SCORM

The Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative is an initiative by the US Federal Government.

The guidelines brought up by ADL provide a foundation for how the Department of Defence will use learning technologies to build, and operate in, the learning environment of the future.

The work done by the US Federal Government ADL initiative and their released Shareable Courseware Object Reference Model (SCORM) provides one of the best and most recent examples of the application and integration of these learning standards.

A piece of content is called a SCO. This SCO (a SCORM package) is able to communicate with e.g. the LMS. This way you can collect tracking and tracing information. E.g. if your SCO contains a test, the test scores can be saved into the LMS where a learner and other people with the rights can read the test score.

AICC

The AICC (Aviation Industry CBT Committee) develops guidelines for the aviation industry in the development, delivery, and evaluation of CBT and related training technologies.

The objectives of the AICC are to:

• assist airplane operators in development of guidelines that promote the economic and effective implementation of computer-based training (CBT);
• develop guidelines to enable interoperability;
• provide an open forum for the discussion of CBT and other training technologies.

Although AICC primarily attends to the aviation industry, over 15 years focus on the specifications required to meet this industry's needs has led to a very well developed specifications for learning and particularly for computer managed instruction. As a result, a wide range of learning consortiums and accredited standards groups are in the process of adopting and adapting the AICC guidelines to their own industries.

IMS

The IMS (Instructional Management System) Global Learning Consortium is developing and promoting open specifications for facilitating online distributed learning activities such as locating and using educational content, tracking learner progress, reporting learner performance, and exchanging student records between administrative systems.

IMS has two key goals:

• defining the technical standards for interoperability of applications and services in distributed learning;
• supporting the incorporation of IMS specifications into products and services worldwide. IMS promotes widespread adoption of specifications that will allow distributed learning environments and content from multiple authors to work together.

Relationships and processes

All the projects, committees and working groups are related to each other. Most of the time, specialists in the field of education are playing an important role in more then one committee.

There is also a significant interchange of information. Models and specifications which are approved in for example the PROMETEUS project will have a significant change to be integrated in the IMS standards. There are also a lot of formal relationships. But there are differences between IEEE LTSC, IMS, ISO etc. they are presented in the graphic below: