Standard

Definition

• The goal of standardization is to improve efficiency of actions and interactions.

There are various degrees of technical standards:

1. "Real standards" of very high formal quality adopted by bodies such as ISO, IEE, IEC, ITU, etc.
2. Standards like the W3C "Recommendations" or the IETF "Requests for Comments" (RFCs) or the OASIS document standards.
3. De facto standards (usually no formalization at all) like Microsoft products.

• Standards can be open or propriety. Open means publicly available, not necessarily free.

Standards in educational technology

See also educational modeling language that deals in more depth with the question of modeling learning materials and activities

Pedagogical standards

There are no real general standards, but the closet things are

• Rather formal Instructional design methods like MISA who do make a few minimal assuptions about good pedagogy
• Data standards like IMS Learning Design or IMS Simple Sequencing do rely or support some classes of instructional design models. Even IMS Content Packaging default organisation section can be considered a pedagogical standard if one considers that "shovelware" or "page turners" are a standard pedagogical design ;)

• In some countries there are quite precise curricula standards, e.g.
  • American Association for the Advancement of Science’s (AAAS, 1993) Benchmarks for Science Literacy
  • National Research Council’s (NRC, 1996) National Science Education Standards,

Pedagogical data standards

• IMS Content Packaging, a standard for assembly of resources, metadata and sequencing information into a learning object
• IEEE Learning Object Metadata Standard (LOM), a standard to describe artifacts
• IMS Learning Design and IMS Simple Sequencing, to describe pedagogical scenarios
• IMS Question and Test Interoperability (QTI), a test and testing data standard
• There are more IMS Global Learning Consortium standards, e.g. some related to student data.
• The SCORM 1.2 profile extends IMS Content Packaging with more sophisticated sequencing and Contents-to-LMS communication
• The SCORM 2004 profile includes IMS Simple Sequencing

Systems standards

• The SCORM specifications define some java-script bindings to insure interroperability of simple interactive contents (that is BTW one of the areas where a lot of systems are not Scorm compatible, even if they claim so ...)
• IMS General Web Services to allow for interoperability of various systems. This is a fairly new standard (Jan 2006) and is an interesting initiative.

Overview table standardized learning objects

The following overview table attempts to provide a summary of the most common specifications and standards used to define learning objects, mostly things that one could put inside an IMS Content Packaging. For more information you'd have to click on various links ...

this table needs some additions and fixes. Please don't fully trust this, I am just trying to summarize information and by no means I feel passionate about e-learning standards - DSchneider 12:39, 21 December 2006 (MET)

