Standards in Content Development

Standards for the Learning management systems
Whether it is the creation of content libraries, or learning management systems, accredited standards will reduce the risk of making large investments in learning technologies because systems will be able to work together like never before. Accredited standards assure that the investment in time and intellectual capital can move from one system to the next. When companies find their content trapped inside a proprietary format (such as a registration system, a courseware design, or a course sequencing model), the story is the same in each case. It is virtually impossible to reuse, transfer, or have interoperability between these proprietary models. This won't change until we build systems on an open accredited standard.

Who is Building These Standards?
IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee (LTSC) P1484Most groups around the world, doing work in creating specifications for any of the areas related to learning, use IEEE LTSC P1484. These groups cover far-reaching topics including learning object metadata, student profiles, course sequencing, computer managed instruction, competency definitions, localization, and content packaging. Over many years, in its role as one of the world's accredited standards bodies, the IEEE LTSC has created critical open and accredited standards using a very robust consensus-based model. The IEEE LTSC has also recently initiated the move of this work to the full International Standards Organization (ISO) standards by establishing ISO Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC1) Sub Committee 36 (SC36) on Learning Technology.

Over 20 different working groups are each creating a separate but related standard within IEEE LTSC. Full information on each of these can be obtained at the IEEE LTSC website. The IEEE process is open to all who wish to participate and can be accessed through email discussion lists that exist for each standards working group or though attendance at any of the meetings held three to four times per year at different locations worldwide. Full details of meeting location, agenda, and lodging, are available on the web site, as are prior meetings minutes and current working documents for each standards working group.

Shareable Courseware Object Reference Model (SCORM):
The work done by the US Federal Government ADL initiative and their recently released Shareable Courseware Object Reference Model (SCORM) provides one of the best and most recent examples of the application and integration of these learning standards. These guidelines provide a foundation for how the Department of Defense will use learning technologies to build, and operate in, the learning environment of the future. The US military (be it Navy, Air Force, Army, or Marines) can all use, exchange, manage, track, and reuse all of their learning content and data no matter its source or application. Moreover, the Federal Government can choose multiple vendors, if they comply with the IEEE LTSC standards and the SCORM specifications, for various projects and know that all of the products and services will interoperate.

IMS (Instructional Management System) Global Learning Consortium
The IMS Global Learning Consortium, headquartered in Burlington Massachusetts, is developing and promoting open specifications for facilitating online distributed learning activities such as locating and using educational content, tracking learner progress, reporting learner performance, and exchanging student records between administrative systems. IMS has two key goals:

1. Defining the technical standards for interoperability of applications and services in distributed learning.

2. Supporting the incorporation of IMS specifications into products and services worldwide. IMS promotes widespread adoption of specifications that will allow distributed learning environments and content from multiple authors to work together.

IMS is a global consortium with members from educational, commercial, and government organizations. Funding comes from membership fees, with organizations choosing to join as either Investment or Developers Network members. The IMS specification documents are availableonline.

AICC: The Aviation Industry CBT (Computer-Based Training) Committee
The Aviation Industry CBT Committee (AICC) is an international association of technology-based training professionals. The AICC develops guidelines for the aviation industry in the development, delivery, and evaluation of CBT and related training technologies. The objectives of the AICC are to:

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

Develop guidelines to enable interoperability.

Provide an open forum for the discussion of CBT and other training technologies.

Although AICC primarily attends to the aviation industry, over 12 years focus on the specifications required to meet this industry's needs has led to a very well developed specifications for learning and particularly for computer managed instruction. As a result, a wide range of learning consortiums and accredited standards groups are in the process of adopting and adapting the AICC guidelines to their own industries.

The AICC wants the aviation training community to get the best possible value for its technology-based training dollar. The only way this is possible is to promote interoperability standards that software vendors can use across multiple industries. With such standards, a vendor can sell their products to a broader market for a lower unit cost. If you are concerned about reuse and interoperability of online learning, the AICC is a good group to participate in or follow. The AICC also actively coordinates its efforts with broader learning technology standards organizations like IEEE LTSC, ADL, and IMS (see AICC related activities).

PROMETEUS: PROmoting Multimedia access to Education and Training in EUropean Society
Another example of applying and integrating the IEEE LTSC and learning standards comes out of the European PROMETEUS projects. Looking to apply not only the IEEE LTSC standards, the various Special Interest Groups (SIGs) of PROMETEUS work to integrate these into Europe context and cultures.

