21/3/2007 - SIMPLE TEXT FILE OF ARTICLE BY KEVIN DONOVAN, 
AN EDITED VERSION OF WHICH WILL APPEAR, WITH PHOTOS, IN 
THE ALT NEWSLETTER AT HTTP://NEWSLETTER.ALT.AC.UK/ IN APRIL 2007.


Summary:
The Global 2007 conference was held in London on 19th March. 
Sponsored by the DfES and ADL (Advanced Distributed Learning – 
the organisation responsible for SCORM), and with support from 
all the key interoperability standards organisations, the event 
was held to discuss good practice relating to the use of technology 
in “learning, education and training”. But more importantly it was 
the start of the process by which the stewardship of SCORM is 
transferred from the US Department of Defence (which 

manages ADL) to a new body. 

………………………………………………………………………………….

24 Hours to secure collaboration on interoperability 
Global Governance of Standards for E-Learning

"Jack: you might just be able to bring order to the chaos of
e-learning standards.” “Sorry, Mr President, those Europeans and 
Asians and Africans and Latin Americans will need to take on the 
mantle of interoperability. I have to rescue my daughter from evil-doers."

The Global 2007 conference was held in London on 19th March. 
Sponsored by the DfES and ADL (Advanced Distributed Learning – 
the organisation responsible for SCORM), and with support from all 
the key interoperability standards organisations, the event was held 
to discuss good practice relating to the use of technology in “learning, 
education and training”. But more importantly it was the start of the 
process by which the stewardship of SCORM is transferred from the US 
Department of Defence (which manages ADL) to a new body. 

SCORM stands for sharable content object reference model and is a 
key piece in what is a jigsaw of interoperability standards 
specifications developed in the past ten years in the attempt to 
make e-learning resources and approaches open to greater collaboration 
and functionality for technologists and – more crucially – for practitioners. 
Perhaps the most powerful illustration of this at the conference was an 
animation produced by JISC. This showed how standards-based service 
oriented architectures can allow a wide disparity of educational information
and data to be shared and used effectively when passed through some 
intermediary and translated into an interoperable form. The aspiration 
throughout the day was that standards need to be neutral (in terms of pedagogy) 
but flexible and adaptable according to circumstances.

Many dimensions of the standards issue were covered in workshops and by a 
variety of speakers, including Diana Laurillard from the Institute of 
Education/London Knowledge Lab and formerly responsible for the Harnessing 
Technology e-strategy. As well as leading a panel on how standards makers and 
educationalists should collaborate, Diana gave a keynote presentation. She 
noted that educational design needs to be precise about its pedagogy, 
processes and requirements if it is to exploit interoperability, and 
gave the example of a JISC project using LAMS (Learning Activity Management 
System) as a useful case in support of this.

Abdul Waheed Khan from UNESCO outlined succinctly why e-standards are so 
necessary and the barriers to progress, including the lack of learning 
object interoperability and standards for content repository infrastructures. 
E-learning architectures had grown organically and there was no simple 
system for conformance and compliance testing. By way of illustration 
he noted the various actions which are following on from UNESCO’s World
Summits on the Information Society and the specific example of the 
UNESCO ICT competency standards for teachers. He linked this to the fact 
that there will soon be 30 million untrained teachers in the developing 
world: technology represents the only effective form of training, and 
technology will be key to global educational delivery. 

As well as flagging up the LETSI changes, Robert Wisher from ADL 
discussed issues of control for the new body and the need to make it 
“learner-centric”. He noted that were now 250 self-tested SCORM 
compliant products (including 140 learning management systems). 
He also invited those present to add to ADL’s database on the impact 
of e-learning research.

The first panel, with speakers from ISO/IEC, IMS Global, Microsoft UK and 
Ariadne, discussed global governance of interoperability. The common thread 
was the inter-connection of design and engineering. This meant a tension 
(although at times creative) between teachers (who “don’t need to know that 
they are using SCORM”) and the design of learning, and technologists (who, 
for example, like the iterative process of versioning but thereby undermine 
continuing interoperability). This led to the unusual but useful metaphor 
that standards are like sewage systems: we become familiar with them when 
there is a problem. Standards hide what were called “silly problems”. 

The only tension came in the fine disagreement about the impact on 
standardisation of the so-called market; whilst one speaker maintained 
that “market-driven standards win the day”, others were less sanguine 
that a market produces progressive change without the hand of governments 
and agencies. For example, in the next panel, the Becta representative 
noted that the wholesale introduction of broadband in schools had required 
government support. The irony was pointed out of the recent demise of 
BBC Jam in the face of complaints from private companies: the BBC 
had adopted SCORM wholesale and successfully and had led the way 
and set an example to others.

Speakers in the second panel session showed how SCORM has been incorporated into 
e-learning development in Francophone Africa, Japan, and South Korea. Their 
case studies showed variously how interoperability of e-learning platforms 
and resources based on SCORM dealt with linguistic and cultural differences, 
with trans-continental collaboration, as well as learning via mobile phones and 
at home. This last example – from South Korea – showed how the standard had been 
improved for more flexible use and claimed major cost savings in content development 
and tutoring. Paul Shoesmith from Becta argued that more focus was needed on the 
learner (including by providing an “on-line personalised learning space”) and that 
Becta’s procurement framework had been aided by the incorporation of SCORM.

The six workshops included "education and standards makers' collaboration", with 
Diana Laurillard and Larry Fruth from the Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) 
Association. This is based in the USA but has Becta as a member. Larry described 
how SIF had begun with a focus on student information data but had expanded its 
coverage and was developing interoperability links to other standards and other 
resources. Adam Horvath from Hungary claimed that interoperability was vital to 
create and support a European market lead in e-learning and to rival the USA. He 
noted that the main barriers to progress concerned accreditation and information 
about cost-benefits. After a presentation about the ADL (advanced distributed 
learning) community, Lorna Campbell from JISC-CETIS looked for a strategy for 
end-user engagement and this occupied the subsequent discussion.

Mark Cummings was the final keynote speaker from DfES, whose new information 
standards board is promulgating system-wide governance for standards in DfES 
domains.

The next weeks and months will show how far the rest of world has succeeded 
in adopting the governance of standards from the special relationship with 
the USA and whether Jack can relax for more than 24 hours. And all will no 
doubt continue to look for the perfect sewage system for teachers and students.

Kevin Donovan
Consultant
kevin@kevindonovan.co.uk