services Grade Book Human Resources & Financial Management Instructional Management Infrastructure Library Automation Student Information Services Transportation and Geographic Information

What is the AICC ?

The Aviation Industry CBT (Computer-Based Training) Committee (AICC) is an international association of technology-based training professionals.

Objectives:

1. Assist airplane operators in development of guidelines which promote the economic and effective implementation of computer-based training (CBT).

2. Develop guidelines to enable interoperability.

What is ADL?

The Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL)initiative started by the U.S. Department of Defense and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).

Its goals are to accelerate standardization

within the online-learning industry in order to promote more cost effective training for the government/military and the national work force.

What is SCORM?

The Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) defines a Web-based learning "Content

Aggregation Model" and "Run-Time Environment" for learning objects.

The SCORM is a collection of specifications adapted from multiple sources to provide a comprehensive suite of e-learning capabilities that enable interoperability, accessibility and reuse of Web-based learning content.

IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee

(LTSC)

Mission of IEEE/ LTSC

Develop technical standards,

Recommended Practices, and Guides for software and technologies

for

computer implementations of education and training components and systems.

Relevant IEEE Standards Information Technology

• Learning Technology (P1484)

• Public-Key Cryptography (P1363) • Software Engineering Standards

What is IMS?

The IMS (Instructional Management System) project is open consortium of industry and education

members who are developing a framework for distributed computer-based learning.

The IMS project is in the process of defining standards for learning objects and Instruction Management Systems. These standards include metadata for cataloging and retrieval and an object model for dynamic communication.

IMS Global Learning Consortium The IMS Global Learning Consortium is a specification authoring

organization comprised of: Publishers Digital content vendors Government agencies Universities Training organizations and other interested parties.

IMS specifications are intended to evolve into globally adopted open standards for software vendors and content authors.

All IMS specifications are open and are realized in eXtensible Markup Language (XML) to facilitate unrestricted understanding and adoption.

IMS Specifications

The IMS Learning Resources Meta-data Specifications (released August 20, 1999) create a uniform way for describing learning

resources so that they can be more easily discovered, using meta-data aware search tools that reflect the unique needs of users in learning situations.

The IMS Enterprise Specification (released November 3, 1999) is aimed at administrative

applications and services that need to share data about learners, courses, enrollment, and performance across platforms, operating systems, and transport protocols.

The IMS Content & Packaging Specification

(released May 2000) makes it easier to share reusable content objects in a variety of learning systems.

IMS Specifications The IMS Question & Test Specification

(released May 2000) enables the exchange of test, assessment, and results data between learning systems, as well as content authors, content libraries and collections.

The IMS Learner Profiles Specification (released March 2001) looks at ways to organize learner information

so that learning systems can be more responsive to the specific needs of each user.

IMS Specifications (in progress)

The Learning Design group is looking to enable the definition and sharing of learning

scenarios and interactions; the Digital Repositories

group will facilitate the interoperability across repositories within the e-learning domain and between e-learning and other domains

Accessibility group will publish guidelines and adapt specifications for use in

supporting disabled and disadvantaged learners.

IMS : World-Wide Participation

• ADL Co-Lab• Apple • Artesia Technologies• BECTA• Blackboard• Boeing• Campus Pipeline• Centra Software • CIC• Cisco Systems• Click 2 Learn• Calif. State Universities• Cambridge University• Can Studios • CMU• DEST• Digital Learning Interactive • Digitalthink

• Oracle• OU Netherlands• PeopleSoft• R5 Vision • Saba Software• SCT• SUFI• Sun• Texas Instruments• THINQ• Thomson Learning• UFI• UC - Berkeley• University of Michigan• University of Wisconsin• US Department of Labor• Virginia Tech• WebCT

• Docent• Educational Testing Service• EDUCAUSE• Eduprise• Fretwell-Downing Group• GIUNTI Interactive Labs • IBM Corporation• Industry Canada• JISC• Lrng & Tchng Scotland• LON• LUVIT• Miami-Dade Community

College• Microsoft • MIT• Odile Jacob Multimedia• 125 Devel. Net members

WebCT

LMS

3rd Part Application

(Human Resource)

SCT Banner

SCT PlusCampus Pipeline (CP)

Enterprise XML

Question Mark-Perception

3rd Party Test & Question Authoring Tool

Question & Test XML

Content & Management XML

Legend

IMS Conceptual Overview

Content Developers

IMS Enterprise Specification

XML Data Exchanged Users Terms Course Sections Student Enrollments Faculty Teaching Assignments Student Grades

SCT Use of IMS Enterprise Spec

America’s Learning ExchangeSCT produces an XML extract file of Course Catalog data to the U.S. Department of Labor to support the American’s Learning Exchange (ALX project)

WebCT Campus EditionSCT produces XML extract files and xml event messages (for real-time transmission) to synchronize data with the WebCT 3.5 Campus Edition.

WebCT produces XML event message which are sent to the SCT administrative system to post grades 

Helpful url’s Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative -

(http://www.adlnet.org)

IMS Project – (http://www.imsproject.org)

Learning Standards Technology Committee(http://ltsc.ieee.org/)

Questions?

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