AICC/ADL/ LETSI Content Aggregation Workshop
Tyde Richards - Convener
Jack Q. Hyde - minutes
Agenda
Welcome and Introductions
Review issues from LETSI wiki
Presentation of submitted position statements
Discuss issues from LETSI wiki
Final recommendation and next steps
Introductory Remarks and Discussion
Aggregation - how you associate resources, metadata and the structure and sequencing of resources.
ADL would like to transition a version of SCORM to be called core SCORM to LETSI by 2009 or 2010. SCORM was originally based on AICC CMI but over time the two specifications have diverged. The hope is that this version of SCORM will enable the convergence of the AICC and ADL on a common SCORM version.
With Core SCORM we need to address the future of content packaging. IMS may have IP issues about sharing content packaging. ADL may accept the idea of different communities of practice using different packaging mechanisms. ADL for a very long time has had an interest in seeing SCORM based on de jure standards.
In 2006 ADL submitted SCORM 2004 to ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36 for comment. The SC36 opinion was that the appropriate ISO/IEC document type for the books of SCORM is a "type 3 technical report".
What should be done with SCORM in SC36 moving forward? ADL has proposed the concept of Core SCORM, a version of SCORM based 100% on de jure standards. Core SCORM could be adapted and extended by communities of practice to meet their particular requirements. A Study Group activity in SC36 is currently evaluating a Core SCORM proposal submitted by ADL.
Moving forward, content aggregation is such a common problem we should review what the requirements for different communities of practice.
Should there be an approach that allows different content aggregation technologies to be used in different communities of practice, or should we have one standard for all?
An ISO standard exists that does the same thing as IMS Content Packaging. Maybe that could be used as a conceptual standard. Different solutions would be mapped into that for conformance.
Should we define one true way to do this? Maybe the concept of a "package" is obsolete today. Are there use cases that traditional packaging will not support?
Paul Jesukiewicz - We could look at defining a Core SCORM as a basis and then bringing in sequencing and Web 2.0 technologies for the next version of SCORM ("SCORM 2.0").
Avron Barr - SCORM 2004 is stable and working. Core SCORM is an opportunity. We get a chance to rethink SCORM to any degree we want to. What is a package? How does that map into deployment of learning in the future? What variation across communities of practice exist? We need a common reference model that everyone can embrace.
Shota Aki wants the ability to for packages to reference shared resources, such as a content player.
Jim Farmer commented ommon cartridge is being used by some of the academic community, where over half the classes are taught by adjunct faculty. With common cartridge, you can download an entire course, install it instantly and present it to a class.
Jason Cole (Moodle) commented that are a large number of Moodle implementations and students. There are currently about 16 million users of Moodle. There are about 37000 registered Moodle sites in the world. A site means in use with courses and students. At least one member of the aviation community - Transair - is also using Moodle.
Tyde Richards commented that common cartridge could be thought of as a SCORM wrapper.
Review of Issues from LETSI wiki
Tyde Richards led a review of the issues that have been raised on content aggregation in the LETSI wiki (http://www.letsi.org/letsi/dashboard.action)
AICC CMI and ADL SCORM Convergence
With respect to content aggregation, this may not be an issue because the AICC is ready to move forward to a new technology based on XML.The only concern is that this new technology will have the functionality to express the features currently described in the AICC course description files.
De jure Standard for Content Aggregation
ADL first expressed interest in standardizing IMS content packaging in the IEEE in the 2002 timeframe. In 2003 an IEEE LTSC Study Group investigation into standardizaing content packaging identified some issues that have not yet been addressed. Notable among these was the existence of MPEG 21.2 as an existing general purpose ISO/IEC stnadard that provided the same functionality in a similar way. This standard may be appropriate for Core SCORM content aggregation requirements.
Impact on current AICC CMI and ADL SCORM adopters
This issue has to do with the extent of the impact on implementers who need to support a content aggregation format they are not currently supporting.
