Standard learning

Citation

(2000), "Standard learning", Work Study, Vol. 49 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/ws.2000.07949faf.004

Standard learning

Standard learning

Keywords Learning, Information technology

The IMS (Instructional Management System) Global Learning Consortium, Inc. has reached a major milestone in its program to deliver open specifications for the technical building blocks of online learning. At its quarterly technical board meeting, held at the Fraunhofer Institute in Darmstadt, Germany, Version 1.0 of the IMS Content Packaging Specification and the IMS Question and Test Interoperability Specification, as well as Version 1.1 of the IMS Learning Resources Meta-data Specification were approved unanimously. These releases continue IMS' string of successes in delivering industry-wide agreements on open, implementable specifications to serve the fast-growing online learning market.

"These specifications, together with enthusiastic support from our members for new initiatives in content management and learner information profiles, signify fundamental consensus on important building blocks for online learning resources and services", said Ed Walker, chief executive officer for IMS. "This milestone also marks an emerging desire for collaboration within the online learning community. IMS itself is an international coalition of over 225 educational institutions, training organisations, technology vendors, and government agencies. And the IMS Specifications Working Groups worked closely with other organisations developing and adopting standards. Learning technology vendors, developers and users of content, and providers of traditional and innovative learning services can now depend on solid interoperability and reusability in a variety of use environments."

Steve Griffin, an IMS founder and now vice president and chief technology officer of Eduprise, an e-learning professional services company and ASP, commented, "The e-learning standards picture is becoming a reality. IMS's consistent, on-schedule delivery of broadly supported, easy-to-use specifications provides great confidence and value to the e-learning community. Solutions based on the specifications save customers money and reduce technical risks as the e-learning market continues to evolve. We look forward to contributing with our technology partners to the next set of IMS specification priorities."

Brian Hawkins, president of EDUCAUSE, an association based in the USA that focuses on transforming education through information technologies, whose members include over 1,700 institutions of higher education, said, "The IMS specifications benefit higher education at all levels of the institution. Those with campus-wide responsibility for information systems are looking for standards that satisfy enterprise-level requirements, as well as support the functionality that course developers and learners need. IMS comprehensive approach and focus on infrastructure are what's needed to complement innovation by educators and trainers.

"The IMS Content Packaging specification enables us to define course content and deliver it using a standard XML-based descriptor", said Robert Stewart, general manager of Microsoft Training and Certification. "This is powerful for our channel partners, who now have a published method of managing and customising online learning content from multiple vendors in addition to Microsoft. By integrating online learning content from multiple sources, customers can now utilise training solutions tailored toward their specific business needs and objectives within their time and budget constraints. This is a positive step forward and we are committed to helping make eLearning easier to implement by supporting content standards such as IMS."

"Interoperable online education products will help education and training organisations deliver anytime, anywhere learning opportunities", stated Bill Richardson, vice president of Sun Educational Services. "Sun is pleased to be a part of this effort and will continue to work with the IMS community to foster the definition of open standards to enable the benefits of a network services model of computing in the eLearning space."

Paul Jesukiewicz, director of the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Co-Laboratory sponsored by the US Department of Defence, Department of Labour, and the National Guard Bureau, remarked, "We are very pleased to be collaborating with IMS toward a convergence of Web-based technical standards. The ADL Co-Laboratory's groundbreaking Sharable Courseware Object Reference Model (SCORM) incorporates the IMS meta-data specification. IMS's recent adoption of the AICC/SCORM API in the Content Packaging Specification will enable learning content to be sharable and represents a strong consensus across multiple communities. ADL is looking forward to continuing its collaboration with IMS and incorporating other parts of their work in the near future."

The IMS staff and membership is particularly grateful to Chris Moffatt of Microsoft and Bill Young of Sun Microsystems for co-leading the working group for the IMS Content Packaging specification, and to Eric Shepherd of QuestionMark Computing Ltd, Russell Almond of ETS, and Colin Smythe of Dunelm Services Ltd for their leadership of the team working on the IMS Question and Test Interoperability specification. The IMS Meta-data specification has evolved from a long-running international collaboration among European and US standards development groups.

All specifications developed by IMS are available free of charge through the IMS Web site.

The IMS Global Learning Consortium is supported through membership fees from a growing coalition that currently includes over 30 contributing members and over 200 developers network members. To join IMS or obtain further information please visit the IMS Web site, http://www.imsproject.org