Telematics, knowledge content, and multimedia-based tools are widely considered central ingredients for evolving new ways to provide learning and training. These factors are at the core of European Union research programs and are being addressed by a number of EU projects for research, technological development, and demonstration (RTD).

With a clear underlying ideal to promote access to knowledge, education and training for all European citizens--regardless of their age, work situation, geographical location or social status--PROMETEUS has brought together hundreds of public and private sector organizations. PROMETEUS, as a permanently open forum, will seek to build, express, and voice consensus views on relevant issues that may be presented for its consideration. In particular, the following issues will be addressed:

optimal strategies for multicultural, multilingual learning solutions,

new instructional and training approaches and new learning environments,

affordable solutions and platforms based on open standards and best practices,

publicly accessible and interoperable knowledge repositories.

PROMETEUS's consensus building actions will seek to bridge the gap between research and actual use of learning technologies, content, and services. By founding MoU (Multimedia Access to Education and Training in Europe) PROMETEUS will provide guidelines, best practice handbooks, and recommendations that will be submitted, as necessary, to Education and Training Authorities and to EU and International Standards Bodies. Also, expect close cooperation with the newly formed Learning Technologies Standards Workshop of the Information Society Standardization System of the European Committee for Standardization (CEN/ISSS).

The Dublin Core: Metadata for Electronic Resources
The Dublin Core is a metadata element set intended to facilitate discovery of electronic resources. Originally conceived for author-generated description of Web resources, it has attracted the attention of formal resource description communities such as museums, libraries, government agencies, and commercial organizations so they, too, can find the electronic resources they need.

Dublin Core is building of an interdisciplinary, international consensus around a core element set. This progress represents the emergent wisdom and collective experience of many stakeholders in the resource description arena. An open mailing list supports ongoing work. The characteristics of the Dublin Core that distinguish it from previous electronic resources descriptors are:

Simplicity: A wide group can use the Dublin Core: non-catalogers as well as resource description specialists. Most of the elements have commonly understood semantics that are no more complex to understand than a library catalog card.

Semantic Interoperability: The Dublin Core promotes a commonly understood set of descriptors that increases the possibility of finding what you are looking for across disciplines.

International Consensus: The Dublin Core benefits from active participation and promotion in over 20 countries in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia.

Extensibility: The Dublin Core provides an economical alternative to more elaborate description models (such as the full MARC cataloging of the library world). It is also flexible and extensible enough to encode structures and elaborate semantics usually only found in richer description standards.

Metadata Modularity on the Web: The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has begun implementing an architecture for metadata on the Web. The Dublin Core's Resource Description Framework (RDF) is designed to support the different metadata needs of vendors and information providers. Representatives of the Dublin Core are actively involved in developing this architecture.

Where are we now?
The standards are coming and many are almost complete. Those participating in the email groups and meetings feel the progress and see the opportunities. However, many more people are not sure what to do with these standards and these new technologies because they haven't been following the progress. That's an understandable excuse for now, but won't work much longer. If you do not begin thinking and planning now, you will be unprepared when these new tools arrive. Prepare yourself strategically as these exciting new opportunities turn into business reality and success.

How can I take action?
Check out the IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee (LTSC) web site at http://ltsc.ieee.org for the most up-to-date documents and notes on the accredited standards. For those just getting started or for those looking at specific new LTSC standards groups, I recommend that you:

Go to the main page and go to the specific IEEE LTSC standard of interest. For example see P1484.12 Learning Object Metadata.

When you get to the home page of the individual standard, click on the link to the Scope & Purpose and to get a short overview of what is being done, including the technical boundaries of the project and some examples of the intended purpose of each. Based on this information, you can determine your level of interest and decide if you want to dig further and get more involved in this work.

If you do want to continue with this standard activity, go back up near the top of the page and review the links to the latest sets of draft documents and meeting notes to get an update on the status of this standard working group and see a full set of the latest documents.

Look at upcoming next meeting dates and consider attending if possible. Meetings are open to anyone interested. If you are not the right person to attend the meeting, suggest that someone else from your organization go.

Subscribe to that group's email discussion list in order to stay up-to-date on the activities of any IEEE LTSC working group. At the top of each standard working group page are instructions for joining each discussion list, along with a full set of logs from past discussions.

