Abstract

Internationally, numerous organizations engage in drawing up the e-Learning specification or standard, such as IMS, IEEE, ISO, ADL, ASTD, etc, which featured with different focuses and characteristics. Their development achievements are approximately divided into five different directions. There are three categories of standards related to content, learner profile and learning environment, and then the management related to quality measurement, to the content, leaner and learning environment. Moreover, the most basic structure is comprised to define the abstract architecture, vocabulary and terminology, etc for e-Learning, training and education systems. In the mean time, all of the nations in the world recognize the importance of e-Learning specification/standard, and thus establish official promotion organizations and provide funds to carry out all kinds of projects and plans related to initialize standard applications, such as Canada's EduSpec and CanCore, Singapore's SINGcore, UK's CETIS, Japan's eLC and ALIC, and China's CELTSC, etc. However, the growing speed and quantity of e-Learning standards is not significant and only the standard which is applied widely and shows its achievements is substantial. In this paper, the existing development of international e-Learning standard/specification and activation among international Standard organizations are discussed. The development achievement of standards and the obstacles encountered in the course of promoting e-Learning are analyzed, and the future development trend and suggestion are presented.

Keyword: e-Learning, Standard and Specification, SCROM
 

1. The Current Development Stage of International E-Learning Standards and Specifications

a. The Positioning among International E-Learning Standard Organizations

Numerous organizations in the world bear relation in drawing up the technology standard or specification of e-Learning. Due to their various roles in the industry, these organizations function differently. Each of them respectively holds a position in such aspects as requirement collection/analysis, drawing of early stage specification documents, function testing and review/verification of final standards, and forms a standard ecology chain.

Many people are confounded with the difference of e-Learning specification and standard; in fact, the specification can be called the ‘proposed standard document of the future’. Generally, the course of developing standard is: firstly, start with collecting requirements, vendors, and professional community to bring some proposes, and then determine which of them should be developed and become new specifications. Afterward, a working group should be established to implement it. The operation flow of a new specification project is comprised of definition, scope confirmation, specification drawing, announced draft, a timeframe for collecting opinions, correcting discussion, issuing formal specification etc. For instance, IMS[1] is a famous organization that studies and draws specify interoperability specifications. After specification issued, some application organizations will verify the practicability and validity of these specifications. If a specification is considered to be valid and popularly accepted by the community, it will be sent to the formal organization of standards to be discussed and reviewed. Finally, it will become an international standard. 

In the e-Learning standard ecology chain, the members of specification consortia, such as IMS, AICC [2], ARIADNE [3] , and other organizations, bring forward the draft of specification. After passing the discussion of the working group and attaining unanimous agreement, all kinds of specifications will be issued to public formally. Yet these specifications should be regularly practiced and tested by the testbed of other organizations, such as CoLab of ADL [4], and its experimental result should also be sent to IEEE [5], ISO [6] and other Standards bodies to reference. These organizations will complete the final decision and issue of standards according to a set of integral and impartial open procedures and they are responsible for the succeeding explanation, maintenance, and review operation of standards.

b. Development Achievements

Numerous organizations among nations devote themselves to specify the e-learning specifications or standards which were featured with different purposes and characteristics. Their development achievements are approximately divided to the five categories: What most important are the three standards related to content, learner profile and learning environment, then are the education management categories of standards associated with the management of content, leaner and learning environment and the measurement of quality. Moreover, the bottom basic structure is also comprised to define the abstract structure, vocabulary, terminology and so on.

Table 1 : e-Learning specifications and standards

Table 1 lists these specifications or standards that are specified or published by all kinds of organization internationally. There are five standards represented in the left-hand side column of Table 1 and the uppermost column represents the organizations of specifying e-Learning standards. At present, the number of specifications in resources category of standards is the biggest and applied in the largest range as well. The CMI in the learning environment category (namely, RTE of SCORM [9]) is also a very popular standard accepted by the community.

