Linking research & learning technologies through standards

As part of the Technical Standards in Digital Education project, the Link Affiliates team and e-Works have recently been working on some demonstrator e-learning content (see our previous blog post for background information) using a fairly new specification called IMS Common Cartridge.

The IMS Common Cartridge (IMS CC) specification was developed by IMS Global as a way of packaging and deploying e-learning content. Rather than being a completely new specification, IMS CC actually uses a number of existing IMS specifications and provides more prescriptive information on their implementation to give more certainty to software developers and implementers of the specification. We’ve been exploring IMS CC as a way of incorporating collaborative Web 2.0 functionality and services with e-learning content.

We are now winding up our development work and are starting to reflect on what we’ve learnt from the experience. In general, this experience has been quite positive. The documentation seems quite user-friendly, and there is a collection of example IMS CC content available to “CC Alliance” members on the IMS Global website.

A big challenge for the IMS CC specification at the moment is software tool support. With a new specification, vendors often seem to hold off on implementing it until they see that there is enough market acceptance. However content creators aren’t going to use a specification if it is not widely adopted by vendors, which can result in a stand-off.

In the case of IMS CC, there are a growing number of tools that support the creation of Common Cartridges including eXe, MIR Common Cartridge System and Common Cartridge Builder. The ASPECT project is documenting information on tool support for IMS CC, and we found their information was useful. As we were working with existing SCORM content, we also used the SCORM2CC conversion tool, which was effective and easy to use. In general, although the freely available tools for creating IMS CC content are improving, our developer found it sometimes easier to edit the underlying XML code directly. If the IMS CC specification starts to get traction in Australia, a more detailed evaluation of the available tools for non-technical users will need to be undertaken.

For testing IMS CC content, IMS provides a Test System which performs a similar function to the ADL Test Suite for SCORM content. We found the Test System to be very useful, as it tests the content against the IMS schemas as well as running a number of other checks (defined as Schematron rules). The error messages do require some knowledge of the specification.

Support for playing/executing IMS CC content is still somewhat limited, but the list of Learning Management Systems (LMS) that support IMS CC is growing. Moodle 1.9+ (with a patch), Moodle 2.0 and Atutor have support for IMS CC content. Blackboard has been slower to provide support for the specification, but recently confirmed it’s commitment to supporting IMS CC.

We are currently documenting our outcomes from this project and will be publishing a report with recommendations for further work before the middle of the year.

After considerable deliberation the Australian Government has endorsed adherence to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.0 (WCAG  2.0) for all government websites. This decision supersedes the previous mandate for compliance with WCAG 1.0 Level A checkpoints. The initial announcement came via ministerial press release on February 23, 2010 and the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO), who’ve been managing the WCAG 2.0 evaluation and transition planning, amended the accessibility section of the Web Publishing Guide the following day:

Government agencies will transition to WCAG 2.0 over a four year period, reaching level Single A within two years, and Double A within four years. A Transition Strategy will outline the process for implementation, and will address scope and inclusion issues. The Transition Strategy will be made available on the Web Publishing Guide in July 2010.

Agencies are reminded that it is still a requirement to publish an alternative to all PDF documents (preference for HTML or RTF). Advice on the accessibility support of PDF documents will be made available at the conclusion of the PDF Accessibility Review Project, due early 2010.”

AGIMO’s announcement brings some clarity to the application of WCAG 2.0 for government materials and mandates a higher level of adherence than the government was previously mooted to be considering (and in doing so is likely to benefit a greater number of users) but a number of questions remain in terms of the breadth of the AGIMO transition strategy, who they’ll consult and the position of the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC).

We’re still in a situation where we need to predict the actions of AHRC, but as the AGIMO WCAG 2.0 position is closer in spirit to the interim WCAG 1.0 position of AHRC, it’s reasonable to assume that the level of conformance advocated by AHRC is not likely to be any less than that endorsed by AGIMO. The forthcoming completion of the PDF review and the Web Publishing Guide update provide a basis upon which to anticipate that AHRC will make a statement about WCAG 2.0 in the near future, so the next few months will be a key time for interested parties to participate in transition discussions and look out for announcements.

As a member of the program committee and one of the organisers I am probably not the most unbiased person to reflect on the recent IDEA event. However I will just the same. IDEA has been running for about six years and although each event has seemed to be worthwhile, the general buzz about this one was it was the best ever.

As usual IDEA brought together practitioners from all sectors of education: schools, vocational education and higher education both in the presenters and in the participants. This creates the first good thing to note. There are not many venues where practitioners from across education can get together and interact. So IDEA is a great opportunity to facilitate cross sectoral conversations and to allow practitioners to gain knowledge and expertise from other sectors. This type of knowledge sharing across the educational sectors is vital for the well being of education as a whole.

While IDEA always tries to attract technology/IT people, policy makers and leading edge teaching practitioners, this time we created a program where a conversation was developed between the teaching and the technology practitioners. And it seemed to work. Another thing to note about the event structure was short sharp panel presentations with plenty of time for audience participation. There were a lot of very good panels, one of the most engaging was ” What Technology Do Teachers Want”  which featured presenters from Schools, Universities and Vocational Education. There were three great presentations , one can be found at http://www.linkaffiliates.net.au/idea10/files/IDEA10_20100311_AndrewDouch.pdf

As has been the case over the last three occasions the IDEA event incorporated the Learning Impact Awards (LIAs). This offers the opportunity for implementations of technology to compete to be judged as to who has had the most learning impact. The top three Australian entires then get financial support to attend the world finals (organised by IMS Global), this year in Long Beach California . In previous years Australian entries have done very well at the world finals. As part of the judging event participants go on a “speed dating” session with each of the entries as do the judges. This year the top three in the people’s choice was the same as the top three from the judges, just the order was different.

