ims collaboration with industry

© Copyright 2006 IMS/GLCAll Rights Reserved.

IMS Collaboration with Industry

Allyn J RadfordIMS Global Learning Consortium


IMS’s Enduring Purpose

•Innovation•Adoption•Learning


The IMS Global Mission• In Service to the Community of

Organizations and Individuals Enhancing Learning Worldwide

• IMS/GLC is a Global, Nonprofit, Member Organization that

• Provides Leadership in Shaping and Growing the Learning Industry

• through Community Development of Standards,

• Promotion of High Impact Innovation,

• and Research Into Best Practices


IMS Members• Greater than 75 members and

subscribers

• 28 new or upgraded members/subscribers in last 8 months

• The true leaders in the education and learning vertical markets worldwide

• Three tiers of members/subscribers– Contributing members (CMs)

– Developer’s network subscribers (DNs)

– Learning industry leaders forum (LILFs)


IMS/GLC

• Yesterday– Established– Working groups and specifications

• Today– Re-invigoration, rejuvenation and growth

• Tomorrow– Understanding the “Road maps”– eFramework applied to the broader IMS context– Strategic fit for initiatives is important– Membership diversity is important


IMS Specifications and Outputs

• Accessibility• Competency Definitions• Content Packaging • Digital Repositories • Enterprise• Enterprise Services• ePortfolio• General Web Services• Learner Information• Learning Design

• Meta-data (LOM)• Question and Test• Interoperability• Resource List• Interoperability• Shareable State Persisten

ce• Simple Sequencing• Tools Interoperability• Vocabulary Definition

Exchange • Plus other outputs…


Collaborative Researchin Best Practices

• Online Learning• Open Source• Digital Content• Vendor Satisfaction


How We Do It• Focus on high impact challenges

• Attract critical mass of key participants

• Define and manage end-to-end projects that support innovation and market needs

• Integrate and coordinate with existing and other standards work (cross fertilisation)

• Provide full cradle to grave lifecycle support

• Facilitate multiple types of participation


IMS Activities

• Specification workgroups

• Maintenance - (bug reporting through to new work)

• Collaboration with ADL, IEEE, OUNL, AICC, JISC etc

• Demonstrators (Alt-i-labs - proof of the pudding)

• Learning Impact 2007 – towards maturity

– From prototypes to reality

– Evaluation of innovation (impact)


InstitutionalLeaders inLearning


LearningSoftware

and SystemsLeaders


Publishing, Assessment,and Repository

Industry Leaders


Rich Mediaand Collaborative

Learning ToolsSoftware


Enterprise Software,Systems, and

Services Leaders


Global GovernmentOrganizations& Associations


Active IMS Work Groups• Common Cartridge - Announcements!• Accessibility & Personalization• Interactive Learning Environments & Rich

Media (formerly Tools Interoperability)• Question & Test Interoperability• Enterprise – (restarting)• Service Oriented Architecture for

Education• eFramework• Federated Architecture (New)• Content Packaging (Concluding)


eFramework & IMS – (WIP)

IMS SOA modeling of IMS Enterprise

specificationsJISC & DEST eFramework

IBM and other IMS member business process modeling and middleware

platformsHigh value cross-

enterprise services identification by IMS

members

Education SOA open standards and reference

implementationsDemonstration

projects(e.g. Rice) Education SOA

best practice guidelines

= IMS Activity


Value of Industry Collaboration

• Why work with vendors?– Personal relationships, trust and similar perspectives

– Vendor demonstrates good citizenship in the standards space

– SOA and eFramework needs real world focus and requirements to provide realistic and useful outcomes to inform specn work

– The eFramework encourages a business analysis of the services requirements and then using existing standards

– Early point of influence

– Shared cost

eFramework not interested in how you do the business analysis or the tools to do it

IBM not interested in re-inventing the wheel.

Synergy:


Implications for eFramework in IMS

• Right mix of industry collaboration

• Situating the new work within the IMS scope of activities

• Clarification of interrelationships and needs

• Perspectives of higher education, mixed with private enterprise, vendors and other stakeholders


… and here’s one we prepared earlier


About Common Cartridge• Leading providers of digital content products,

learning systems, and services will be introducing Common Cartridge compatible products in the coming year

• Support from 35 education industry leaders, including– Publishing Industry: Digital Spirit, Elsevier, GTCO

Calcomp, Harcourt, Houghton Mifflin Company, Lason, LearningMate, McGraw-Hill, Pearson, Thomson

– Learning Platforms: ANGEL, Blackboard, Desire2Learn, eCollege, Giunti, HarvestRoad, Horizon Wimba, Moodle, Sakai, Tribal, uCompass

• Compatible products as early as Spring ‘07– Pearson, McGraw-Hill, ANGEL, Sakai


What is IMS Common Cartridge?