Check out the links listed in the sidebar of this article.

As you create your learning technology and content strategy, be sure to create a transition strategy that addresses how and at what point you will move from one technology platform to another, one vendor to another, and adopt new technologies and standards as they emerge. How will you ensure that you are able to take as much of your investment of time, money, knowledge and content as possible when transitioning from one of these to the next?

Educate yourself about learning related standards well enough so you can ask vendors and partners about the following:

What level of involvement do they have with the various standards activities? Are they on these working groups? What have they contributed?

What are their plans (if any) for use, adoption, compliance with the accredited standards and the specifications as they emerge?

Ask them to describe how they can assist with your transition strategy.

This is not a disingenuous discussion, but rather a pragmatic acknowledgment of the inevitable moves you will need to make over the coming years.

There are two primary reasons why you should take action now, before the final accredited learning standards from IEEE LTSC and ISO are complete:

The specifications for several of these standards are complete enough to allow you to begin using them today. This is demonstrated by the growing use of these specifications by many of the consortiums and alliances including ADL, IMS, and PROMETEUS.

The real work and time required now is for the preparation that every organization must do to develop their specific strategy and implementation plan. Deciding things such as which metadata elements to use, the content hierarchy for learning objects, articulating the appropriate sequencing for learning interactions and instructional design, require significant effort and must be completed and incorporated within the plans of any organization wishing to gain the benefits these standards enable.

Faculty Guide Line to develop Online Assisted Learning Environment (OALE)
When the Internet is used for education, decisions need to be made about what teaching methodologies might be employed. Traditional teacher-centered courses, courses heavily oriented towards individualized instruction, courses structured around problems and case studies and courses requiring students to learn cooperatively in groups can be designed and used very effectively. A single educational web site, for example, may employ any one or several of these approaches in the courses it offers.

Traditional teacher-centered approaches involves posting course syllabi and reading lists and provide mechanisms for sending email to instructors. Sites oriented for independent learning would provide documentation, manuals, tutorials, and tests for students to use individually. Those using problem-based would provide case materials and/or interactive simulations. Those emphasizing collaborative learning would have bulletin boards, student email list, whiteboards, and chat facilities. The Internet also might be used to have videoconferences between students at various places and allow them to simultaneously share applications online. Lectures and other learning events might be webcast live (like radio and television broadcasts) and then archived so that students can access them later. Many combinations of synchronous and asynchronous Internet communication are possible to create varied learning experiences.

Different Approaches
There are different structures in conducting online courses. According to LTSA (Learning Technology Standard Archetechture) model and David Merill's model of problem based approach, online courses should contain different components for effectiveness, such as multimedia contents (PPT, VIDEO, HTML, PDF, VOICE etc.) and their appropriate delivery schemes, components for task assignments and evaluation including self tests, quizzes, examinations, etc., components for tracking and recording student-performance and status, and for feedback and discussions on each topic or concept (interaction through chat, bulletin boards, email, etc.), and a course specific reading material archive (i.e., a course specific digital library) or alternatively a reference list of material readily available on the web or in the local library. Based on the above considerations the following structure for the web course portal is suggested.


The Course Authoring Pages assist you in the process of creating a new course. Every course has a Course Management System (CMS). CMS helps you to conduct your web-based course in an easy and effective way using our portal. CMS suggests a course development strategy based on principles of sound instructional design.


Looking for pre-developed courseware, software or materials?

Check out these sources...

Smartforce Known initially for its CD ROM course materials, most of its titles are now available through a hosted, online services called MySmartforce.

NetG, an International Thomson subsidiary, produces and hosts online content delivered via the web and available by subscription.Generally considered a direct competitor to the Smartforce product line

RFP Exchange from Thinq Learning Solutions lists vendors who create courses. Providers respond to prospective customers' inquiries with proposals. The service is free to those seeking services. Vendors pay a $495 annual membership plus a commission for transactions.

CourseCompass Pearson Education and netLibrary Inc. of Boulder, Colo., have created e-versions of "hundreds of the world's most popular college-level textbooks".

