I’m currently attending an IMS meeting that’s at the Oracle hq in Redwood Shores, CA (near San Fran). I’m here because I’m considering joining IMS in addition to joining the SCORM Technical Working Group (well, I’m going to joing the TWG for sure — I’m investigating IMS).
I sat in on the panel working on a charter for the next version of Tool Interoperability — offering a common set of tools available to launch from content within a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE, the new buzzword for LMS).
This chicken-scratch might be hard to decipher, so I’ll follow this up with a podcast. Due to some unfortunately placed fractured bones in my left hand, I can’t type nearly as much as it might take to put this all into context that makes sense for your smarter-than-average E-learning developer/designer.
Monday, February 5 - Tool Interoperability
- Introductions
- Oracle 10g, Siebel, PeopleSoft | Oracle, The World’s Largest Enterprise Software Company
- Blackboard ยป Educate. Innovate. Everywhere.
- CETIS
- ANGEL Learning
- Microsoft
- Sakai
- ADL
- Desire 2 Learn
- Grainger
- Review Charter and current work status
- Goal: get the charter into an actionable document by noon tomorrow.
- Review of use cases
- Use-cases for types of tools that could be made available via a VLE
To investigate:
- shibboleth.internet2.edu
- SAML - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Common Cartridge
- QTI Assessments
- Enterprise Services outcome service
- Boddington
- Deposit API
- CMI Data Model
Discussion of a registry hosted by iMS for a listing of tools and descriptor files that would be accessible via a VLE (Virtual Learning Environment).
- Web Meeting tools
- Breeze, WebEx, etc.
- Synchronous collaboration tools
- Blog, Wiki, Forums
- Tools using content embedded in a Common Cartridge
- Sakai Video Report: IMS Common Cartridge Demonstration at Alt-I-Lab 2006
- PR:IMS Global Learning Consortium Announces Breakthrough Education Industry Standard for Digital Learning Content
- QTI Assessment Tool
- QuestionMark, as an example
- Instructor grading tool
- Gradebook
- Content Authoring tools publishing content to the VLE
- Adaptive Learning Tool accesses SCORM/CMI data model at the VLE
- content delivered via the VLE that is not a scorm package, but wants to be tracked via the cmi data model
- acts as a relay
- Learner launching TI Tool within VLE using 3rd party authentication
- read: Shibboleth, HarvestRoad, Boddington
- Federated authentication
- meaning, you’re authorized in one context and as you extend your access beyond the realm of your own domain, your authentication persists across domains/apps that have agreed to accept such authentication protocol.
- Identity Management Tool controlling release of user attributes
- Administrative deployment of proxy tool through Common Cartridge
- Configuration of tool presentation
- Publisher assessment use case
- Rich media (podcasting) integration tool(s)
- Review of Requirements from Tool Interoperability 1.0
- Tool Catalog
- issue of rights management
- how to configure/control/limit access to a tool.
- will be tabled after debate lasting over an hour
- Tool Presentation
- Will enable a common presentation solution for tool that benefit from adopting the look and feel of the hosting VLE
- Web Services/Application Profiles
- Extend logical component interaction model
- allow the outcome message to occur at an unspecified future time
- allow web service communication between requests and outcome responses
Mark Siegrist
| 08-Feb-07 at 11:58 am | Permalink
Have you ever evaluated Moodle? I’m looking into using an LMS/VLE for the first time and Moodle seems like a good solution based on our budget and timeline. We’re currently using Breeze/Adobe Connect for our synchronous and sales demos but it is terrible for elearning IMO and I’d like something more robust. The original plan was to develop a mini-LMS in house but after looking at Moodle (man, it’s come a long way in a couple of years) it looks like it would be great.
Aaron
| 08-Feb-07 at 12:13 pm | Permalink
Months ago, I consulted “a major university” in the suburban Chicago area as they were looking to launch their first online degree program, and I compared the difference between their installation of Blackboard and Moodle. I loved Moodle, but ultimately the decision was to go forward with Blackboard.
I think a lot depends on what your situation is. Moodle is Open Source, but I don’t necessarily believe that means it’s going to be cheaper in the long haul. I think there are more support and customization costs involved with integrating Moodle than one thinks about.
Is it more robust than Adobe Connect? I guess it depends on what you need. I look at Adobe Connect as playing in the same collaboration space as WebEx — not in the same VLE space as Moodle. Moodle and Blackboard (and Sakai) are more head-to-head in the VLE space, and there are maybe a half-dozen other projects going on (open and proprietary) that play to that space, too (like Desire 2 Learn).
If you decide that you’re ultimately going to build your own mini LMS, you might consider bootstrapping the system with Rustici Software’s SCORM engine (http://www.scorm.com) — it’s a drop-in run-time environment for SCORM 1.2/2004 and I think AICC, too. It’s certified by ADL and it’s specifically made for custom LMS projects.
So… in summary… I think Moodle rocks (I like Martin Dougiamas a lot), but it may be too metal for you (or not metal enough).
Mark Siegrist
| 08-Feb-07 at 1:06 pm | Permalink
Thanks Aaron.
I’m tasked with putting together an online certification program (well, mostly the courseware will be elearning though some will be instructor-led). This will include online examinations. My company sells specialized tax software and we’ve had many folks ask us about putting together a certification program for customers/partners. Unfortunately Breeze’s reporting is terrible, and I have a lot of other issues with it from a development perspective. We put together a simple database/registration portal for elearning courseware but Moodle appears to be much more robust. I’m particularly interested in the discussion board and interactive elements of it. Wikis would be very helpful for the type of certification pathing (think ‘curriculums’) that we’d like to do. Breeze is great for webcasting/live demonstrations but not suitable for collaborative elearning IMO. Thanks again!