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Institutions/Bodies - Overview
The institutions and organizations involved in the standardization of E-learning technologies are varied and often operate internationally.
The main educational standardization bodies are:
- The 36th subcommittee of the joint International Standardization Organization and International Electrotechnical Commission Committee (ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36) was launched in 2000 to cover all aspects related to standardization in the field of learning technologies. Its focus is on interoperability, not only at the technical level, but also taking into account social and cultural issues.
- The CEN Workshop on 'Learning Technologies' (WS/LT) in the European Committee for Standardization (Comité Européen de Normalisation, CEN) deals with educational standardization activities. The main efforts are devoted to reuse and interoperation for educational resources, educational collaboration, metadata for educational contents, and learning process quality, all this having in mind the European cultural diversity. The workshop produces CEN Workshop agreements and collaborates closely with TC353.
- The CEN Technical Committee 353, CEN/TC 353, produces formal European standards for ICT in learning, education and training. It is currently concentrating on a Curriculum Exchange Format, Metadata for Learning Opportunities and European Learner Mobility models.
- The Learning Technologies Standardization Committee (LTSC) from the IEEE covers practically all aspects related to computer-based education. Its main objective is to develop technical standards, recommended practices and guidelines for software components, tools, technologies and design methods to facilitate the development, implementation, maintenance and interoperation of educational systems.
- The Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative was established in 1997 to standardize and modernize training and education management and delivery. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (OUSD P&R) oversees the ADL Initiative. The vision of the ADL Initiative is to provide access to the highest-quality learning and performance aiding that can be tailored to individual needs and delivered cost-effectively, at the right time and in the right place. ADL collaborates with government, industry, and academia to promote international specifications and standards for designing and delivering learning content. Its work is coordinated with other organizations like IEEE, IMS and AICC.
- The Aviation Industry CBT Committee (AICC) is the natural response to the educational standardization challenge from one of the largest users of educational software. The activities of the AICC are targeted, among others, to the definition of software and hardware requirements for student computers, needed peripherals, multimedia formats for course contents, and user interface properties. The AICC also has developed a CMI (LMS) specification that was used by the ADL as the foundation for their SCORM specifications.
- In 1997, the IMS Global Learning Consortiumcame into existence as a project within the National Learning Infrastructure Initiative of EDUCAUSE. IMS GLC creates standards for the development and adoption of technologies that enable high-quality, accessible, and affordable learning experiences. While IMS GLC got its start with a focus on higher education, the specifications published to date as well as ongoing projects address requirements in a wide range of learning contexts, including of course K-12 schools and corporate and government training.
- The Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) Association is a non-profit membership organization whose members include over 2200 software vendors, school districts, state departments of education and other organizations active in primary and secondary (pK-12) markets. These organizations have come together to create a set of rules and definitions which enable software programs from different companies to share information.
- The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) is an open forum engaged in the development of interoperable online metadata standards that support a broad range of purposes and business models. DCMI's activities include consensus-driven working groups, global workshops, conferences, standards liaison, and educational efforts to promote widespread acceptance of metadata standards and practices
Relations among Institutions/Bodies
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These contents have been obtained from the Advanced Distribute Learning (ADL) Initiative official Web site and edited for presentation. Please refer to the Web site for additional information on terms of use
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General
Advanced Distribute Learning Initiative
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The Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative develops and implements learning technologies across the U.S. Department of Defense and federal government. The ADL Initiative collaborates with government, industry, and academia to promote international specifications and standards for designing and delivering learning content. |
Vision
The Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative is a collaborative effort to harness the power of information technologies to deliver high-quality, easily accessible, adaptable, and cost-effective education and training. ADL uses structured and collaborative methods to convene multi-national groups from industry, academia, and government who help to define the specifications and standards for the learning industry and then develop tools and content to those standards.
ADL was established in 1997 to standardize and modernize the delivery of training and education. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (OUSD P&R) oversees the ADL Initiative. The vision of the ADL Initiative is to provide access to the highest-quality learning and performance aiding that can be tailored to individual needs and delivered cost-effectively, anytime and anywhere. |
Strategy
The ADL Initiative’s strategy is to leverage the power of newer technologies by:- Exploiting existing network-based technologies.
- Creating platform-neutral, reusable courseware and content to lower costs.
- Promoting widespread collaboration to satisfy common needs.
- Enhancing performance with emerging and next-generation learning technologies.
- Developing a common framework that drives COTS product cycles.
