Important for you?

If you are responsible for:

• buying external e-Learning content;
• an internal development process for e-Learning content;
• selecting and buying an L(C)MS;
• selecting an authoring tool for your development team.

Or you are responsible for:

• developing content for customers;
• developing LCMSs;
• developing authoring environments.
  

If one of the sentences are true for you, the learning standards are essential for you. They are not solid and totally defined at this moment but it is all you can count on. 

A non-technical look at evolving e-learning standards

Ryann Ellis is editor of Learning Circuits and E-Learning Network News (from ADL, the most important learning standard body). He explains it clearly:

"The e-learning industry continues to expand every day, and the methods and tools necessary to create and maintain content and infrastructure applications are complicated. Enter e-learning standards.

The goal of standards is to provide fixed data structures and communication protocols for e-learning objects and cross-system workflows. This enables interoperability between applications, such as an LMS and third-party or in-house developed content, by providing uniform communication guidelines that can be used throughout the design, development, and delivery of learning objects. When these standards are incorporated into off-the-shelf products, developers can base their purchasing decisions on quality and appropriateness rather than compatibility."

OK, what is in it for me?

Within e-Learning there are not a lot of guarantees. Even if you bought a great LMS it could be possible that in 3 months the company who sold you the system is out of business. This has happened a lot during the last years, even with big and established companies.

Most important for you: Standards will give you some guarantee that your systems and your content can be changed without too many problems. You can develop content in application 1 and you can deliver it via environment X. If you start developing your content in application 2 you can still deliver it via environment X (and Y).

From a pedagogical point of view: with e-Learning standards there are more possibilities to collect tracking and tracing information (what is everyone doing, what are their scores on tests, etc). This will be helpful for the guiding or facilitating the learning process. Of course also learners can use this tracking and tracing information!