Whilst at the Learning Impact 2008 conference in Austin Texas, incidentally a more pleasent place than I expected, I became more aware of the activities of the Technology Enhanced Flexible Learning (TEFL) project under formation group.

http://www.imsglobal.org/tefl.cfm

Those educatiors involved in language teaching may get confused over the acronym but essentially the TEFL project group is aiming to develop and promote an “end-to-end” methodology for introducing e-learning students to the online environment, to include best practices drawn from literature, personal accounts and workshops (LTAC and other) for each student Introduction Phase (i.e. Expectations, Preparation and Induction). It is anticipated that this methodology will provide a framework for learning technologists and e-learning faculty and administrators to address the quality and service needs of introductory adult e-learners while establishing a effective practices for recruiting, retaining and supporting student persistence.

This is undoubtedly of significant interest to those charged with the retention of students within HE and FE instituitions and signals a clear intent by members of IMS to move away form their historic areas of focus interoperability and data exchange standards and into the contested area of “qaulity standards” it will be interesting to see how this develops.