- Establishing a coordinated implementation process.
- Developing common standards and guidelines.
- Releasing ADL specifications (e.g. SCORM).
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The ADL Initiative can only fulfill its mission by partnering with the Services, Defense agencies, and Federal agencies in collaboration with the private sector and academia.
The ADL Initiative provides leadership to the learning community by:- Implementing guidance for designing and developing efficient, cost-effective, and global distributed learning.
- Encouraging collaboration by demonstrating the practical application and success of learning technologies and methodologies.
- Advancing the state-of-the-art in the science and technology associated with individual and collective education, training, performance-support, and assessment.
- Promoting a coordinated implementation process with incentives for organizational and cultural change.
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Membership
There are no formal membership processes or requirements to become involved with ADL or SCORM. By registering with ADL you can participate in events such as Plugfests, submit articles relating to SCORM, and receive the latest information from ADLNet.gov. |
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These contents have been obtained from the Aviation Industry CBT Committee (AICC) official Web site and edited for presentation. Please refer to the Aviation Industry CBT Committee (AICC) official Web site for additional information on terms of use.
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General
Aviation Industry CBT Committee
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The Aviation Industry CBT (Computer-Based Training) Committee (AICC) is an international association of technology-based training professionals. It was formed out in 1988 of a need for hardware standardization of CBT delivery platforms. The AICC has since branched into several other areas.
The AICC develops guidelines for aviation industry in the development, delivery, and evaluation of CBT and related training technologies. The objectives of the AICC are as follows:
- Assist airplane operators in development of guidelines which 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.
The AICC wants the aviation training community to get the best possible value for its technology-based training dollar. The only way that 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. AICC recommendations are fairly general to most types of computer based training and, for this reason, are widely used outside of the aviation training industry. |
Membership
AICC members are an international group of airplane manufacturers, aviation trainers (military, commercial, and civilian), government/regulatory agencies, computer software vendors, and CBT courseware developers. ADL is one of its members. |
Meetings
The AICC meets three times per year. Two meetings are typically held in North America and one in Europe. The meeting locations are determined by the availability of meeting hosts. Typically an AICC member company will serve as a meeting host. |
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These contents have been obtained from the paper "The European Standardization Body for Learning Technologies" by Frans Van Assche and Mike Collett and edited for presentation. Please contact them for additional information on terms of use.
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European Committee for Standardization
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The CEN Workshop for Learning Technologies was officially launched in February 1999. The initial activity of the Workshop has been the preparation of a report identifying requirements for standards-related activity in relation to learning technologies. This report was published as CEN Workshop Agreement CWA 14040 in October 2000 on which the following objective is based.
The Workshop's objective is to encourage the effective development and use of relevant and appropriate standards for learning technologies for Europe by - Encouraging participation in global initiatives in order to ensure that diverse European requirements are properly addressed by those global initiatives;
- Creating specifications, agreements, guidelines or recommendations where appropriate, i.e. when no initiative addressing the identified requirements is in place yet or when global solutions developed elsewhere need to be localized to European requirements;
- Providing a forum for the development and implementation of requirements-driven Learning Technologies e.g. through the development of a network or test bed for interoperability testing or through the creation of reference examples;
- Carefully examining and taking into account the various effects, of the diversity of cultural backgrounds and languages that exists within Europe, on learning and training technology standards;
- Publicizing the Learning Technologies Workshop's activities and results to relevant European projects, technology developers and end users;
- Providing a discussion forum for European projects and other initiatives.
The workshop on learning technologies is - like other CEN Workshops - an open working group aimed at producing specifications on a consensus basis, as guidance or other material. The Workshop is open to all; it makes use of electronic working methods, enabling participation by companies, organisations and academia without the need for attendance in person at the Workshop meetings.
The CEN Workshops produce CEN Workshop Agreements (CWAs), which are consensus-based specifications drawn up in the special open Workshop environment. They are developed along straightforward lines, with a minimum of bureaucratic rules. CWAs may contain technical specifications, but they may also contain guidance material of a purely informative nature, such as guidelines or codes of practice, or they may address the implementation of existing standards.
A CWA reflects the consensus of identified companies and organisations responsible for its contents. Unlike a European Standard, it does not depend upon the votes of national delegations for its acceptance, nor is it designed to support legislative requirements. Instead, its purpose is to offer interested parties a flexible and timely tool for achieving a technical agreement where there is no prevailing desire or support for a formal standard to be developed. Approved CWAs are however published by CEN National Members (the national standards bodies).CEN Learning Technologies Workshop |
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These contents have been obtained from the CEN/TC 353 Web site and edited for presentation. Please refer to the CEN/TC 353 official Web site for additional information on terms of use.
