Attending
Jill Abbott
Fred Banks
Avron Barr
John Campbell
David Cardaci
Wayne Gafford
Jason Haag
Frank Polster
Tyde Richards
Schawn Thropp
Tom Wason
James Xu
Approvals
Agenda approved
Minutes Last meeting approved
General LETSI News
A number of content and stylistic improvements have been made to the wiki.
LETSI is ready to accept individual membership at an annual fee of $100. A registration site for the October SCORM 2.0 workshop is about to go operational. Individual membership will be included in the workshop participation. Membership allows individuals to vote in working groups and to financially contribute in a small way to supporting LETSI. General working group participation will continue to be open and free.
SCORM 2.0 Workshop
The program committee (PC) is operational and meeting independent of the Technical Roadmap WG. Moving forward the PC will handle some workshop related topics previously discussed in this WG. The PC will hold off on defining specific workshop sessions until September in order to better reflect the important topics found in submitted papers and wiki comments.
The Tech WG will need to maintain an active liaison with the PC and is responsible for some deliverables to support the workshop. These have to do with clarifying the document types and procedures/roadmap necessary to produce SCORM 2.0 (e.g. what is a design document, if specifications need to be developed, who will develop them).
In a previous meeting the WG discussed their desire to see several papers by the late Claude Ostyn submitted to the workshop. Tyde and Schawn agreed to look into this.
Producing SCORM 2.0
Schawn gave an overview of the ADL experience in producing previous SCORM releases to give the WG a sense of what producing SCORM 2.0 might entail.
SCORM benefited by having the existing AICC CMI model to build upon. A lot of the work in producing SCORM had to do with defining improvements that fit into that basic model rather than defining something completely new and different.
An open issue for SCORM 2.0 is the extent to which it will build upon the existing model (which, in the form of AICC CMI, goes back to 1992) or attempt to do something fundamentally different. The latter path will be a lot more work and is not the path that ADL has followed to date.
Avron mentioned the need to review and consider the Core SCORM proposal and how that relates to SCORM 2.0. Tyde gave an overview of the origin and purpose of the proposal. It was submitted by ADL to SC36 one year ago and proposed a version of SCORM based on accredited standards. One intent was to determine candidate accredited standards that might be added to SCORM (e.g. IEEE competencies, SC36 accessibility). At present SC36 has a study group that plans to document the options by the September SC36 meeting. This material can be input to the October workshop. Avron requested that a Core SCORM update be posted on the LETSI wiki sooner than the September SC36 meeting.
Historically the SCORM document set has been intended for a technical audience. Parties other than technical experts need to work with SCORM. Some though should be given to adding additional document types to SCORM to support different types of SCORM end users (e.g. instructional designers, managers). This is a completely separate scoping issue from the question of what technical capabilities to include.
Historically SCORM was produced in relation to a community who prioritized the importance of technical capabilities. For SCORM 2.0 it might make sense to have a "product roadmap" that distinguishes and prioritizes the features that need to be supported near term versus later.
Historically SCORM, as a reference model, itself contained several constituent models: content aggregation, runtime, sequencing and navigation. One way in which SCORM might evolve is make these constituent models more flexible and capable of supporting different implementation options. For example, a revised approach to content aggregation might accommodate different formats (e.g. S1000D, DITA) as required by different communities of practice.
Tyde commented that another dimension along which SCORM might evolve is to increase the number of constituent models (e.g. for competencies or accessibility).
Frank commented on the need to define the high level milestones for the roadmap. An example might be the ISO/IEC standardization of specifications used in SCORM.
Tyde commented that ADL previously addressed this with the four-box model: R&D to specification to adoption to standardization. This model was an ideal that in practice had some problems. For example, in some cases it was difficult to transition a specification from a consortium to a standards body. If LETSI chooses to adopt any of a number of general purpose Web specifications it is not likely that they will be turned over to a standards body to accommodate the desires of the LET community.
Schawn commented that we have an opportunity to review the many lessons learned from ADL's experience with the four-box model and come up with a leaner, more efficient approach.
Some classification scheme such as R&D, specification, and standard is, however, useful as a means to indicate technical maturity. The Tech WG should articulate an approach to this for use in the October workshop. The intent is define some means to indicate the maturity of technology, how likely it is to serve as a basis for adoption and alliances, how much effort will be entailed to make it usable.
The Tech WG can also help to clarify the LETSI strategy for getting specifications developed. LETSI will have a need for new specifications or transitioning R&D technologies into specifications. LETSI has taken the position that it will not develop these specifications. How will they be developed?
Jill commented that this is really a policy/governance issue. LETSI needs to clarify the kinds of organizations that it will work with to get specifications developed and any related expectations, such as those dealing intellectual property. It may make sense to first consider the organizations already participating in LETSI.
For the next meeting we will:
1) Review a revised version of the 4-box model and related policy options;
2) Review any contributions about what would constitute an appropriate design document for SCORM 2.0;
3) Discuss any trends apparent from white papers submitted by August 15.
Next meeting
August 19 13:00 UTC
