According to many studies, EC identifies standardisation as a key strategic topic and recommends extending further the links with official organisations, because such links can serve to increase the general acceptance of educational multimedia, and its rapid and pervasive deployment. Following these recommendations, and the important role that standardisation plays in maturing marketplaces, the MOBIlearn project will align itself to recommendations coming from the following international standards and interoperability specifications organisations:
In particular, the following technologies and standards have been identified as key: |
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The Scope of SC36 is standardization in the field of information technologies for learning, education, and training to support individuals, groups, or organizations, and to enable interoperability and reusability of resources and tools. Particularly interesting for the project objective are the following working groups:
- SC36/WG2 Collaboration Technology;
- SC36/WG3 Learner Information;
- SC36/WG4 Management and Delivery of Learning, Education, and Training.
Website: ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36 Home Page
The purpose of the ADL (Advanced Distributed Initiative) is to ensure access to high-quality education and training materials that can be tailored to individual learner needs and made available whenever and wherever they are required. MOBIlearn will contribute to the longer term expectation of ADL: to encourage technologies that enable so-called dynamic learning where content is custom-assembled and delivered to learners according to their own personal pace and need. ADL developed the Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM), incorporating many of the emerging standards into one content model, based on AICC data model.
Website: Advanced Distributed Learning Network (ADLNet)
CEN (the European Committee for Standardisation), CENELEC (the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation) and ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) were all invited to identify the needs for European standardisation initiatives in the domain of "Learning Technologies and Educational Multimedia Software". Reading the CEN/ISSS Learning Technologies Workshop's report, MOBIlearn partners will contribute to the Recommendation 10:
Collaborative Learning - Learning technology standards often emphasize automated learning and interactions with a learning technology system. It is recognized that a European learning society will also require tools for collaboration and communication between learners or between learners and mentors or tutors. The field of collaborative systems should be investigated to determine the appropriateness of standards that support collaboration and communication.
Website: Learning Technologies Workshop homepage
The mission of IEEE LTSC working groups is to develop technical Standards, Recommended Practices, and Guides for software components, tools, technologies and design methods that facilitate the development, deployment, maintenance and interoperation of computer implementations of education and training components and systems. While MOBIlearn targets to review and adapt IEEE LTSC standards for mobile learning, particularly interesting for the project objective are the following working groups:
- Learning Object Metadata WG (IEEE P1484.12)
- Competency Definitions WG (IEEE P1484.20)
- Semantics and Exchange Bindings WG (IEEE P1484.14)
- Data Interchange Protocols WG Localization (IEEE P1484.15)
- Architecture and Reference Model WG (IEEE P1484.1)
Website: IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee
IMS GLOBAL LEARNING CONSORTIUM
IMS 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 specifications for interoperability of applications and services in distributed learning, and
- supporting the incorporation of the IMS specifications into products and services worldwide. IMS endeavors to promote the widespread adoption of specifications that will allow distributed learning environments and content from multiple authors to work together (in technical parlance, "interoperate").
Website: IMS Global Learning Consortium
WORLD WIDE WEB CONSORTIUM (W3C)
By promoting interoperability and encouraging an open forum for discussion, W3C commits to leading the technical evolution of the Web. In just over seven years, W3C has developed more than forty technical specifications for the Web's infrastructure. However, the Web is still young and there is still a lot of work to do, especially as computers, telecommunications, and multimedia technologies converge. To meet the growing expectations of users and the increasing power of machines, W3C is already laying the foundations for the next generation of the Web. W3C's technologies will help make the Web a robust, scalable, and adaptive infrastructure for a world of information.
Website: World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATION UNION (ITU)
The purposes of ITU are:
- To maintain and extend international cooperation between all its Member States for the improvement and rational use of telecommunications of all kinds.
- To promote and enhance participation of entities and organizations in the activities of the Union, and to foster fruitful cooperation and partnership between them and Member States for the fulfilment of the overall objectives embodied in the purposes of the Union.
- To promote and offer technical assistance to developing countries in the field of telecommunications, and also to promote the mobilization of the material, human and financial resources needed to improve access to telecommunications services in such countries.
- To promote the development of technical facilities and their most efficient operation, with a view to improving the efficiency of telecommunication services, increasing their usefulness and making them, so far as possible, generally available to the public.
