White paper

Standards in e-learning

"For those who need to understand the nuts and bolts of e-learning models, there is an excellent paper on standards available on the Epic website."
People Management

'This is SCORM-compliant, of course?' 'Er, up to a point…'

'For those who need to understand the nuts and bolts of e-learning models, there is an excellent paper on standards available on the Epic website.'

Sam Tulip - People Management (20 February 2003)

The theory is that standards are supposed to make life easier. They are designed to ensure interoperability and reusability of content; in other words, to free online learning content from the constraints of having to run on a particular system and to make the various bits of an e-learning architecture work happily together.

However, anyone who has engaged at a hands-on level with the task of making e-learning products standards-compliant will know that the issues around standards are far from simple.

For a start, standards are not always what they seem. The term 'standards' is an umbrella term for a range of guidelines, specifications, certifications and accreditations. Standards and the bodies that produce them are heavily influenced by unpredictable factors such as market forces and the often arbitrary-seeming policy decisions of various governments. Plus, the very pace of technological development means that they are constantly under threat of obsolescence.

The upshot of all this is that we are currently in a position, with the e-learning market at an early stage of evolution, where standards in online learning are, basically, up for grabs.

This thoughtful and detailed white paper is by Donald Clark and Andrew Hooley of Epic. It describes the current state of play in the development of standards for e-learning, profiles the important standards bodies and the standards they administer - and gives specific, practical information for negotiating the minefield that is e-learning standards.

White Paper: Standards in e-learning

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Summary of contents:

• Summary
• Overview
  • Overview
  • Levels of AICC compliance
  • Courses structure files - reusable content
  • Methods of AICC communications between an LMS and content
  • AICC_Data
• IMS
  • Overview
  • Meta-data
  • Enterprise
  • Content Packaging
  • Question & Test Interoperability
• SCORM
  • OverviewContent aggregation model
  • Run-Time Environment
  • SCORM Data Model
• IEEE
  • Overview
• Conclusion

See also:
Other white papers