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European Committee for Standardization
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The European Committee for Standardization (CEN) Technical Board decided in January 2007 to create a new CEN Technical Committee, CEN/TC 353, to work on standards in the field of information and communication technologies relating to learning, education and training. Learning, education and training in Europe relies strongly on the growing use and development of information and communication technologies. Some of the benefits of European standards will be an increase in quality of European e-learning products, services and processes, an increase of interoperability and reduced development costs of e-learning products. |
Scope
The scope of the CEN/TC 353 is to produce standards in the field of information and communication technologies relating to learning, education and training. Particularly, the Technical Committee is focussing on standards for vocabularies, metadata for learning opportunities, learner information and quality.
The European Standards (EN), Technical Specifications (TS) and Technical Reports (TR) that are developed will have a well-defined European scope. These may include:- Development of CWAs and other specifications into standards, if appropriate
- Developmente of national standards into European standards
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Benefits expected from the work of the CEN/TC
Sharing of data, content, tools and services for lerning, education and training can only be achieved when clear technical agreements are made between all parties concerned. The more global this agreement is, the greater the benefit. On the other hand different communities have their own identity, language, and vocabularies which are important to express exactly what is meant. For instance the educational system in North America is differently structured than in Europe and it uses different terminology. Even in Europe great differences exist between different sectors. For example, a thesaurus applicable for vocational education is different from the one for schools. These naturally grown differences make the application of standards more complex and often less effective. In addition vocabularies are created again and again sometimes with differences that are not essential but that inhibit interoperability.
The main benefits of the technical committee are expected to include: - There will be greater consensus amongst National Bodies that provides a consolidated European perspective. This can be supported, for example, by forwarding European specifications and standards to ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36 for international standardization or by undertaking parallel development;
- Increased interoperability across member states between digital learning content, learner related information, management systems to deliver learning and other information technology tools;
- Increased interoperability of European e-learning products with international systems so reducing developments costs and opening potential markets but localised for European stakeholders. This will also have the benefit of increased inclusion;
- Increased quality of European e-learning products, services, processes and methods
- Common multicultural and muiltilingual exchange formats, for example a European well defined data model capable of expressing competency information and associated metrics in a standardized way;
- A common understanding of terms and concepts through the development of vocabularies and frameworks around which software vendors, tool producers and content authors may work in order to provide a greater level of interoperability and application of tools;
- Increased understanding and use of international standards œ for example by providing multilingual guidelines or application profiles of common specifications and standards from ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36 or IEEE LTSC;
- A wider range of national bodies and experts will participate and the audience for any outputs will increase;
- Outputs from CEN/ISSS WS/LT have a place where they can be considered for standardization.
CEN/TC 353 Web Site |
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These contents have been obtained from the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) official Web site and edited for presentation. Please refer to the DCMI official Web site for additional information on terms of use.
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DC Metadata Initiative logo
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The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) is an open organization, incorporated in Singapore as a public, not-for-profit Company limited by Guarantee (registration number 200823602C), engaged in the development of interoperable online metadata standards that support a broad range of purposes and business models. DCMI's activities include work on architecture and modelling, discussions and collaborative work in DCMI Communities and DCMI Task Groups, annual conferences and workshops, standards liaison, and educational efforts to promote widespread acceptance of metadata standards and practices. |
History
DCMI traces its roots to Chicago at the 2nd International World Wide Web Conference, October 1994. Yuri Rubinsky of SoftQuad (who chaired panels regarding the future of HTML and Web authoring tools) along with Stuart Weibel and Eric Miller of OCLC (who were presenting papers about scholarly publishing on the Web and leading discussions on the delivery of Web-based library services) had a hallway conversation with Terry Noreault, then Director of the OCLC Office of Research, and Joseph Hardin, then Director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). This discussion on semantics and the Web revolved around the difficulty of finding resources (difficult even then, with only about 500,000 addressable objects on the Web).