Conceptual standard versus implementation standard
This issue really has to do with whether or not there should be a single valid approach to content aggregation or multiple valid approaches that all conform to a conceptual model.
Technical requirements and use cases
Are there future technical requirements that should be considered in developing Core SCORM?
Conformance testing
SCORM currently has software-based conformance testing for IMS content packaging. What sort of conformance testing is feasible if multiple formants for content aggregation are endorsed?
Discussion related to issues
Tom King asked wha problem are we trying to solve? What are the requirements?
Tyde Richards reviewed the Core SCORM proposal to ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36 which recommended a conceptual standard based on MPEG 21.2 that could be used to legitimate multiple implementation specifications and standards.
Tom King commented that if we are interested in interoperability, then offering 17 different options which are different in detail, does not promote interoperability.
Avron Barr aksed what do we really require? Have we identified key requirements that must be met?
Review of Submitted Position Papers
Tyde Richards presented position papers submitted by persons who could not attend the meeting.
Marc van Coillie - EIfEL
Marc appeared to favor the use of MPEG 21.2 as a general purpose standard coming from industry. He would like to see some migration tools to go from IMS CP to MPEG 21.2. There is also a need to accommodate extensions for capabilities such as sequencing. There was a suggestion to include augment the AICC PENS specification to include a translation service for content aggregation formats.
Imedia.it
The Imedia.it paper seemed to be concerned with issues related to supporting large scale content aggregations. Some DoD courses are huge and present problems for learning management systems. How can we reduce the size of content aggregations? We need the ability to package, reference, import, and share common resources across content aggregations. Is there a better solution than fully self contained packages because the can reach as size that is not tractable.
Tom King commented seems to be a need for some sort of streaming packages.
ADL Mapping of IMS CP to MPEG 21.2
This work was done in 2007 by an intern, Alan Patton, under the supervision of Bill Blackmon from ADL. There does appear to be a simple mapping from IMS Content Packaging (IMS CP) to MPEG 21.2. There are a few cases where features in IMS CP do not map directly.
Tyde Richards commented that the cases that do not map directly can be treated in MPEG 21.2 as metadata fields.
Allyn Radford and DITA
There are a lot of forms for content aggregation and at one level it makes sense to just pick one and go with it. The question is which community is most likely to be willing to evolve their standard in the future to meet new requirements? SCORM has been lacking a content structure model for some time. You may want to move to a content structure model with an aggregation model to go with it. We need to bring into focus structured content and use that as a basis for a decision. A consistent content structure model is a value add - it enables use of content not just in a learning context. The DITA approach developed by the OASIS consortium looks pretty good. It uses a general approach to structured content based on topic "specialization". Learning should not be an exceptional case when it comes to content aggregation. You You should be able to use the same aggregation technology for other for other types of content.What structures are required to reflect learning content? If you are going to a conceptual model, then you should have a base level and allow communities to change/augment with reason. Most people will go with the default, and squeeze their model into the default. But if there is a real reason to change or augment the default then the standard should enable this.
Bill McDonald and the AICC Perspective.
The AICC wants to adopt an XML-based approach. The main issues the AICC is focused on are:
1)The existing CMI course structure package - a zip file with content and files describing a course.
2)CSA - Content Services Architecture
3)PENS - Means to send a request or notify of packages being sent (in response to a request)
4)Offline CMI - Download a course or part of a course and then run it offline. Upload or synchronize student data when again connected to the Web.
Capabilities the AICC must have in any content aggregation standard:
1.It must be extensible.
2.It must closely map to existing functions (legacy and current implementations). Backward compatibility is crucial.
3.No functions currently supported are left behind by migrating to the new appraoch.
Wayne Gafford on S1000D
The use of S1000D for content aggregation is of interest to particular communities of practice and does not necessarily have to become a part of Core SCORM. But maybe it could become a SCORM profile. The goal of applying S1000D to learning content aggregation is to reduce time from when a change is made to technical data to the time when that technical data is accurately used in training material. S1000D is about structuring information and may be used to process or aggregate information. S1000D is a life cycle tool for managing information as if managing parts. In SCORM there is an content aggregation model and in S1000D the same notion is called a publication model. It references modules that are aggregated.
