Category Archives: cetis-standards

British Standards in ICT for Learning Education and Training – What of it?

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The British Standards Institute committee IST/43 – ICT for Learning, Education and Training (“LET”) – has been in existence for about 10 years. What does IST/43 do? What follows is my response as an individual who happens to be chair of IST/43.

In the first few years, IST/43 had a number of sub-groups (“panels”) involved in the creation of British Standards. It was a time when there was a lot of activity worldwide and many new groups created. What became clear to many people in IST/43 was that a much larger number of stakeholders had to be marshalled in order to achieve sucess than we had thought. In essence: we generally have to work at international scale if focussed on standards specific to LET and otherwise appropriate generic web standards. At present there are no standards under development in IST/43 and all previous panels have been disbanded.

So: where does this leave IST/43? In addition to creating British Standards, IST/43 is the shadow committee for European and international standardisation in ICT for Learning, Education and Training. These are known as TC353 and SC36 respectively. IST/43 effectively controls the vote at these committees on behalf of the United Kingdom. Full European Standards are called “European Norms” (ENs) and automatically become national standards. International standards created in SC36 do not automatically become British Standards; IST/43 decides one way or the other.

I will continue with a summary of current work programmes in TC353 (European) and SC36 (international) and indicate for each work item what the current position of IST/43 is. If you are interested in any of these areas, whether agreeing or disagreeing with the position that IST/43 takes as the “UK position”, you can nominate yourself for membership of the committee (email addresses at the end). Strictly speaking, it is an organisation that nominates; committee members represent that organisation. Comments below on the members of the committee should generally be understood to be representative of nominating organisations.

European

Work item:

BS EN 15943 Curriculum Exchange Format (CEF) Data Model

Comment:

This work, which allows for the exchange of subjects/topics covered in a curriculum, originated from work undertaken in the UK with support from BECTa and has had active support from IST/43 during its standardisation. Voting on the final standard is underway (Feb 2011).

Work item:

BS EN 15981 European Learner Mobility Model

Comment:

Members IST/43 and others in their nominating organisations have been significant contributors to this EN, which matches the requirements of the Bologna Process and European Union treaties on recognition of qualifications across the EU. A formal vote on the final draft standard will end in February 2011.

Work item:

BS EN 15982 Metadata for Learning Opportunities (MLO) – Advertising

Comment:

Members IST/43 and others in their nominating organisations have been significant contributors to this EN, which harmonises a number of nationally-developed specifications for exchanging course information (XCRI in the UK). A final draft has recently been submitted to the secretariat of TC353 and should be out for ballot later in 2011.

International

There are three broad classes of activity in SC36: those that create full International Standards (denoted “IS”), those that produce lower-status Technical Reports (denoted “TR”) and study periods. Study periods are not enumerated below.

WG1 Vocabulary

Work items:

ISO/IEC 2382-36:2008/Cor.1:2010(E)
ISO/IEC 2382-36:2008/Amd.1:2010(E)

Comment:

ISO/IEC 2382-36 is “Information technology — Vocabulary — Part 36: Learning, education and training”. These are corrections and amendments. There is little interest from IST/43 but a “yes” was registered at the last vote.

WG2 Collaborative technology

Work item:

ISO/IEC 19778-4 (TR), Collaborative technology – Collaborative workplace – Part 4: User guide for implementing, facilitating and improving collaborative applications

Comment:

There is no participation from IST/43.

WG3 Learner information

Work item:

ISO/IEC 29187-1 (IS), Identification of Privacy Protection requirements pertaining to Learning, Education and Training (ITLET) – Part 1

Comment:

There is no participation from IST/43.

Work items:

ISO/IEC 20006-1 (IS), Information Model for Competency — Part 1: Competency General Framework and Information Model
ISO/IEC 20006-2 (IS), Information Model for Competency — Part 2: Proficiency Information Model
ISO/IEC 20006-3 (TR), Information Model for Competency — Part 3: Guidelines for the Aggregation of Competency Information and Data

ISO/IEC 24763 (TR), Conceptual Reference Model for Competencies and Related Objects

ISO/IEC 20013 (TR), e-Portfolio Reference Model

Comment:

This collection of work items is of interest to IST/43 and has attracted new committee members during the last year or so. Substantial engagement and commenting on drafts has occurred and it has been proposed to convene a panel under IST/43 to coordinate UK engagement and make voting recommendations to IST/43.

The Conceptual Reference Model is near completion but the other work items are in the earlier stages of drafting. At present there are areas where consensus has not yet been reached in addition to a substantial amount of work being required in drafting and editorial.