Their initial brainstorming lead to NCSA and OCLC holding a joint workshop to discuss metadata semantics in Dublin, Ohio, March 1995. At this event, called simply the "OCLC/NCSA Metadata Workshop", more than 50 people discussed how a core set of semantics for Web-based resources would be extremely useful for categorizing the Web for easier search and retrieval. They dubbed the result "Dublin Core metadata" based on the location of the workshop. Since that time conferences and workshops have been held in England, Australia, Finland, Germany, Canada, Japan, Italy, and the United States. |
Mission and Scope
The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative provides simple standards to facilitate the finding, sharing and management of information. It is dedicated to promoting the widespread adoption of interoperable metadata standards and developing specialized metadata vocabularies for describing resources that enable more intelligent information discovery systems.
DCMI does this by:
- Developing and maintaining international standards for describing resources
- Supporting a worldwide community of users and developers
- Promoting widespread use of Dublin Core solutions
The major characteristics of DCMI as an organization are (the three ‘I’s):
- Independent: DCMI is not controlled by specific commercial or other interests and is not biased towards specific domains nor does it mandate specific technical solutions
- International: DCMI encourages participation from organizations anywhere in the world, respecting linguistic and cultural differences
- Influenceable: DCMI is an open organization aiming at building consensus among the participating organizations; there are no prerequisites for participation
The development and maintenance of a core set of metadata terms (the DCMI Metadata Terms) continues to be one of the main activities of DCMI. In addition, DCMI is developing guidelines and procedures to help implementers define and describe their usage of Dublin Core metadata in the form of Application Profiles. This work is done in a work structure that provides discussion and cooperation platforms for specific communities (e.g. education, government information, corporate knowledge management) or specific interests (e.g. technical architecture, accessibility). |
Membership
Anyone wishing to participate may do so by simply joining the appropriate mailing list for the activity of interest.
DCMI Members are national or regional organizations that represent stakeholder communities within their region. Members are established on a contractual basis and have rights and responsibilities as designated in a Membership Agreement executed between the Member and DCMI. The Member fee structure and levels are decided by the Board of Directors in consultation with the DCMI Oversight Committee, taking into account economic factors related to the locales covered by Members and the overall budget requirements of DCMI. Fee structure and levels will be regularly reviewed allowing for changes in economic circumstances and budget developments. |
Meetings
As part of its operation, DCMI holds an annual conference and workshop. In conjunction with the annual event, meetings of the DCMI Members, DCMI Oversight Committee, DCMI Usage Board and DCMI Advisory Board take place. |
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These contents have been obtained from the IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee (LTSC) official Web site and edited for presentation. Please refer to the IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee (LTSC) official Web site for additional information on terms of use
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Mission
LTSC
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The Learning Technology Standards Committee (LTSC), formerly P1484, is chartered by the IEEE Computer Society Standards Activity Board to develop accredited technical standards, recommended practices and guides for learning technology. The LTSC coordinates formally and informally with other organizations that produce specifications and standards for similar purposes.
Standards development is done in working groups via a combination of face-to-face meetings, teleconferences, and exchanges on discussion groups. The LTSC is governed by a Sponsor Executive Committee (SEC) consisting of working group chairs and elected officers. The LTSC includes the LTSC Sponsor, the Sponsor Executive Committee, a balloting pool for forming LTSC Sponsor balloting groups, and a set of Working Groups (WGs) and Study Groups (SGs), their officers and a wider group of participants in its activities. |
LTSC Policies and Procedures
The IEEE LTSC Policies and Procedures assure an open, transparent, consensus-driven process for developing accredited learning technology standards. Membership is open to any individual with a material interest in LTSC work. |
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These contents have been obtained from the IMS Global Learning Consortium official Web site and edited for presentation. Please refer to the IMS Global Learning Consortium official Web site for additional information on terms of use.
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Profile
IMS Global Learning Consortium
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The IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS GLC) is a global, nonprofit, member organization that strives to enable the growth and impact of learning technology in the education and corporate learning sectors worldwide. IMS GLC members provide leadership in shaping and growing the learning industry through community development of interoperability and adoption practice standards and recognition of the return on investment from learning and educational technology.
IMS Global is supported by over 135 organizations – the world’s leaders in educational and learning technology, including leading learning technology product suppliers and publishers, leading institutions of learning and training, and leading government and professional consortia. The breakdown of members is 58% leading corporations, 24% leading institutions of learning or school districts, and 18% consortia and/or government organizations. Currently, 47% of member organizations are headquartered outside the United States.