2 The Future Development Trend

a. Communication and cooperation will continue among organization very closely

Although there are a great deal of different e-Learning specifications or standard organizations in the world, how delightful it is that all of them work together very closely and apply mutual achievements. For example, the SCORM of ADL is derived from integrating the specifications of three organizations, AICC, IEEE, and IMS. In the future, the close communication and cooperation will continue among organizations. For instance, latterly (2003/7/7-11), alt-i-lab（advanced learning technology interoperability lab）2003 conference [10], held together by IMS and MIT OKI Plan, was newly convoked together by associating with ADL Co-lab, SIF, ALIC[11], PCLC, and European SchoolNet [12], and other international organizations. It is a close conference to discuss the topic of learning technology interoperability with the mode of inviting experts. The vendors, such as Blackboard [13], Sun, Thomson Learning[14], Microsoft, GIUNTI [15], WebCT [16], appointed their representatives to attend the conference.
b. Each organization has a different succeeding research direction according to the learning objectives of various communities.
The specialists and experts in learning technology standards underwent several years of endeavor and they found that different learning communities may require various specifications and standards. The mode of learning, background environment and contents of teaching materials, required by higher education, enterprise’s on-the-job training and military personnel, are different. The college students have focused on the interactive learning environment led by their teachers and the enterprise may lay particular emphasis on the asynchronous mode of self-study and integrating with knowledge management/performance support system. The military may require numerous high-fidelity simulation learning objects. Thus, IMS, OKI, and ADL will have their own future development emphases according to the different requirements of learning communities. IMS will develop in the direction of the learning design and interactive content required by the higher education, and OKI takes the learning system framework as his goal. On the other hand, ADL will take setting the Distributed Learning Environment as its goal. The construction of the learning object repository is still in a period of infancy and is short of mature standards as well as lacks the principles that together abided by the industry, thus we can anticipates that the problem of intellectual property right issues will have to be solved first. IEEE makes great efforts for standardization aiming at the collective requirements of every learning community. For instance, IEEE already established the Digital Right Expression Language standard development item, and expects that it can aid the exchange of the learning objects.

c. Each organization will slow down research and development of new technology specifications, and preferentially considers assisting vendors to apply the existing specifications and standards

     For vendors, schools and teaching material developers to apply the specifications or standards, require guidance and tools assistance, such as application profiles, best practice guidances, conformability testing suites, etc, additional time, efforts and resources are required for the spreading and applying for standards. It is forecasted that, in the future, every organization will slow down research and development of the new technology specifications, and ay its emphasis in assisting vendors and users to adopt the specifications that had been announced. For example, SCORM 1.3 will be finalized in the end of year 2003 or in the early next year that is far later than what ADL has expected.

d. A majority of nations devote themselves firstly to promotion and application of the learning resources category standards, especially for the localization of the learning object metadata and the experiment of the learning object repositories

Most of the nations, such as America, United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, Canada etc, had established relevant organizations to promote E-learning standards. They devote themselves firstly to the promotion and application of the learning resources category of standard and specification, especially the localization of the learning object metadata, such as Singapore's SingCore  [18], CanCore [19] developed by Canada, UK LOM CORE [20] presented by the United Kingdom and applied in its higher education, etc. The other direction is to construct learning object repository. The experiment plan of the learning object repositories not only can train users to form custom for establishing and utilizing metadata, but also can promote the creation, sharing and interchanging of the learning objects. Thus, each nation has planned the learning object repository projects, such as the United Kingdom's JORUM [21] attached to X4L Plan [22], Canada's eduSource [23], Australia's Le@rning Federation [24], etc. In addition to that, every nation pays greater attention to the promotion of the learning object concept. For example, e-Leanring Competency Centre (ECC) in Singapore has held the learning object competition since 2003 in order to encourage people to develop the learning objects.
e. Many countries pay great attention to the application of Learning Technology Standard in higher education. On the contrary, they lack for the discussion on the enterprise applications.