McGraw-Hill Offers Digital Texts through netLibrary's Metatext - McGraw-Hill Higher Education, a provider of electronic learning solutions for the college market, parters with MetaText, netLibrary's digital textbook division, to develop electronic versions of its college textbooks. McGraw-Hill will make its digital textbooks available through classroom Web sites created with its PageOut course management software, free to professors who use McGraw-Hill materials. Through PageOut, a student can view a professor's instructions and notes, take tests prepared by instructors, and directly link to a MetaText e-textbook and other electronic tools, such as McGraw-Hill's Online Learning Centers, exercises, and links to related Web sites. MetaText will convert about 30 McGraw-Hill market-leading text- books, covering a variety of subject areas and make them available throughout the spring and summer for review and adoption by instructors at colleges and universities throughout the North America.

UNext - In addition to the development of its own online university called Cardean University, UnExt offers bundles of courseware for redistribution.

ThinQ - known more recently for its own learning management system (LMS) software, ThinQ also retails aggregations of professional learning content and proven change management services that help to drive learners to improve performance.

EdHelper - currently have over 1,000 Webquests and 6,200 Lesson Plans including Science, Social Studies, Mathematics and other resources.

SkillSoft.com - provider of "Off the Shelf" courses for Soft Skills and Business Skills(360 US titles @ 2-3.5 hrs per title length plus over 150 localized for UK) and 200 additional titles per year in production. Courses are true web-based content with both Pre-assessments and Mastery Assessments, as well as an Accelerated Path option which allows the student to "test out" of any part of a course that they have already mastered. Doesn't use software browser "plug-ins" which means the courses work well in externally-hosted scenarios. Deployment methodologies allow a user to take a course either docked to a local area network, through a dial-up connection, or they can download and play either part or all of a course. Company also offers a Personalized learning portal (SkillPort) and a Course Customization Toolkit which allows a client to customize our courses to their internal needs or even to create additional content using our Software and ID template.

Education to Go - A hosted service providing predeveloped courses ready for instructor use.

Course Technologies- Offers selected prewritten courses in a variety of formats including formats suitable for Blackboard Courseinfo

Archipelago Productions Archipelago is an educational multimedia publisher, and Harcourt Higher Learning Company, dedicated to bringing quality content and interactive learning to students in asynchronous learning environments. Archipelago Online Courses are delivered in a hybrid "netCD" environment, leveraging both CD-ROM and Internet technologies. The Archipelago / Blackboard Course Cartridges will allow instructors to easily upload Archipelago’s Web-based content modules into Blackboard’s popular online learning platform. Archipelago’s course listings in Blackboard.com, Blackboard CourseInfo and Blackboard Campus includes Principles of Microeconomics, Principles of Macroeconomics, General Chemistry I, and Physics I (calculus-based). All Archipelago course content is fully customizable by instructors. Easy-to-use editing tools allow instructors to reorganize, delete, modify, or create entirely new screens within the Archipelago multimedia lesson environment. Instructors may also add text notes, hyperlinks, and personal audio narration to their multimedia lessons.

Academic.com - Academic Systems Corporation, the higher education division of The Lightspan Partnership, Inc., has focused on meeting the needs of higher education faculty and students since it was founded in 1992. Its first products were interactive, multimedia instructional programs that offer an enhanced learning environment in mathematics and writing for college students in developmental and entry-level courses. Created in concert with educators, Academic Systems’ Interactive Mathematics and Interactive English programs have demonstrated impressive increases in learning and achievement. Academic Systems’ networked courses are offered at more than 250 campuses in 36 states. The new millennium marks the launch of academic.com products and services which enable instructors to easily create a range of online components for a wide variety of courses.Academic.com brings together Academic Systems’ award winning Active Content with Blackboard’s core platform technologies to create a one-stop-shop for eLearning solutions. Faculty can choose from a large menu of Active Content to enhance their courses, giving students supplemental exercises where they need it and freeing faculty to teach their core subject matter. Faculty training helps to make instructors successful users of academic.com while 24/7 technical support keeps all systems running smoothly.

Pearson Education - Pearson Education, through its three major imprints - Prentice Hall, Addison Wesley Longman, and Allyn & Bacon - will offer its online content to over 100 textbooks for use within the popular Blackboard product line. These "course cartridges" contain web-based content and resources such as online study guides, assessment databanks, and lecture resource material. Pearson Education's abundant online content, combined with Blackboard's popular tools and user interface, result in robust web-based courses that are easy to implement, manage, and use - taking your courses to new heights in student interaction and learning. These course management solutions range from enabling you to quickly add an online component to your campus-based course to providing you with a sophisticated technology base for distance learning.