Standards for Learning Objects and Learning Designs

Introduction

Opinions vary regarding the importance and relevance of e-learning standards for learning objects and learning designs. Some view standards as nothing more than buzz words, and have difficulty seeing the relevance to K-12 and tertiary education of standards that have, so far, been used to support a limited range of pedagogical models in commercial and military training contexts. Others consider standards to be pivotal in facilitating sharing, reuse, and interoperability of resources across all training and education sectors. Whatever your opinion, it is clear that standards are difficult to avoid.

So, what are the most commonly used e-learning standards and why have standards become so important? How do standards benefit instructors, education providers and students? Should “standards compliant” e-learning be the “Holy Grail” for the e-learning developer? How should one select the “correct” standard(s) from the plethora available? How much time and effort does the designer or educator need to invest in order to apply e-learning standards correctly? This chapter examines standards related issues relevant to current and future development of learning objects and learning designs. It aims to provide both the novice and more experienced standards implementer with a wide-ranging overview of e-learning standards by:

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  Outlining the history and evolution of standards, in which we consider the rationale for the development and application of standards, provide definitions of the most prevailing standards, and outline the evolutionary process behind each one. Standards are categorised as part of this process.

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  Detailing, with the aid of case studies, the present use of standards in a variety of education and training contexts.

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  Explaining how the various standards are applied by offering practical advice for practitioners involved in selecting and deploying standards.

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  Outlining recommendations for the future directions of standards. In particular, we examine some of the limitations and criticisms of current standards and discuss the applicability of today’s standards in future e-learning contexts in which a wider range of technologies and pedagogical approaches are likely to be employed.

Evolution Of Standards

E-learning standards originated in the military and commercial training domains in the early 1990s, in order to allow learning objects produced by different vendors to operate on different technical platforms. More recently there has been interest in the possibilities offered by e-learning standards for enabling the sharing and reuse of learning objects and designs in K-12 and tertiary education contexts.

Today’s e-learning standards typically strive towards achieving economies of scale, by facilitating the reuse of e-learning content and activities in different education and training domains, subject areas, and geographical regions. The allure of cost savings and efficiency gains has resulted in a number of countries investing in organisations responsible for the promotion of e-learning standards, for example the UK’s Centre for Educational Technology Interoperability Standards (CETIS) and Canada’s EduSpec initiative.

Standards apply not only to learning objects and designs, but also to learning management systems (LMSs) or Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs). Compatibility must be present such that content and designs conformant to a particular specification or standard can interoperate with an LMS that also conforms to the standard. This interoperability is of great importance for the sharing of resources and materials, allowing, for example, an organisation to “mix and match” content developed by a range of vendors with resources developed in-house and deliver these via a common LMS. A standard may also describe how units of learning material should be compiled as single file. Such file formats allow content to be easily migrated from one LMS to another.