IMS GLC has approved and published some 20 standards that are the most widely used learning technology standards in the world. Widely-used IMS GLC standards include meta-data, content packaging, common cartridge, enterprise services, question & test, sequencing, competencies, access for all, ePortfolio, learner information, tools interoperability, resource list, sharable state persistence, vocabulary definition, and learning design. These standards have been used widely in higher education, K-12 education, and corporate training in regions around the globe. All IMS GLC standards are available free of charge via the IMS GLC web site and can be used without royalty.
Much of the investment in IMS GLC comes from the global higher education segment. In the decade or so since the rise in the use of the Internet to support learning, higher education has emerged as the segment that is leading in research and development expenditures in learning and learning technologies. However, in recent years IMS GLC is seeing greater support and participation from the K-12 and corporate training segments. The IMS GLC Board of Directors are committed to supporting lifelong learning across all segments. |
Mission
The IMS Global Learning Consortium creates standards for the development and adoption of technologies that enable high-quality, accessible, and affordable learning experiences. IMS GLC is now enabling the next generation of Digital Learning Services, combining new forms of digital content, assessment, applications, and administrative services. |
Specification Development Process
IMS GLC has undertaken a broad scope of work. IMS GLC gathers requirements through meetings, focus groups, and other sources around the globe to establish the critical aspects of interoperability in the learning markets. Based on these requirements, IMS GLC develops draft specifications outlining the way software must be built in order to meet the requirements. In all cases, the specifications are being developed to support international needs. Once the specifications are finalized internally and have been proven tested through interoperability trials that usually involve both Contributing Members and Affiliates participants, the draft specification is formally approved by the IMS Technical Board and then released to the public. IMS GLC specifications are made to the general public, regardless of whether or not they are members of IMS GLC, once the technical board approves their release. IMS GLC also submits to standards accrediting groups in order to contribute to the recognition and adoption of a world-wide base of technical standards for distributed learning. |
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These contents have been obtained from the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36 web site and edited for presentation. Please refer to the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36 web site for additional information on terms of use.
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ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36 logo
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The SC36 is the Subcommittee on Information Technology for Learning, Education and Training (ITLET). It was established by the ISO/IEC JTC 1 Information Technology in March, 2000 in London (UK). |
Scope
The scope of the SC 36 is the standardization in the field of information technologies for learning, education and training to support individuals, groups or organizations and to enable interoperability and reusability of resources and tools. It is excluded the creation of standards and technical reports that define educational standards, cultural conventions, learning objectives or specific learning content. In addition, the standards and reports of this SC will not duplicate work done by ISO or IEC TCs, SCs or WGs with respect their component, specialty or domain. Instead, when appropriate, normative or informative references to other standars shall be included. Examples include documents on specialty topics such as multimedia, web content, cultural adaptation and security. |
Vision
The vision of the SC36 is "A unified set of IT standards widely accepted by the intended class of users in the Learning Education and Training Market " |
Purpose
The purpose of the SC36 is:
- Provide quality IT LET standards that meet stakeholder needs.
- Promote the use of IT LET standards produced by providing supporting materials.
- Provide leadership in IT LET standardization through:
- The development of a comprehensive set of integrated standards with broad international and professional consensus;
- Initiating cooperative work with international professional and standards producing organizations;
- A framework that:
- Facilitates the integration of standards developed in other standards producing organizations;
- Facilitates cooperation in the development of standards produced in SC36 and in other international standards producing organizations;
- Minimizes the inconsistencies between related standards including those developed by other standard producing organizations.
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Meetings
SC36 holds plenary meetings every 6 months in the months of March and September. They are open to delegates from National Bodies and Liaison organisations. |
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These contents have been obtained from the SIF official Web site and edited for presentation. Please refer to the SIF official Web site for additional information on terms of use.
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SIF Association
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The Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) Association is a non-profit membership organization whose members include over 2200 software vendors, school districts, state departments of education and other organizations active in primary and secondary (pK-12) markets. These organizations have come together to create a set of rules and definitions which enable software programs from different companies to share information. This set of platform-independent, vendor-neutral rules and definitions is called the SIF Implementation Specification. The SIF Specification makes it possible for programs within a school or district to share data without any additional programming and without requiring each vendor to learn and support the intricacies of other vendors’ applications. |
General Information
This section includes references to the Official National Standardization Bodies that are participating in the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36. |
| This category includes organizations and initiatives working on e-learning standardization, but whose main purpose is not to produce standards. These groups are typically focused on specific topics and they usually contribute to the development or adoption of related standards. |
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