eLearning - December 2008/January 2009 - (Page 34) LETSI innovation is still needed before e-learning really works the way it should. It is committed to helping practitioners get from where they are today to where they want to be. A lot of innovators will bring new products and services to market. Implementers in all parts of the elearning world will be exploring how to apply the new technologies to their elearning strategies. Many existing institutions and product vendors will be threatened and will likely resist the kind of change required. But the potential for Web-based learning is too great to remain just a vision. So, the next time you consider buying a system or contracting for learning materials, ask about standards conformance. Open standards will benefit your e-learning strategy in the long run, and will help the entire industry mature. And when you hear about a new proposed standard, ask yourself who’s behind it and what their goals are. Finally, if you care about open standards for e-learning, visit the Website into letsi.org. —The author is communications chair of letsi.org, the official Website of the International Federation for LearningEducation-Training Systems Interoperability. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons AttributionNoncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. software community is the way to break through the barriers. Open standards and shared infrastructure accelerate evolution of products and allow organizations to experiment with less cost and risk. They leverage software investments being made by product vendors, systems integrators and large adopters — to everyone’s benefit. And everyone is free to innovate without central control. LETSI’s first order of business is a modernization of the widely used SCORM model, the de facto global standard that allows learning materials to be ported across today’s authoring tools and learning management systems. LETSI is assuming responsibility for the future of SCORM, which has outgrown its original home at the U.S. Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative. This summer, through an open solicitation of white papers, dozens of online discussion threads and public working meetings, LETSI has initiated an open process for defining SCORM 2.0. The next SCORM will enable innovators to use techniques and technology being developed in all corners of the e-learning world. WHY IT MATTERS But why does the matter to you, a technology user? Actually, the future of learning technology depends on you. Interoperability efforts like LETSI’s have 34 December 2008/January 2009 Elearning! two important consequences for organizations with serious e-learning strategies: First, interoperability lowers the barriers to entry for innovative software products, who can interchange data with installed systems in standard formats and reach the broad market quickly. Second, standards lower the cost and risk involved in trying out a new way of doing things with a new software system; innovative new products can be integrated with less re-work on existing systems and learning assets. LETSI believes that a lot of technical About LETSI T he International Federation for Learning-Education-Training Systems Interoperability (LETSI) is a forum for harmonizing innovative work in diverse elearning communities around the world: corporate, government, military, compulsory K-12, higher education, and professional training and certification. LETSI’s goal is to assure that the next wave of online learning is based on open software standards. LETSI’s sponsors hope to catalyze the creative destruction required to finally see technology have the impact on education and training that it has had on so many other aspects of our lives. The Founding Sponsors of LETSI are: Adobe Systems, Aviation Industry Computer-Based Training Committee, Booz Allen Hamilton, Computer Society of the IEEE, Fraünhofer Institute Digital Media Technology, IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee; Korea Institute for Electronic Commerce, El Instituto Lationoamericano de la Communicación Educativa, Masie Learning Consortium, MedBiquitous, Schools Interoperability Framework Association, and U.S. Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative. http://www.letsi.org http://www.letsi.org
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