Work items:

ISO/IEC 29140-1 (TR), Nomadicity and Mobility Part 1 – Part 1: Nomadicity Reference Model
ISO/IEC 29140-2 (TR), Nomadicity and Mobility – Part 2 – Learner Information Model for Mobile Learning

Comment:

There is no participation from IST/43.

WG4 Management and delivery of learning, education and training

Work items:

ISO/IEC 19788-1 (IS), Metadata for Learning Resources – Part 1: Framework
ISO/IEC 19788-2 (IS), Metadata for Learning Resources – Part 2: Dublin Core Elements
ISO/IEC 19788-3 (IS), Metadata for Learning Resources – Part 3: Basic Application Profile
ISO/IEC 19788-4 (IS), Metadata for Learning Resources – Part 4: Technical Elements
ISO/IEC 19788-5 (IS), Metadata for Learning Resources – Part 5: Educational Elements
ISO/IEC 19788-6 (IS), Metadata for Learning Resources – Part 6: Availability, Distribution, and Intellectual Property Elements

Comment:

The essence of “Metadata for Learning Resources” (MLR) is an international standard that over-arches Dublin Core metadata (which is already an ISO standard in an older version than the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative currently recommends) and IEEE LOM (Learning Object Metadata).

Opinions on the MLR work vary in the UK and it has been the subject of many discussions over the last few years. A series of comments and criticisms have been submitted to the working group on part 1 and dealt with to the satisfaction of IST/43 such that a “yes” vote was registered for the final vote on part 1. Parts 2 and 3 are at earlier stages and have also attracted recent “yes” votes (although “abstain” has been registered in the past when no views were presented to IST/43). It does not follow that “yes” votes will be registered for all parts.

Work items:

ISO/IEC 12785-2 (IS),  Content Packaging – Part 2: XML Binding
ISO/IEC 12785-3 (IS),  Content Packaging – Part 3: Best Practice and Implementation Guide

Comment:

This work is effectively standardising IMS Content Packaging. IST/43 supports the work and has adopted Part 1 (the information model) as a British Standard (BS ISO/IEC 12785-1:2009). Extended comments have been submitted into the working group.

WG5 Quality assurance and descriptive frameworks

Work items:

ISO/IEC 19796-1 (IS), Quality Management, Assurance, and Metrics – Part 1: General Approach
ISO/IEC 19796-2 (IS), Quality Management, Assurance, and Metrics – Part 2: Quality Model
ISO/IEC 19796-4 (TR), Quality Management, Assurance, and Metrics – Part 4: Best Practice and Implementation Guide
ISO/IEC 19796-5 (TR), Quality Management, Assurance, and Metrics – Part 5: Guide “How to use ISO/IEC 19796-1″

Comment:

The position taken by IST/43 on these pieces of work is largely passive; there is not strong interest but they are recognised as being of potential interest to some in the UK and it is believed that they are not in conflict with UK requirements. Parts 1 and 3 have been adopted as a British Standard.

Work items:

[not yet approved] Quality Standard for the Creation and Delivery of Fair, Valid and Reliable e-Tests

Comment:

This item has not yet been voted on by participating members of SC36 but the work item proposal is well developed and has been championed by a member of IST/43. This will be a proposal from the UK to SC36. See also a previous article I wrote.

WG6 Supportive technology and specification integration

Work items:

ISO/IEC 24725-1 (TR), supportive technology and specification integration – Part 001: Framework
ISO/IEC 24725-2 (TR), supportive technology and specification integration – Part 002: Rights Expression Language (REL) – Commercial Applications
ISO/IEC 24725-3 (TR), supportive technology and specification integration – Part 003: Platform and Media Taxonomy

Comment:

There is no participation from IST/43.

WG7 Culture, language and individual needs

Work items:

ISO/IEC 24751 Part-9 (IS): Access for All Personal User Interface Preferences
ISO/IEC 24751 Part-10 (IS): Access for All User Interface Characteristics
ISO/IEC 24751 Part-11 (IS): Access For All Preferences for Non- digital Resources (PNP-ND)
ISO/IEC 24751 Part-12 (IS): Access For All Non-digital Resource Description (NDRD)
ISO/IEC 24751 Part-13 (IS): Access For All Personal Needs and Preferences for LET Events and Venues (PNP-EV)
ISO/IEC 24751 Part-14 (IS): Access For All LET Events and Venues Description (EVD)

Comment:

This work has many roots in older IMS work on accessibility and the revisions are being fed back into IMS. Access for All has been actively contributed to be a member of IST/43, although his continued participation is in jeopardy due to lack of funding. Other members of IST/43 support the work but are unlikely to have the capacity to directly contribute.

Work item:

ISO/IEC 20016-1, ITLET – Language Accessibility and Human Interface Equivalencies (HIEs) in e-Learning applications: Part-1: Principles, Rules and Semantic Data Attributes

Comment:

There has been little participation from IST/43. A “no” vote with strong comments was agreed at the last IST/43.