• A digital learning interoperability standard consisting of a suite of four interoperability specifications (formats of data exchange between cooperating software applications)

– Packaging of digital content (Content Packaging)– Question and test formats (QTI)– Metadata (tagging of content with descriptive attributes)

(LOM)– Launch and data exchange with standalone learning tools -

such as adaptive tutors, assessment systems, etc. (Tools Interoperability etc)


Common Cartridge v1.0

LMS

LMSDBImport

Function

Runtime

Assessment

Tools Interop

Interface

Discussion

Forum

Authorization

SCORM

Engine

XML

Rendering

CommonCartridge

CommonCartridge

Example:3rd Party AssessmentProduct

Learner

–Packaging of digital content (incl. empty packages)–Question and test formats–Metadata (tagging of content with descriptive attributes)

-Launch and data exchangewith standalone learning tools

Digital ContentAuthorization Service


What is Special About the Common Cartridge Effort?

• Likely to become the most widely supported educational digital content standard ever

• Shaping and support by the educational publishers

• Collaboration between open source and commercial communities

• Potential to reduce the lock-in that many CMS/LMS users fear

• Leadership of the higher education community in learning tech standards


The Media

• Click here for the Dr. Chuck Common Cartridge videohttp://www.sakaiproject.org/media2/2006/altidemo06/altidemo06.htm

• Common Cartridge Brochure and other informationhttp://www.imsglobal.org/commoncartridge.html

• Comment on Common Cartridgehttp://insidehighered.com/news/2006/10/09/cartridgehttp://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=1625

• The release is here in case you did not see it:http://www.imsglobal.org/pressreleases/pr061009.html


Publisher Challenges

• Today: the publisher quest to produce digital products at high quality and low cost is thwarted by costs and lack of standards.

• Their challenges include:– Multiple LMS cartridge formats to support– Production/conversion workflow complexity– A large number of platform+cartridge to QA– Integrating high quality learning applications and content modules

with local LMS systems– Scaling their ability to collect revenues in a digital world

• Thesis: these are industry problems and can best be solved by cooperation of publishers.


LMS Provider Challenges

• Customers are demanding open standards for content management to preserve their investments.

• The subject matter challenge: – Publishers are beginning to innovate in vertical applications for

disciplines of very high quality– These require a hosted model and thus present challenge to linkage to

local LMS instances– This problem can be most effectively solved with a common standard

too (TI) • Thesis: these are industry problems, and the LMS vendors can

assist publishers to their mutual benefit– Redirect expense from conversion to innovation– Become more relevant for their high investment applications– Allow them to invest in upper division courses– Jointly with them create the open standards customers demand.


CFO/CIO/Academic Technology Director

Challenges• Make wise investments in learning platforms and content

– Best of breed– Minimize integration and support costs– Avoid lock-in

• Innovate with and support new learning tools with their own self-contained learning models and environments

• Innovate with and support multiple forms of “content”– LMS generated– Publisher digital assets– Podcasts and other new “easy to record” digital media


Thus the Goals

• Goal 1: get the best content to all who desire it, independent of the brand of elearning software purchased.

• Goal 2: improve the predictability of experience in playback of content across systems

• Goal 3: drive innovation in elearning products and improve user experience

• Goal 4: focus the costs on innovation, not production, integration, or support


Common Cartridge IMS Roadmap

CommonCartridgeV1

CommonCartridgeV1

In Process IMS Specification Enhancements:• Content Packaging• QTI• Tools Interoperability V2• Accessibility

Related IMS Work:• Learning Design• Enterprise Content Management• Federated Repositories• Accessibility

• Mature• Stable


Upcoming IMS Events• IMS/GLC Learning Impact Webinar Series

30 October 2006 - 1pm ESTIntegrated Assessment Products and Strategies: Gauging Student Achievement and Institutional Performance http://www.imsglobal.org/webinarseries/assessment10_06.cfm

• IMS Global Learning Consortium Quarterly Meetings and Learning Design Summit 6- 9 November 2006

Open University Netherlands http://www.imsglobal.org/ldsummit2006.html


It’s about Interoperability, plus…

• A note about Interoperability– Exists at different levels– What is “True Interoperability”

• Don’t forget process!– Technology is PART, but not all of the solution– Lifecycle management of content and data is a

series of processes that need to be supported by both Integration and Interoperability


Getting Involved• Learning Impact nominations:

http://www.imsglobal.org/learningimpact/• Become a Contributing Member:

http://www.imsglobal.org/members.html• Become a DN or LILF subscriber:

http://www.imsglobal.org/subscribers.html• Subscribe to the public IMS community

http://www.imsglobal.org/articles/index.cfm

• Sign up for October 30 Assessment webinar http://www.imsglobal.org/webinarseries/assessment10_06.cfm


IMS Public CommunityResources

• Vancouver, British Columbia, April 16-19• Stay informed:

http://www.imsglobal.org/articles/index.cfm

ims collaboration with industry

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