     IMS in U.S. is the most active organization for promoting the e-Learning standard in the whole world. Its Learning Communities still aim at higher education. The e-Learning standard plans which were promoted in Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and China have been sponsored by the Ministry of Education and take the application of higher education as their goals. Their purpose mostly focuses on sharing of the learning object and to reduce total government's investment for learning contents. Currently, the enterprise application is the feeblest in the course of promoting standards. The e-Learning environment in the enterprise application and standards and applications about knowledge management and performance support needs to be addressed in the future

f. Though U.S. is still a leader for establishing the e-Learning specifications in the world, the U.K. keeps the leading position on the IMS specification application

Although U.S. is still a leader of establishing the E-Learning specifications in the whole world, the United Kingdom is an executor of IMS/IEEE specifications and standards. Thus, there are many specifications and relevant experimenting in UK. The latest version of e-Government Interoperability Framework[26], issued by UK in April 2003, has already added many IMS specification into it.
 
3 Obstacles Encountering and Suggestion in the Promotion of E-learning Standard

ADL, after being established in 1997, asserted that the promotion of the e-Learning Standard would drive the snowballing development of the future learning objects. However, this perspective encounters some obstacles on the way to implement it. First of all, it is scarcity of learning objects. To increase the quantity of learning objects rapidly, it is necessary that they quickly spread the methodology of efficiently designing learning objects and the specifications and standards related to the contents of learning. At present, practice experience for creating learning object is lacking. Courseware authoring and design tools, which can not only easily used by ordinary users but also exert SCORM spirit are scant, and there is also a lack of the Learning object repository (LOR) which can present the actual achievements and possesses persuasion. In addition, it is different that each vendor annotates and applies the learning object metadata (LOM) standard [27]. All of them result in the obsession on the learning object exchanging and reusing and the speed that e-Learning standard accepted by the community is far lower than the original optimistic expectations.

Before 2001, most of the suppliers who provided e-Learning platforms, courseware and tools, boosted their products to conform to AICC specifications better. But currently, all of them set SCORM 1.2 or 1.3 compliance as their goal. Some organizations in America, Japan, and Taiwan carry the verification operation of SCORM 1.2 conformance testing for vendors. So far it still cannot show the economic benefit with shortage of courseware, tools ,and platforms that can take real advantages of SCORM spirit and it lacks the relevant decrees involved in digital copyright.

     In order to conquer these obstacles in promoting these standards, it is necessary to provide the guidelines for designing courseware by learning objects, developing ,and integrating tools for developers. Above leads to encourage developers to establish the habit of using metadata. At present, the academic Co-Lab of ADL devotes itself to assist the developers in developing the courseware with the SCORM. (For instance, The SCORM Implementation Guide: A Step by Step Approach on its website[28] is an introduction teaching material for the designer and developer. It is a living document which can be instantaneously added a fresh perspective on the experience of practice and learned from the ADL community as well as updated contents along with the upgrade of SCORM version). According to the Authoring Tools Investigation Report fulfilled by ADL in November of last year (2002) [29], developers can not apply it by themselves because of technology complexity and they need to use the friendly authoring tools to complete the SCORM conformable courseware. However, the defects of authoring tools are as followings:

• Shortage or inconsistency of configuration support of SCORM RTE
• Not metadata created or incorrect metadata created
• Incorrect manifest generated
• No consistent methodology to creating information automatically
• Lacking of the application profile or best practice guide
• Lacking of coincidental and correct SCORM characteristics description in the vendor's documents.

IEEE issued its 1484.12 standard in June 2002, namely Learning Object Metadata (LOM) standard [30]. But, due to its abstract description, complicated structure, each vendor makes its own choice on annotation and application. In the future, the interoperability is still problematic. It is possible that metadata may be created differently in grammar, semantics and technology. At present, since metadata application guide of numerous nations is still in the period of development, if we can negotiate, communicate and exchange our experience, we will increase the circulation and marketing value of the learning objects. In addition, the drawing and promotion of the policy of digital copyright and administrative law and regulations are also involved in the creation and promotion of the Learning Objects presented by vendors, developers ,and authors. Recently, IEEE LTSC [31] started to draw up the Digital Right Expression Language (DREL) standard[32], it still requires a mechanism of laws, regulations ,and transactions it makes the creator of the learning objects profitable to inspire a great number of people with impetus of using the standards, and then activate the transaction market of Learning Objects. Thus, the propaganda of using learning objects and the methodology of designing and achievement of learning objects repository, the standard conformable application profile supporting the authoring tools, the learning object metadata application guide, policy of digital copyright and administrative law and regulations, etc. All of them can be used to serve as the foundation to flourish the e-Learning standard application environment.