- To promote the extension of the benefits of new telecommunication technologies to all the world's inhabitants.
- To promote the use of telecommunication services with the objective of facilitating peaceful relations.
- To harmonize the actions of Member States and promote fruitful and constructive cooperation and partnership between Member States and Sector Members in the attainment of those ends.
- To promote, at the international level, the adoption of a broader approach to the issues of telecommunications in the global information economy and society, by cooperating with other world and regional intergovernmental organizations and those non-governmental organizations concerned with telecommunications.
Website: International Telecommunication Union
The objectives of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) Working Group in 2002-2003 are to continue discussion and development of proposals for the use of Dublin Core metadata in the description of educational resources. The scope includes educational resources applicable for many national education communities and cross-sectoral communities (e.g., pre-school, K-12, further and higher education, vocational and technical training, and lifelong learning). The Working Group will continue its work in the development of qualifiers to the DCMES and/or domain specific elements, element qualifiers and value qualifiers to describe educational materials for the purpose of enhancing resource discovery.
Website: DCMI Education Working Group
XML is used as an industry standard format. It will be used also for learning objects themselves. XML allows differentiation of semantics content form presentation. By confirming to XML standardization, learning objects will then become public or commercial items that can be used as library components to generate a final learning product. MOBIlearn will concentrate efforts on XHTML, which is basically HTML reformulated as an XML application. XHTML describes Web content in a way that is understandable by any XML-compatible browser, XHTML developers don’t have to write separate versions of their pages for each device.
Website: XML.org
The MHP (Multimedia Home Platform) is a common API (Application Programme Interface) that is completely independent of the hardware platform it is running on. MOBIlearn, if needed, will use MHP for is an open standard platform, which will alter proprietary or vertical markets of existing software platforms into one that will enable content to be authored once and 'run' anywhere. Enhanced Broadcasts, Interactive Broadcasts and Internet Content from different providers can be accessed through a single device, that uses this Common DVB-MHP API. It will enable a truly horizontal market in the content, applications and services environment over multiple delivery mechanisms. The business implications are enormous, as new and exciting content as well as applications will stimulate the growth of the broadcasting Industry into the multimedia age linking the broadcasting and Internet worlds together. The Multimedia Home Platform defines a generic interface between interactive digital applications and the terminals on which those applications execute. The MHP (DVB-MHP TS101-812) extends the existing, successful DVB open standards for broadcast and interactive services in all transmission networks including satellite, cable, terrestrial and microwave systems.
Website: DVB - MHP - Home
Mobile Multimedia access will utilize standards recommended by the 3GPP. The 3GPP was originally created to produce globally applicable Technical Specifications and Technical Reports for 3rd Generation Mobile Systems based on evolved GSM core networks and the radio access technologies that they support. The scope was subsequently amended to include the maintenance and development of the Global System for Mobile communication (GSM). To insure interoperability, standard codecs will be utilized in transmission of multimedia information. These standards are recommended by the 3GPP SA WG4, which deals with the specifications for speech, audio, video, and multimedia codecs.
Website: 3GPP home page
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is emerging as the protocol of choice for setting up conferencing, telephony, multimedia and other types of communication sessions on the Internet. MOBIlearn will explore SIP because it can also be used for new types of communications, such as instant messaging and application level mobility across various networks, including wireless, and across user devices. Work on SIP is accomplished primarily in the IETF SIP working group, and at SIP bake-offs.
Website: SIP Forum
ISO13407: Human-centred design processes for interactive systems
MOBIlearn will use this standard for its developments. It provides guidance on human-centred design activities throughout the life cycle of interactive computer-based systems. It is a tool for those managing design processes and provides guidance on sources of information and standards relevant to the human-centred approach. It describes human-centred design as a multidisciplinary activity, which incorporates human factors and ergonomics knowledge and techniques with the objective of enhancing effectiveness and efficiency, improving human working conditions, and counteracting possible adverse effects of use on human health, safety and performance.
The MOBIlearn project will look carefully at the following initiatives:
- Prometeus MoU: http://prometeus.org
- ARIADNE Foundation: http://ariadne.unil.ch
- European Schoolnet: http://www.en.eun.org
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