Interoperability Standards for eLearning in Government initiatives - the Norwegian case

1. Interoperability Standards for eLearning in Government initiatives - the Norwegian case Project Coordinator Tore Hoel,the eStandard project ofNorwaywww.estandard.no

2. The world’s best countries to live in: Denmark Sweden Norway Finland .. .. .. Italy (Source: UN survey, Uni of Pennsylvania) Educational levelbeing one of the salient factors contributing to the high ranking of the Nordic countries Life and learning up in the cold north

3. Schools are soon ready for e-learning • Well equipped – especially secondary level • Last 3 years: 40 € spent on every child 0 – 18 years of age to stimulate ICT in education • Broadband access to Internet from home Internet-computers per 100 students Da Fi Se UK No

4. Ubiquity of LMS in Norwegian learning • All universities are now rolling out LMS to all their students • Schools are following up – the municipalities are signing contracts with the Norwegian LMS vendors • Two major Norwegian vendors sharing the market

5. Are we ready for standardization? Standardization of e-learning technology is a complex negotiation of meaning and interests within large actor-networks of strong individual intellectuals, companies, users and user organizations, software vendors, international bodies, system architectures, message definitions, individual data elements and specifications - comprising both human and nonhuman actors.

6. Stakeholders in standardization • Governmental authorities • Educational communities • Vendors • Publishing houses • Content developers • Individuals All have different agendas and strategies for learning and teaching

7. Mediating negotiation Authorities Vendors Contentproviders TeachersUniversitiesSchoolsLearners We need a body that is neutral, respected by everyone, and able to facilitate the negotiations between the stakeholders

8. The eStandard project of Norway • Awareness raising - not research • Part of National Learning Network initiative (covering lifelong learning, e.g. all education) • Convey international best practice • Participate in international standardization bodies • Give advice to Norwegian projects

9. The need for a metadata profile • Utdanning.no – a learning & teaching metaportal to learning resources, opened this year • Norwegian Schoolnet – use metadata (Dublin Core), but no strategy for distribution of metadata • LMS vendors – prepared for LOM, but nobody are tagging their resources • Publishing houses – waiting for digital rights technology

10. Nor-LOM Core • IEEE LOM – the solution to metadata? • We need a way to assign static metadata now, i.e. LOM • LOM has no value without a national profile • A small or a large LOM Core? • Vocabularies are the challenge • What about identifiers?

11. Nor-LOM Core ver. 0.42 by Dec. 15th • Open discussion – a challenge to the “governmental logic” • “Too fast for us” • “Who are making the decisions?” • Aschehoug publishing house contributed their metadata scheme • The vendors will take our advice • The L&T-portal will set the standard for exchange format for learning resources

12. Codebash – vendors testing interoperability • Two major vendors participated in CETIS’ CodeBash in June • Norwegian event in October • Standards do have practical implications when technology don’t function!

13. On the agenda • Specification for Course Description Metadata (first draft Oct. 2003) • Learning Object Repositories • One or many repositories • Metadata repositories • Federated Access and Identity Management • LOM and TopicMaps • Digital rights management – licence schemes, e.g. Creative Commons

14. Denmark • Recommendation for standards and national exchange platform due December 2003 • More closed process owned by the Ministry, run by a consultancy firm with representatives from education, publishing, vendors, libraries etc. • Danish LOM profile • Focus on Digital Rights Management as part of the profile

15. Sweden • Plans for “soft infrastructure” recommendations • No work on profiles yet • The Ministry of Education and their bodies are putting out brochures which deal with standardization of e-learning in general - to make some sense of the eStandard alphabet soup • E-learning standards seems to be like SCORM (which is not the case! SCORM is one profile – among others…)