4 Conclusion

     Since 1997, every nation in the world has considered started the standards required by e-Learning contents, platforms and environment as an important issue in high education. In 6 years, the specifications and standards related to e-Learning have already increased significantly, and all of them can be divided into five categories: content, learner, learning environment, education management, and basic framework. It is obvious that the development of e-Learning specifications and standards has already had quite a number of achievements. The next step is to make them actually be implemented in the real life cases and proved to be effective and efficient. In fact, the quantity of the E-Learning Standards drawing up is not extremely significant. On the contrary, only the standards that can be largely applied and reveal achievements have real value. Thus, the result of the e-Learning objects repository experiments will be the key factors whether the standard can be accepted by the community. Also, the policy, law and regulations of digital right are very important to the establishment of the learning object digital copyright transaction mechanism. It generates great influence on development of the future knowledge economy and it is important that the government of each nation should determinedly strive for a solution.

5. References

[1] IMS, IMS Global Learning Consortium, available at http://www.imsproject.org/
[2] AICC, Aviation Industry CBT Committee, available at http://www.aicc.org/
[3] ARIADN, Alliance of Remote Instructional Authoring and Distribution Networks for Europe http://ariadne.unil.ch/
[4] ADL, Advanced Distributed Learning, available at http://www.adlnet.org/
[5] IEEE, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
[6] ISO, International Organization for Standardization, available at http://www.iso.org/
[7] ASTD, American Society for Training and Development, available at http://www.astd.org/
[8] SIF, Schools Interoperability Framework, available at http://www.sifinfo.org/
[9] RTE of SCORM, Run Time Environment of Sharable Content Object Reference Model, available at http://www.adlnet.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=scormabt
[10] atl-i-lab 2003 Conference, available at http://www.concentra-cms.com/shop/categories.asp?category_id=103
[11] ALIC, Advanced Learning Infrastructure Consortium (Japan)
[12] http://eunbrux02.eun.org/portal/index-en.cfm
[13] Blackboard, available at http://www.blackboard.com/
[14] Thomson Learning, available at http://www.thomson.com/learning/
[15] Giunti, available at http://www.giuntilabs.com/
[16] WebCT, available at http://www.webct.com/
[17] High Level Architecture, available at http://www.dmso.mil/public/transition/hla/
[18] Singapore SingCore, available at http://www.itsc.org.sg/standards_news/2001-10/SamuelNg-LRI.pdf
[19] Canada CanCore, available at http://www.cancore.ca/
[20] UK LOM CORE, available at http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/education/uklomcore/
[21] UK JORUM, available at http://www.jorum.ac.uk/
[22] UK X4L Plan, available at http://www.x4l.nct.ac.uk/
[23] Canada eduSource, available at http://www.edusource.ca/
[24] Australia Learning Federation, available at http://www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/
[25] Singapore E-Learning Competency Centre, available at http://www.ecc.org.sg/
[26] UK e-Government Interoperability Framework, available at http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/documents/e-GIF4Pt2_2002-04-25.pdf
[27] http://www.adlnet.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=SCORDown
[28] http://www.adlnet.org/adldocs/Documents/SCORM_IG.pdf
[29] ADL Authoring Tools Investigation Report, available at http://www.adlnet.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=rcdetails&libid=559&cfid=336652&cftoken=39503289
[30] IEEE Learning Object Metadata standard, available at http://ltsc.ieee.org/wg12/
[31] IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee, available at http://ltsc.ieee.org/
[32] IEEE Digital Right Expression Language, available at http://xml.coverpages.org/DREL-DraftREL.pdf