Here is a paper I’ve just written, “Key Challenges in the Design of Learning Technology Standards – Observations and Proposals” (PDF 260kB),  as part of an exploration of the many-sided question: “how should we make learning technology standards?”

Quoting the abstract:
This paper considers some key challenges that learning technology standards must take account of: the inherent connected-ness of the information and complexity as a cause of emergent behavior. Some of the limitations of historical approaches to information systems and standards development are briefly considered alongside generic strategies to tackle complexity and system adaptivity. A consideration of the facets of interoperability – organizational, syntactic and semantic – leads to an outline of a strategy for dealing with environmental complexity in the learning technology standards domain.

I should add that this is not meant to be the last word on the subject but a contribution to an ongoing conversation. Please comment.

This paper appears in the “International Journal of IT Standards and Standardisation”  edited by Jan Pawlowski, Tore Hoel and Paul Hollins. Copyright 2010, IGI Global, www.igi-global.com. Posted by permission of the publisher.