As an ADL investigation we took the aggregation model in S1000D and tried to make it mirror SCORM content aggregation. S1000D does not have the ability to organize like SCORM but it can describe resources, and include metadata. We have attempted to show how this base S1000D aggregation type can be used to support learning.
Schawn Thropp commented that this seems to be a way to reference the main content file (called a DMC) and a piece of content with that file. Why don't you just use current IMS CP to reference a piece of content inside DMC?
Allyn Radford commented that is a well thought out approach for a specific community but is not appropriate as the Core SCORM method for aggregation.
Schawn Thropp on IMS Content Packaging 1.2
A year and a half ago IMS decided it needed to fix some issues:
1)External references
2)Varient resources: the ability to package content that was the same yet different (such as low bandwidth/high bandwidth, or English/Spanish)
3)Ability to represent multiple organizations including organization that was not hierarchical.
4)Resolving some ambiguities with metadata.
The plan was to do this and then submit the results to a standards body. However, they first wanted at least two implementations. IMS CP 1.2 is backward compatible with the previous version.
Participant Opinions
Tyde Richards offered any participants who wanted to briefly state their position an opportunity to do so.
Tom King commented:
1)One emerging requirement seems to be some way to to represent digital rights
2)Another emerging requirement seems to be a way to represent content variants
3)More use cases are needed to help identify issues.
Paul Jesukiweicz commented that we (ADL) need to move forward and we don't want to take a couple of years to do it. We need to be sensitive to vendors who have adopted the current content aggregation model and we will need justification for a significantly different approach.
Schawn Thropp commented that we have to focus on technical and business requirements and separate them from politics. What are the goals of this effort? We need to continue to look at comparisons. Let's not look for solutions for which there are no problems.
Jack Hyde commented that we have to learn of the viable alternatives and pick one. From this meeting it appears there are two viable alternatives: Content Packaging 1.2, and MPEG 21.2. DITA may also be a possibility for consideration. We need to do a little due diligence on these 2 or 3 options and make a decision.
Ally Radford commented that we need to separate the political piece from the technical and business pieces. Unless there is a compelling reason, then just go with current SCORM CP. There is no reason not to look at DITA, but look for a compelling reason to make such a significant change.
Avron Barr commented that the purpose of LETSI is to promote adoption of interoperable learning technology and we would like to appear that we are moving ahead
Jason Cole commented that Moodle's implementation of SCORM 2004 was very challenging. The idea of a conceptual standard makes me nervous. Getting the conceptual standard into code that would work with multiple vendors would be an incredible project. From a developer's point of view we want something as specific and locked down as possible. We can handle structured content.
Next Steps
Moving forward, look at the LETSI wiki. Use it to keep this conversation moving forward. There is another LETSI meeting in March in Korea before the SC36 Plenary Meeting.
How should we proceed to the next steps?
Bill McDonald comment that he has talked to a lot of people and there seems to be confusion about LETSI's role. There are a lot of markets, and there may be overlapping requirements and solutions and where those can be standardized.Maybe that overlap being standardized is what Core SCORM should focus on. We need a better definition of what LETSI goals are with Core SCORM. Next step: LETSI needs to clarify how it is going to work.
Schawn Thropp commented that one of the roles I see for LETSI, is to make sure that specs are developed by different organizations so that they do not have to be modified to fit into Core SCORM.
Avron Barr commented that generally, if you are looking at specifications that have been adopted, you can consider them for Core SCORM. But when you introduce a specification that is immature and not implemented then you have a problem and encumber the entire SCORM community with experimentation. By the end of 2008 we should have a pretty good idea of how LETSI will work and what Core SCORM will look like.
Tyde Richards proposed that the issues from this workshop form the basis of a whitepaper.
Tom King requested that the white paper have a clear conclusion or call to action.
