International standards, specifications and reference models
The recommended e-standards encompass accredited standards, specifications, and reference models. While there are differences in status between these three, those selected have reputable international standing and have the capacity to improve e-learning resource access in the training sector. A brief overview of these differences with examples is below.
Standards: Standards are created by an official standard-setting body such as the IEEE (International Electrical and Electronic Engineering Association) Learning Technology Standards Committee (LTSC) which “is chartered by the IEEE Computer Society Standards Activity Board to develop accredited technical standards, recommended practices, and guides for learning technology.” (Source: IEEE LTSC website http://ltsc.ieee.org). The Learning Object Metadata (LOM) standard is an example of an important standard developed by the IEEE. Standards often take 3-5 years to develop.
Specifications: Unlike standards, specifications are developed by organisations to define the functional requirements for particular processes and products. Specifications sometimes mature into standards.
In the learning world, many important specifications are being developed by the IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc. The IMS Consortium brings together members from educational, commercial and government organisations for the purpose of developing interoperability specifications for the learning industry. In the case of IMS, specifications are developed over a much shorter timeframe than standards, to assist the marketplace to accept and understand technology as quickly as possible. An example is the IMS content packaging specification.
Reference models: Reference models are collections of standards and specifications, often with additional rules that spell out how the different standards and specifications work together. In many cases, reference models are open to interpretation and do not necessarily provide the same level of detail as specifications.
The Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) is an example of a reference model of significant importance within the learning industry. This model was developed by the ADL (Advanced Distributed Learning) initiative, established by the US Department of Defence, along with industry and academic partners.
In the case of SCORM, while it is formally an implementation profile of both standards and specifications, it has achieved de facto status as a standard for online content for single-learner, self-paced, online instruction.
