Educators and educational technologists have always grappled with the challenges of deploying content to learners. The proliferation of web-based learning content management systems has enhanced solution offerings to address deployment challenges but also introduced new complexities associated with proprietary platforms and standards. In recent years protocols have both matured and emerged which promise a standard way to represent digital course materials across multiple online learning system platforms. This entry explores the challenges inherent in deploying content across these platforms, the issues inherent in past and evolving solutions such as SCORM, and the promise of a new format -- the IMS Global Learning Consortium's Common Cartridge standard.
The Problem
The problem posed by learning content that is NOT portable between learning management systems can be illustrated by the challenge we face here at Harvard Business Publishing (HBP). We distribute online courses developed at Harvard Business School (HBS) -- an example is our Quantitative Methods course. These courses are provided on a proprietary course management platform. When HBP customers use the course it is being served up via that proprietary platform.
But these customers -- business school faculty and students -- are themselves usually linking into these courses from their own learning management systems (LMS), course management systems (CMS) or other virtual learning environments (VLE). Let's say that the customer school is using the Blackboard VLE. And to complicate matters further, HBP had traditionally required cutsomers to access courses like Quantitative Methods by first logging into an additional LMS platform. So the architectural path for the learner from a platform perspective requires passing from Blackboard --> HBP LMS --> HBS proprietary platform. More specifically, the content is not interoperable between the platforms used to access and administer the content.
This is an issue not only from an annoyance perspective -- the fact that single-sign-on (SSO) is not maintained (meaning the student would ideally just log into Blackboard and not have to log into any additional/subsequent platforms). The larger issue is that by welding the content and performance/tracking data to the platform, in this case the HBS proprietary platform, we ultimately deny the customer (faculty member) from being able to integrate the performance/tracking data from the HBS course within the larger context of their VLE. So for our faculty customers it means that in order to assess how their students perform on the HBS Quantitative Methods course they need to log onto a proprietary platform -- they cannot view that data within Blackboard's native Gradebook, etc. The learning experience as well as the administrative interface/data is hence silo'd from the learner/administrator VLE.
Now imagine we wanted to bundles ancillary content and learning experiences as part of a larger learning solution. We might want to add a course wiki, or a discussion board. Under the current model that would mean hosting each of those items separately -- again, silo'ing the experiences, welding content to platform and thereby segregating the students' performance and tracking data on those platforms away from the central repository of their school's VLE platform.
Past Solutions - Proprietary Formats
There have been attempts to rectify this issue in the past but the solutions were fraught with their own challenges. One predictable response was for VLE providers like Blackboard to try and increase the scope of their own proprietary systems. They did this by working with content provider partners and developing proprietary standards that worked within their own systems. Blackboard's Course Cartridge format is a good example of this -- develop a proprietary configuration spec for publishers to produce content that works natively on the BB system. By locking the content to that format (that's how content becomes "welded" to a single platform) and expanding the catalog of providers adhering to that format, Blackboard hopes to have its proprietary format dominate. The idea is that if a predominant number of schools use the BB format, then publishers will provide content in the proprietary format specific to BB, thereby increasing the attractiveness of the platform to potential school adopters.
And sometimes the content providers work in the same manner. The CourseCompass platform from Pearson is really just a custom installation of Blackboard. The reason Pearson offers it is to try and bypass the schools' own VLE environments. By aiming to provide an "everything you want is here" platform for schools, they hope that schools will decide to forfeit the benefits of using content from multiple sources and opt instead for using just Pearson content due to the features and functionality offered on their custom platform. But the end effect is the same -- content is welded to technology and hence the flexibility and central control of content and performance data is denied to the end user.
The Promise of Interoperability - SCORM
The most widely known attempt at standardizing interoperability of web-based learning content is the SCORM format -- Shareable Content Object Reference Model. SCORM hails out of the U.S. Department of Defense and was then managed by the Advance Distributed Learning initiative, which defines SCORM as "a collection of specifications adapted from multiple sources to provide a comprehensive suite of e-learning capabilities that enable interoperability, accessibility and reuse of Web-based learning content." The ADL Initiative collaboratively develops the spec in partnership with the IMS Global Learning Consortium, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Aviation Industry CBT (Computer-based Training) Committee (AICC), and the Alliance of Remote Instructional Authoring & Distribution Networks for Europe (ARIADNE).
The specification details how content can be bundled up as ZIP files and installed on a VLE (content aggregation model), and then it manages how the client-side content interacts with that VLE (run-time environment). The packaging aspect determines how a piece of content should be delivered. Content is broken down into Shareable Content Objections (SCOs). At the core of a SCORM package is a document titled the "imsmanifest". This file contains every piece of information required by anLMS/VLE to import and launch content. This manifest file contains XML that describes the structure of a course both from a learner’s perspective and from a physical file system perspective -- this file dictates which SCOs should be launched, what they should be named, etc. The latest full release of the spec also handles sequencing, a set of rules that specify the order in which a learner experiences content objects.
There have been issues with realizing the full potential of interoperability that SCORM seeks. As a "reference model" SCORM is actually derived from existing specifications and yet it diverges from these specifications (AICC, etc) as it evolves, complicating the deployment/maintenance for organizations adhering to its standards. Also the specification has not itself evolved in a backwards-compatible manner, rendering the learning platform landscape with multiple versions of SCORM that are not themselves interoperable. Part of this issue stems from the fact that SCORM itself is based on proprietary, not open, standards.
