Planning and Purchasing
The use of standards is an approach that needs to be fostered in many different processes. You can help to disseminate the use of standards in your training organisation by referring to the relevant standards when planning and by specifying standards when purchasing.
Refer to standards when planning
- ensure that when online content is developed, in-house or under contract, it meets the recommended standards for content formats, metadata and content packaging
- when setting up catalogues, databases and learning object repositories ensure that field structures and controlled vocabularies are compatible with the recommended standards
- when commissioning or selecting software for supporting e-learning ensure that content can be imported and exported in standard formats
- when developing websites investigate what content and services you need to create from scratch and what use can be made of information sources and web services available that can be incorporated into your website
- when setting up systems to support collaborative activity ensure that they can be accessed from anywhere on the Internet using standards email and browser tools.
Specifying standards when purchasing
Specifying standards in purchasing and tender documentation and software requirements documents is one of the main mechanisms by which VET sector managers can promote interoperability. However there are two common problems to avoid:
- being too general
- not being clear how you will assess compliance.
When specifying a standard, provide as much detail as you can. Don’t just specify XML compliance - this is too general to be meaningful. Try to find a specific XML schema that you want used. If specifying a metadata scheme (eg Vetadata), say which elements are mandatory. Specify any vocabularies you want used. Preferably provide examples of compliant metadata.
Say how you will test compliance. This will both convince vendors that you are serious about the standards you specify and also provide a way of resolving any disputes as to whether the selected supplier meets their contract requirements.
It is helpful to vendors to say why you want particular standards compliance, for example “supplied metadata will be harvested by the VET Learning Objects Repository” or “materials produced need to be able to be imported into products X and Y using IMS Content Packages”. This shows you have a good reason to require compliance and also gives the supplier a way of testing their work.