Name	Version	Description	Status	Origin	Standards Body	Part of / adopted by	Integrates with
Comments/ explanations	Not all are shown	Contents are more or less copied from relevant web sites	Is it really used ? and where	Who worked on the spec.	Who is the final authority	Is it part of a collection / profile ?	Can it contain others or is it containable ?
Content Packaging (overall structure of a reusable learning object, e.g. metadata, resources and minimal sequencing)
IMS Content Packaging (CP)	1.1.2 (8/2001)	The IMS Content Packaging Specification provides the functionality to describe and package learning materials, such as an individual course or a collection of courses, into interoperable, distributable packages. Content Packaging addresses the description, structure, and location of online learning materials and the definition of some particular content types. IMS CP can be extented		Ariadne and others	IMS	SCORM 1.2	Can contain: IMS Learning Resource Meta Data (almost IEEE LOM)
	1.1.3 (7/2003)	Minor change of 1.1.2		IMS	IMS
	1.1.4 (2004)	A maintenance release of 1.1.2 (17 precisions meaning that badly written 1.1.3 files should be fixed)	Imports in most LMS (if it can handle the organizations part ...)	IMS	IMS	SCORM 1.4	Can contain: IEEE LOM IMS LD IMS SS IMS QTI Is extended by the SCORM CAM Model
Content / Course Structure models (these include content packaging + specifications for more sophisticated resources & sequences)
AICC Course Structure Format		(see below)		AICC	AICC
SCORM Content Structure Format (CSF)			This format is deprecated (replaced by IMS CP + Scorm CAM extensions that integrate CFS functionality)	AICC	ADL	SCORM 1.1
SCORM Sharable Content Objects (SCOs)		A single launchable resource that can communicate with an LMS using the SCORM RTE. Scorm opposes SCO to assets (i.e. simple electronic representations of media, such as text, images, sound, web pages or other pieces of data that can be delivered using web technologies.)				SCORM 1.2 SCORM 2004
SCORM Content Aggregation Model (CAM)	SCORM 1.2	The CAM specifies how you should package your content so that it can be imported into an LMS (Assembling, labeling and packaging of learning content)			ADL	SCORM 1.2	IMS CP IEEE LOM SCORM CP extensions (assets vs. SCOs, Sequencing and navigation info)
	SCORM 2004				ADL	SCORM 2004	IMS CP IEEE LOM SCORM CP extensions
Meta Data (description of an overall learning object or parts of it)
IMS Meta-Data (MD)	1.2 (2001) 1.2.1 (2001) 1.2.2 (draft) 1.2.4 (2001)	Outdated now, but older "profiles" require one of these versions. Differences among subversions are minor		Elements from Ariadne, Dublin Core, AICC	IMS
Learning Object Metadata Standard (LOM)	IEEE Std 1484.12.1 - 2002 (IMS 1.3)	A slightly cleaned up version of IMS Meta Data 1.2	Part of Content Profiles; Used by some learning object repository	IMS	IEEE	IMS Meta-Data 1.3; SCORM 1.2 SCORM 2004; Many repositories	Usually part of an IMS CP (or extensions)
Dublin Core			Very popular with digital library, e.g. DSPACE
Pedagogical contents and activities (see Educational modelling languages)
IMS Content Packaging (CP) (default organization)		By default, IMS CP allows to define a tree-based organization of learning items. Each item can refer to resources (assets) that the learner can access through a player (lms).				SCORM 1.2 SCORM 2004	Part of: IMS CP 1.1.x
IMS Simple Sequencing (SS)
IMS Learning Design (LD)
IMS Question and Test Interoperability (QTI)	1.2 1.2 Lite 1.2.1	The IMS Question & Test Interoperability (QTI) specification describes a data model for the representation of question (assessmentItem) and test (assessmentTest) data and their corresponding results reports					IMS CP
	2.0 2.1	This version adds many features.					IMS CP IMS LD IMS SS SCORM 2004
Run-Time environment specifications and data models
Scorm Run-Time Environment (RTE)	1.3 1.3.1	The RTE specifies how content should behave once it has been launched by the LMS. Includes: API, API Instance, Launch, Session methods, Data Transfer Methods, Support Methods, Temporal Model, Run-Time Data Model.			ADL	SCORM 1.2
	1.0 (more recent !)					SCORM 2004
Scorm Sequencing and Navigation (SN)	1.3 1.3.1	Activity Tree, Learning Activities, Sequencing Information, Navigation Information, Navigation Data Model. See also: The SCORM CAM				SCORM 2004 1st/2nd (Scorm 1.3)	IMS SS Sequencing Rules and Behaviors
	1.0					SCORM 2004 3rd ed.
AICC CMI Data Model		This data model makes sure that a defined set of information about SCOs can be tracked by different LMS environments			AICC (also IEEE?)	SCORM 1.2 (RTE); AICC Computer Managed Instruction (CMI)
IEEE ECMAScript Application Programming Interface for Content to Runtime Services Communication					IEEE	SCORM 2004
IEEE Data Model For Content Object Communication					IEEE	SCORM 2004
Profiles (collections of one or more specifications / standards)
AICC Computer Managed Instruction (CMI) specifications							Contains: ICC Course Structure Format; AICC CMI Data Model;
SCORM Content Aggregation Model (CAM)		The CAM specifies how you should package your content so that it can be imported into an LMS			ADL	SCORM 1.2	IMS CP IMS MD SCORM CP extensions
SCORM	1.0		Rarely used		ADL
	1.1		Not well supported (most systems support 1.2)		ADL
	1.2		This is still the most popular profile (2006)On dec 18 2006, there were 71 certified systems.	Elements from IMS, AICC, ARIADNE, IEEE LTSC	ADL		IMS CP IMS MD SCORM RTE SCORM CAM
	2004 1st & 2nd edition (alias SCORM 1.3 / 1.3.1)						IEEE LOM IMS CP Sequencing and Navigation SN (includes IMS SS) SCORM Conttent Aggregation Model (CAM)
	2004 (1st, 2nd, 3rd edition)		On dec 18, 2006 there were 32 certified products, but no major players.		ADL		IEEE LOM IMS CP Sequencing and Navigation SN (includes IMS SS) IEEE ECMAScript API IEEE Data Model for Content Object Communication

Some technical standards of interest

There are various standardization bodies and procedures:

• For the moment, see the Wikipedia:Internet standard entry for details

Standardization bodies

This is a list of bodies that create "real" or "de facto" standards

In education

• IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee
• IMS Global Learning Consortium
• IMS Global Learning Consortium
• ADL - Advanced Distributed Learning (SCORM)
• AICC - Aviation Industry CBT Committee
• ARIADNE - Alliance of Remote Instructional Authoring and Distribution Networks for Europe

Specialized ICT

• W3C - World Wide Web Consortium (Web standards)

• OASIS

• The Internet Engineering Task Force (part of the Internet Society

• RFC - Requests for comments (Informal Internet standards, sometimes standardized by an "official body" sometimes not. The most important source for Internet standards.)

General

(including ICT standards)

• ISO - International Organization of Standardization (many very formal ICT standards).

• CEN - European Committe for Standardization ,featuring a not standards-compliant webpage ;)

• ECMA (e.g. JavaScript)

• NIST US National Institute of Standards and Technology

Links

• Webstandards.org, a grassroots organization promoting use of standards

• CETIS - the centre for educational technology interoperability standards A British consortium that is the best overall resource on standards related to our field.

• Resource-Base - Standards, Architectures and Open Source in Education. Large index (backended with delious so get nice tag clouds).

References

(see also the entries for various standards !)

• AICC/CMI CMI001 Guidelines for Interoperability Version 3.4. October 23, 2000. Includes: AICC Course Structure Format, AICC CMI Data Model, Available at: http://www.aicc.org/.

• IMS Content Packaging Specification Version 1.1.2, Available at: http://www.imsglobal.org/

• IMS Learning Resource Meta-data Specification Version 1.2. Includes: IMS Learning Resource Meta-data Information Model, IMS Learning Resource Meta-data XML Binding Specification, and IMS Learning Resource Meta-data Best Practice and Implementation Guide. Available at: http://www.imsglobal.org

• IEEE Information Technology - Learning Technology - Learning Objects Metadata LOM: Available at: http://ltsc.ieee.org/.

• Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL), Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM)® 2004 3rd Edition, Available at: http://www.adlnet.gov/