This white paper, facilitated by the S3 Working Group of the e-Learning Consortium, was created "to help the average person understand the rationale, development, and implication of learning standards and to accelerate their adoption." The first part of the paper serves as a primer for those who have little to no knowledge of learning standards.

The author points out that calls for interoperability between proprietary technology applications are often the result of frustration experienced by users wishing to maximize time, intellectual, and monetary investments in learning technologies. As with other historical technologies and tools, various sectors come together to create a set of standards. In so far as learning objects are concerned, then, the goal is to create an infrastructure whereby objects can be created, used, transferred, and reused across different application systems and platforms. Standards help to ensure e-learning effectiveness and resource investments by promoting the following goals: interoperability, re-usability, manageability, accessibility, and durability (each of these "abilities" is fleshed out in the text).

The core of the paper focuses on a holistic but detailed explanation of how standards are formed. The roles of special consortia (AICC, IMS, and ARIADNE), labs, test beds, and markets (e.g., ADL and ALIC), and standards bodies (IEE, ISO, and CEN/ISSS) in creating de facto standards are well illustrated by a graphic illustration. Discussion includes initiatives underway in Japan, Europe, and Australia. The author is careful to point out that counter to some perceptions, "the different organizations and groups … are not in any conflict or competition with each other" because each has a special but crucial function in the development of standards.

The US Department of Defense's Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) is also discussed. SCORM's function is related to the infrastructure illustrated by the model of standards evolution: "SCORM provides a foundational [detailed] reference model upon which anyone can develop models of learning content and delivery." SCORM's role in enabling content, technology, and systems to "talk" to each other is related to the five goals of standards initiatives mentioned at the beginning of this summary. That SCORM is not a standard itself but a mode by which to test the "effectiveness and real-life application of a collection of individual specifications and standards" is emphasized.

Appendix 1 of the Masie Institute document clarifies the distinction between compliance and conformance, and it introduces the terms certification and product self-test. Appendix 2 discusses the importance of implementing meta-data, and it discusses the terms categorization and taxonomy. Appendix 3 focuses on learning objects. Autodesk's content model is used as an illustration, and includes a depiction of the relationship between raw content items, information objects, learning objects, lessons, and courses. Included is also a brief explanation of SCO and SCORM. Appendix 4 focuses on standards and specifications groups. Brief descriptions of thirteen initiatives and projects are given. Efforts in Europe, Australia, and Japan are included in the discussion as well.

For the full text, see http://www.masie.com/standards/S3_Guide.pdf

Back to main Standards page ....