Any work where “no participation” is stated will attract abstain votes without comment from IST/43 and is unlikely even to be discussed at committee meetings.

Tailpiece

Although the above indicates that there is currently no work on a British Standard in IST/43, the committee has discussed a new work item to create a British Standard that implements “BS EN 15982 Metadata for Learning Opportunities (MLO) – Advertising” along with an XML binding and vocabularies for use in the UK. This completes a cycle where the work of the JISC-funded XCRI projects was contributed into the EN process; the EN represents a core common language that each member state can conform with and extend for its local needs. Once the EN is approved, an “acceptance case” will be presented to BSI for this new work.

For more information:

This article is my own words and, although I believe it to be accurate, I ask readers to recognise that it is not approved by IST/43.

Anyone interested in joining IST/43 should contact the committee chair (me, a.r.cooper@bolton.ac.uk) or committee secretary (alex.price@bsigroup.com).

Objects in this Mirror are Closer than they Appear: Linked Data and the Web of Concepts

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There is a whole collection of web technology that has been largely ignored or misunderstood. Sometimes we technical folk just made it over-complicated in great fits of excitement for the potential a new technology. This has probably been the case with a collection of technologies, both specifications and architectural practices, that can be grouped under the heading “semantic web”. But things are changing.

The change is heralded by the meme of Linked Data which originated with Tim Berners-Lee in 2006. There are two really significant things about this meme: it is intelligible; it translated to real change. The really-really significant thing is that, although it is intelligible, it remains a solid foundation for some of the more pointy-headed technology; its adoption represents an important platform for change. It will affect how people think about and realise interoperability of data.

The TED presentation by Tim Berners-Lee, “The Next Web” is a good motivational introduction to why this is a significant movement and includes a really succinct boiling-down of the technical ideas: assign URIs to concepts; relationships are links. There is nothing technically-new here. That is the point! It is intelligable.

If Linked Data remained only an intelligable idea, it would not be so interesting. An idea that is acted upon is both more potent and, depending on the enacting agent, an indicator of changing practice. Tom Scott of BBC Earth provided an interview to PWC Technology Forecast recently, “Traversing the Giant Global Graph“, in which “Scott describes how the BBC is using Semantic Web technology and philosophy to improve the relevance of and access to content on the BBC Programmes and Music Web sites in a scalable way.” Adoption by such a high profile organisation gives those who, like CETIS, have been advocating a semantic-web-inspired approach to interoperability a real boost.

In a completely different corner of human endeavour, the Royal Society of Chemistry has been doing things in the same flight-path. RSC Prospect enriches journal articles through chemical and biological ontology terms and the recently-acquired ChemSpider provides “access to almost 21.5 million unique chemical entities sourced from over 200 different data sources and integration to a multitude of other online services” organised according to chemical structure. These are not there yet, as Linked Data, but the direction of travel seems clear.

When a major media player and the publishing arm of a professional society are making progress on what was esoterica only a few years ago, I think I’m safe in predicting change is afoot; sense and significance will be apparent to a wider set of people and I’m optimistic that members of the education sector will number highly in that set.

Linked Data and the web of concepts is closer than it may appear.

The Problem with “Evaluating Standards”

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I’ve just uploaded an attempt, “Evaluating Standards – A Discussion of Perspectives, Issues and Evaluation Dimensions” (MS Word), to say in more than a few words why “Evaluating Standards” is easier to say than to do. For most of the issues there are no easy answers but I have tried to make some suggestions for a heuristic approach inspired by the Neilsen and Molich approach to usability. I’d like to acknowledge Scott Wilson for contributing his insight into what makes a good standard.

Beyond Standards Part 1 – The Standards Process

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“Beyond Standards” was the headline title of the CETIS 2007 conference, rather cheeky given that the “S” in CETIS is for Standards. The extended title added “Holistic Approaches to Interoperability”. What did we mean by this rather tabloid headline? What follows is a look at one aspect of what I believe we need to be moving beyond, prefaced by a little bit of explanation of the word “standards”.

“Standards” is often but not universally used for the products of formal processes such as occur in the International Standards Organisation (ISO, committee ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36 for learning education and training) or the British Standards Institute (BSI, committee IST/43 for education and training) and the less specific term “specification” used for standards-like products from less formal bodies. This level of discrimination is not common parlance but will be followed in this article.

Ten years ago educational technology was experiencing a growing spurt fueled by the growth of networks and emergence of the web. The very definition of eLearning was being worked out through invention and innovation. In such a climate, the standards that are developed are necessarily anticipatory. They are part of the process of definition and invention. The synchronous emergence of the extensible markup language, XML, meant that it was immature with few little support in code libraries or user tools. It was arcane and the preserve of experts. The approaches taken to using XML were, of necessity exploratory.