2010 was the first time IDEA has had a formal Program Committee and worked with a professional conference organiser. Both added greatly to the value of the event.

Another innovation this year was to stream the event live and then have a video archive available for later viewing by event participants as well as those unable to attend the event itself. In truth we did not promote the live streaming enough (maybe we were nervous as it was our first foray into this), but at least we have captured the event for posterity.

Also in 2010 we managed to attract some more sponsors which allowed for a bit more sophistication with food and technology at the event.  At the same time the sponsors were able to engage with key practitioners across education in one  small venue. Presentations by Motorola  http://www.linkaffiliates.net.au/idea10/files/IDEA10_20100312_RobArmstrong.pdf  and Lappset  http://www.linkaffiliates.net.au/idea10/events/speakers.html#makela further enhanced this engagement.

You might wonder what could be improved. Well there are possibly a few things, although the program committee thought this was being obsessively self critical, including:

• We probably packed in too many speakers not leaving enough time for audience interactions
• We made the first day of the Open Form a bit too long so some people were too tired to fully participate in the speed dating (which for many was a highlight)
• There was probably too many presentations not enough action on the IDEALab day

But overall everyone seemed to get a heap out of the three days and there was a real buzz. The senior policy people present also remarked on how valuable the event was.

In terms of  the future there does seem a place for a cross sectoral event in this space and the Australian regional finals for the LIAs are a must for continuing to foster innovation and good practice for using technology for learning. Hopefully there will be a funding mechanism to allow investment for future IDEA events. March is not necessarily the best time for the event, in previous years it has run in October/November but it needs to be timed so that LIA winners can get organised to go to the world finals which are usually in May.

To see all the presentations, view the video clips and get a sense of the atmosphere of IDEA go to http://www.linkaffiliates.net.au/idea10/ and watch that space for the next event!

The Link Affiliates team in collaboration with e-Works are currently working on some schools-based e-learning content to explore emerging trends and influences affecting content. This work is part of the DEEWR funded Technical Standards for Digital Education project. There are two particular aspects to this work:

• Integration and use of collaborative Web 2.0 type technologies with e-learning content appropriate for use in Australian schools
• Exploring the potential impact and challenges for the Australian schools sector from the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 specification (for more information on WCAG 2.0, refer to Kristena Gladman’s recent post).

To facilitate this work, The Learning Federation has kindly provided us with small number of e-learning resources to work with.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0

We will be modifying the content to align it with WCAG 2.0 guidelines to gain a practical understanding of what this entails and how this might differ from current best practice. Exploring what WCAG 2.0 means in practice to different types of content including Adobe Flash, and identifying the availability of WCAG 2.0 related implementation information and how useful this is to developers.

IMS Common Cartridge

The content will be packaged using the recent IMS Common Cartridge (IMS CC) specification, which is a method for packaging and deploying e-learning content. This specification has a few features we are planning to explore to embed collaborative services/functionality, and to facilitate access control. We are also wanting to determine how much practical software support exists for the IMS CC specification and what this means to users.

Outcomes

This content will be demonstrated to the Technical Standards for Digital Education project’s focus groups at a face to face meeting to coincide with the IDEA10 conference in mid March. We are hoping to also make some or all of this content publicly available pending copyright clearance soon after this demonstration.

In the vocational education and training sector each year, a group called the E-standards Expert Group reviews and agrees on the recommended national e-standards for VET e-learning content. This group is endorsed by the National Senior Officials Committee.

The E-standards Expert Group comprises representatives from each state and territory plus a number of key VET stakeholders. In its final meeting for 2009 in Adelaide, the group reached agreement on the recommended 2010 VET e-standards, which is a minimum set of specifications for developing and testing e-learning content against. In other words, content can be optimised for other hardware and software specifications, but it must be tested and work with the agreed e-standards.

An important consideration is compatibility with existing e-learning content and systems, so usually the review process is evolutionary. New versions of software and hardware are not always compatible with older versions, however not everyone is willing or able to upgrade to the latest version, so a balance needs to be struck. The group also aims to harmonise standards and specifications with the work of other organisation such as The Learning Federation in the Schools sector as much as possible.

While discussing the 2010 standards, there was much debate over which browser versions should be supported, particularly for the Internet Explorer (IE) browser. Research based on usage statistics for a number of key VET websites showed around 20% using IE8 (the latest version), and a similar amount were still using IE6. There are major differences between IE6 and IE8 which can cause complications for developers of web content. After much deliberation, an agreement was reached that VET e-learning content produced in 2010 should be tested with IE6, 7 and 8, with IE6 being deprecated from 2011.

Another topical area of discussion was web accessibility, as the Australian Government Information Office and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission currently evaluating the relatively new WCAG 2.0 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) specification. After some earlier research into WCAG 2.0, it was agreed that VET web accessibility guidelines for 2010 will continue to require WCAG 1.0 (the current Australian government requirement) with additional checkpoints to facilitate a smoother anticipated transition to WCAG 2.0 when it becomes endorsed by the Australian Government.

The 2010 VET e-standards will be published in early January 2010.
More information on VET e-standards and the E-standards Expert Group: E-standards for Training website

Hi, and welcome to the Link Affiliates Blog.  A place were you’ll be hearing about our team’s thoughts on international e-learning and e-research interoperability and standards activities.

But, before we go there, I thought I’d tackle the really big question of …

Why a Link Affiliates blog?

Link Affiliates team members have been providing interoperability and technical advice to the Australian education community since the mid 1990′s. Traditionally, we have provided this advice directly to projects and consultative groups like LORN, The Le@rning Federation, the e-Framework …

We’ve always known that the conversations and experiences we share with these projects deserved to be shared more broadly through a forum like a blog, but have never done anything about it, until now …

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