Minutes from TRWG Meeting

Alexandria, VA, 28 May 2008

Attending: John Campbell, Boyd Nielsen, David Wirth, Chris Raasch, James Xu, Shane Gallagher, John Alonso, Tom Wason, Tyde Richards, Tyler Shumaker, Jill Abbott, Paul Jesukiewicz, Tom Archibald, Bill Blackmon, Avron Barr, Scott Lewis, Erica Coss, Ellen Epstein, Angelo Panar, Jackie Haynes, Bill Eastham, Robby Robson, Fred Banks, G.A. Redding. Remote attendees: Frank Polster, Michael Pope, Fanny Klett, Ed Cohen, Chris Sawwa.

Discussed plan and time line for SCORM 2.0.

Agreed to proceed along the following lines:

May 2008	Open solicitation of white papers
August 15	White paper submission deadline
October 15	3-day technical workshop to discuss best ideas
December	SCORM 2.0 Design Document produced by Working Groups
2Q2009	SCORM World Congress

The Design Document will describe the architecture and functionality of SCORM 2.0 and will allow adopters and product developers to begin to incorporate SCORM 2.0 compatibility in their development plans.

Reviewed White Paper solicitation draft

Multiple revisions to be incorporated by Avron this week. The press release and website need to be updated accordingly. The White Paper solicitation and the associated press release will go out this weekend.

We discussed the fact that OASIS and W3C specs, which form the basis of much of modern web architecture, are not accredited standards and are not likely to move in that direction. This needs to be incorporated in our standards policy for SCORM.
We also discussed the idea of forming an open source development community around SCORM 2.0, to support adopters and product developers with shared tools, transforms, etc. There is as yet no plan for starting up this effort.

October Workshop and Program Committee

Program committee to be responsible for reading the White Papers, facilitating on-line discussions this summer, organizing the program in October including responsibility for specific sessions where ideas and options will be discussed, and producing a report about the alternatives discussed to lead into the Design Document. For example, there might be several white papers on interoperability of games and simulations, and a session or track on the subject in October.

Participation from additional communities of practice is need, e.g., for-profit education, mega-universities, academia, textbook publishers, authoring tool developers, standards organizations, ...

The following people were interested in participating on the Program Committee, if the time commitment is realistic: Shane Gallagher (and the ADL tech team), Jackie Haynes, James Xu, Chris Raasch, John Campbell, Bill Blackmon, Schawn Thropp, Tyde Richards, Fanny Klett, John Alonso and Avron Barr. We will try to organize the work so that all who want to can contribute somehow.

We plan to have a Program Committee meeting around 1 September to plan the October Workshop program.

We also agreed that in case there is a strong response to the White Paper solicitation, we would open the October Workshop to anyone who wanted to come, as opposed to requiring a white paper to participate. Venue TBD.

We reviewed the rules for voting in working groups and on the final Design Document:

LETSI's charter specifies that, as has been the tradition with SCORM, LETSI will not develop specifications itself. Instead, the specifications that are combined into the SCORM 2.0 reference model will be adopted from or developed in cooperation with technical groups at IEEE LTSC, AICC, SC36, OASIS, IMS, etc. LETSI's charter also specifies that only specifications and standards that are developed openly and available without unreasonable encumbrances be included in LETSI reference models.
LETSI's Technical Roadmap Working Group (TRWG) will organize the preparation of a Draft Report about the nature of SCORM 2.0 as soon as possible after the October Workshop. The TRWG can spawn subcommittees to address specific issues.
Anyone can participate in LETSI WGs. Only individual LETSI members can vote in WGs. LETSI's Sponsors will announce an individual membership opportunity in mid-2008.
The TRWG's SCORM 2.0 Draft Report must then be approved by a majority of LETSI sponsors. There are currently 12 LETSI sponsors, representing the diversity of sectors investing in learning technology. New sponsors can sign up any time for $10,000 per year, with the approval of a majority of the existing sponsors. If they join in time, they get to vote on the SCORM 2.0 report when the TRWG produces its draft. A majority of the current sponsors can vote to waive the fee for a new sponsor, e.g. an international LET standards organization.