We are, now, beyond this period of anticipatory standards. A combination of maturing of the educational application of technology and the XML explosion, where XML is no longer the preserve of experts, calls into question an approach where standards development leads the way. I do not mean to imply that the educational technology project has completed; there is certainly scope for continued invention and anticipation but the conditions now are such that standards can emerge rather than be created in anticipation. It is now feasible for interested parties to get together and make something work, where necessary creating candidate interoperability specifications, before entering into the negotiation of standardisation. If we are interested in specifications that work and do what people need then this is likely to be the way to go. From a technology perspective, this looks “beyond standards” to enactment of technology and works back from there.

The International e-Framework has taken a similar viewpoint in the way it tries to capture the enacted technologies, although not the subjective facets of enactment, in the formalised Service Usage Models (SUMs) and description of service genres and expressions (follow the link to explore the jargon!).

The viewpoint expressed above is at odds with common practice in the established standards bodies, although it would be inaccurate to imply universality. Several years ago, a diagram (see below, this version came from Ed Walker, CEO of IMS at the time) was widely used to describe the progression of work from R&D to formal (ISO etc) standardisation. This progression is far from formal or systematic: a model not really a process.

Standards Development Model

On the whole this remains a reasonable representation of where I believe the process should work but:

  • the “spec consortia” box needs to be understood more broadly or more loosely to include informal alliances of stakeholders, the “interested parties” mentioned above;
  • an engineering phase needs to be included within the “spec consortia” box to validate the quality and applicability of the specification being developed. IMS has modified its processes to ensure that multi-lateral interoperability is demonstrable before releasing a specification;
  • we still see efforts to standardise (in formal bodies) on the basis of analysis rather than practice, although there are counter-examples where we see established specifications such as SCORM and IMS Content Packaging being advanced into ISO. Analysis is an acceptable starting point for R&D and was acceptable at the anticipatory phase of ”specification” development but is highly questionable for formal standards. Where there are real imperatives, relying upon standardising practice may be impractical but demonstrable multi-lateral demonstrators are a must, surely. Views like those of COPRAS, where standardisation is promoted as a status symbol for research are, in my view, quite damaging when applied to educational technology;
  • the R&D phase is still often missing, in particular there remains a need for collaboration on R&D;
  • the feedback loops (in the diagram) are too slow to deal with major changes. Placing a greater reliance on engineering iterations and multi-lateral pilots at the earliest stages shifts the feedback into a more agile and less wasteful part of the process. There is a trade-off between collaboration/consortium size and agility. For consortia that rely on membership funding, this is also something of a dilemma from a sustainability perspective. Successful open source software initiatives are able to achieve agility in correctability without surrendering quality control (or pollution by malefactors) but the open specifications and standards initiatives have yet to manage the same.

Let us consider two examples of successful work that has not been incubated in an established educational standards forum. For an example of an R&D idea making its way steadily through engineering, piloting and validation, XCRI (eXchanging Course Related Information) is worthy of analysis. The actual specification work produced as the XCRI Course Advertising Profile is relatively small in ambition; it is its life story that holds the interest. With its roots in a CETIS Special Interest Group and a focus on business need, pragmatics and community, XCRI pushes at an open door when it comes to engaging interest in adoption. For an example of a rather different kind, the MIAP Common Data Definitions (CDD) bring together practice from a range of stakeholders motivated by practical needs. I can imagine this becoming a British Standard in due course, once it has demonstrable on-the-ground efficacy. I cannot imagine an anticipatory British Standard with the same overall intent as CDD as having the same impact.

Is any of this really “beyond standards”? No, but the world is changing since interoperability was the preserve of a small group of standards experts engaged in thought experiments. CETIS began in those early anticipatory days and focussed a lot of their early effort on de-mystifying specifications and championing their adoption. While CETIS continues to participate in the specifications and standards development process, to promote interoperability and to support a community, its messages have become far more qualified than they were initially and its range of intervention has become more broad. I can only see this trend continuing. Established bodies such as IMS and BSI must also adapt to the new complexity, narrowing, shifting or broadening their offering as their specific environment determines. The threats for them as well as CETIS are the same if we mis-judge the trends: over-broadness, loss of distinctiveness, irrelevance, destructive competition …

Microsoft on Rails?

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It takes a long time to turn a supertanker around.

At last it seems Microsoft are releasing something to support the same elegant features that Rails has had for Ruby for ages. It is currently being referred under a “ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions” title, although these include other bits and bobs of catch-up. A welcome move on the face of it and something to play with over Christmas: I hope they haven’t bloated it.