The specification also had not kept up with the rapid acceleration of learning environments and products. It was developed for the world of self-paced, computer-based training. It had no attributes for dealing with immersive learning environments, games and simulations, collaborative learning, etc. It has no mechanism for dealing with hosted content or portable assessment instruments. In general its software design is outdated and not built to operate within the service-oriented architecture (SOA) world.
And to make matters worse, plans for the next generation of the specification are slated to once again be based on a dramatic and non-compatible re-architecting (see LETSI below). But this failure for SCORM to adequately address the need for content re-usability actually resulted in dramatic advances from another avenue -- the IMS Global Learning Consortium.
The Future of Interoperability - IMS Common Cartridge
The IMS Global Learning Consortium is "is a global, nonprofit, member association that provides leadership in shaping and growing the learning and educational technology industries through collaborative support of standards, innovation, best practice and recognition of superior learning impact." Members of the consortium include content providers such as Pearson, Cengage, McGraw-Hill, Elsevier, Harcourt, and Wiley; technology providers such as Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle; and VLE vendors such as Blackboard, Sakai, Moodle, eCollege, Desire2Learn, Wimba.
The consortium has been working on a standard which promises to realize the level of interoperability that escaped the architects of the SCORM standard. Common Cartridge is the name of the standard, and they define it as follows:
It's a set of open standards, freely available and without royalty, developed by a global industry consortium with over 80 voting members. These standards, if followed by content developers and learning platforms, enable strict interoperability between content and systems. They also support great flexibility in the type of digital content supported (content can actually be applications) and where such content is located (content and applications in a Common Cartridge can be distributed).
Benefits of the Common Cartridge (CC) standard are cited as:
- Greater choice of content: Enables collections of learning resources of various types and sources.
- Reduces vendor/platform lock-in: Establishes course cartridge native formats endorsed by educational publishers, and supports a wide variety of established content formats, eliminating platform lock-in.
- Greater assessment options: Explicitly supports the most widely used standards for exchanging assessment items.
- Increases flexibility, sharing and reuse: Fits within the educational context of enabling instructors to assemble lesson plans of various resources and publish those as reusable and changeable packages that are easy to create, share, and improve.
This is an exciting prospect for those of us concerned with distributing our learning content to as many learners as possible and ensuring that it operates as designed on as many platforms as possible. To return to the example cited at the beginning of this entry, the CC format would allow Harvard Business Publishing to create a CC output of a set or bundle of related learning materials -- for example a business case, an article, the online Quantitative Methods course, and an online simulation. The cartridge could be loaded onto the customer's VLE, regardless of whether it was Blackboard, Moodle, or Desire2Learn. We could determine which pieces of content should reside locally within the package itself (perhaps the business case or article) and which would employ web services to remotely launch hosted versions of the content (the online course and simulation). But regardless of whether the content was located inherently within the cartridge or was called from the cartridge, the performance and tracking data would be collected natively by the user's VLE.
The Politics of Stewardship: LETSI
The stewards of SCORM, the ADL Initiative, are fighting to retain ownership of learning object interoperability. They have re-branded themselves as the International Federation for Learning-Education-Training Systems Interoperability (LETSI) and are currently working on the SCORM 2.0 specification. They acknowledge all the shortcomings of the SCORM 2004 format and aim to create the next generation interoperability spec and standards body. LETSI hence represents the successor to SCORM -- the government-led partnership that stands in contrast to the industry-led IMS consortium. IMS, an original contributing partner for SCORM, has forged their alliance with most all major VLE vendors, technology providers such as Microsoft, and content/publishing providers. LETSI, on the other hand, includes the other major SCORM founders (ADL, AICC, IEEE) and Adobe.
The IMS Common Cartridge FAQ goes so far as to say that "LETSI appears to be largely driven...by suppliers or other parties that have a long-term and/or financial connection to the U.S. Department of Defense or the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) initiative of the U.S. Department of Defense." IMS maintains that the government (DoD) should no longer be trying to define standards that industry can define on its own. IMS is also concerned with LETSI's plans to completely revamp the spec when they release SCORM 2.0, since certain measures of the IMS Common Cartridge standard are themselves based on elements of the original SCORM spec.
Hopefully over time the IMS Common Cartridge specification will mature and its success will guide the nature of the evolution of SCORM. Until then, the education community will face an unsettling paradox: competing and non-compatible standards for interoperability.
More Information
Common Cartridge
- The IMS Common Cartridge format
- Common Cartridge FAQ
- Product Directory (products/vendors adhering to IMS standards)
- List of IMS Specifications
SCORM
There is now a compliant open source implementation of IMS Common Cartridge in ATutor. As part of the accessibility work done at the ATRC (ATutor's parent) implementing accessibility as part of content interoperability was its goal in implementing CC 1.0 Lite. ATutor extended CC with IMS AccessForAll (ISO FDIS 24751) to demonstrate that an integration of the interoperability and accessibility standards could be done. Handily ATutor authors common cartridges with adapted learning content to accommodate learner preferences, and imports and exports that content in a standardized interoperable format as part of a common cartridge.
Part of the trouble with SCORM has been no vision of accessibility in its development plans. That still seems to be the case with LETSI. A search of the site does not turn up one instance of the word "accessibility." I would tend to agree with IMS. Let the industry develop the interoperability standards. Standards without addressing the needs of people with disabilities can not hope to become the industry standard.
See the SourceForge News Release for details about the CC implementation, and see the demo site to try it out.
SourceForge
http://sourceforge.net/projects/sfnews/forums/forum/1059436
ATutor demo
http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/demo.php
Posted by: Greg Gay | December 29, 2009 at 02:25 PM