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Achieving Learning Impact 2007

Report from IMS Global Learning Consortium

About IMS GLC

In service to the com-munity of organiza-tions and individualsenhancing learningworldwide, IMS GLC isa global, nonprofit,member organizationthat provides leader-ship in shaping andgrowing the learningindustry through com-munity developmentof standards, promo-tion of innovation, andresearch into bestpractices.

The views expressed inthis report are solelythose of the authorsand do not representthe opinions of thosepersons or organiza-tions named herein.

Copyright © 2007 by IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc.

All Rights Reserved.

The IMS Logo is a registered trademark of IMS GLC.

tel: +1 407.362.7783fax: +1 407.333.1365www.imsglobal.org

Table of Contents

About this ReportOrganization of this Report .................................................................................... 4About IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS GLC) .......................................................... 5About Learning Impact 2007 and the Summit on Global Learning Industry Challenges............... 6IMS GLC Executive Strategic Council Members .............................................................. 7IMS GLC Board of Directors..................................................................................... 8

Executive Summary: Key Trends in the Use of Technology to Support Learning

Defining Learning Impact: Access, Affordability, Quality ................................................10The State of Learning Impact via Technology 2007 .......................................................11The State of Learning Technology 2007 .....................................................................13Status of Products and Services that Enable Enterprise Learning.......................................19LIA 2007 Awards Summary.....................................................................................20

Achieving Learning Impact Through Strategic Investment in Technology: The IMS Global Learning Consortium Executive Strategic Council Perspective ........................................................21

Summary of Learning Impact 2007 ConferenceSummit on Global Learning Industry Challenges ...........................................................34Program Track Summaries.....................................................................................35What’s Next in Learning Systems.............................................................................36What’s Next for Digital Learning Content...................................................................41The Academic Enterprise: Assessment, Analytics, and Student/Institutional Performance ........45Progress in Open Source, Open Content, and Open Services ............................................49Summary of Influence on IMS GLC Initiatives...............................................................53

Learning Impact Awards 2007About the Learning Impact Award (LIA) Program..........................................................56Platinum Award Winners.......................................................................................57Gold Award Winners............................................................................................58Silver Award Winners...........................................................................................59Bronze Award Winners .........................................................................................60Honorable Mention .............................................................................................61LIA 2007 Awards Summary.....................................................................................62Appendix A - Acronyms ........................................................................................63

www.imsglobal.org Achieving Learning Impact 2007 2

CitationTo reference this article, please cite:Abel, R., Humes, L., Mattson, L., McKell, M., Riley, K., Smythe, C. (2007). Achieving Learning Impact 2007. August 2007. From http://www.imsglobal.org/learningimpact2007/li2007report.cfm

Dear Colleague,For over ten years now a relatively small, eclectic cadre of learning and technical experts have been gathering in locations around the world to conceive and develop “interoperability standards” for electronic learning and learning technology. This report is the first in an annual series that captures “the state of” not only these standards, but more importantly, the learning technology industry needs and trends they are so intricately tied to.

Use of the internet to support or enhance learning is a relatively new field. There was an incredible first wave of activity from 1997-2000 that reflected enormous new investment in the use of Internet technologies and had a large focus on extending lessons from instructional design and computer-based training to the Internet. After four or five years of consolidation (2000-2005) in all learning technology industry segments, our industry is poised for a dramatic next phase of growth anchored by an emerged set of leading companies and organizations that operate in the higher education, K-12 schools, and corporate education sectors. This new phase is focused on learning impact as achieved through improvements in access, affordability, and quality, as supported and enabled by technology.

This new phase is reflected in a revised composition of the IMS Global Learning Consortium. At the recent Learning Impact conference in Vancouver, the participation was equally split among three types of leaders that are now actively involved in IMS GLC activities around the globe. The first were the technical architects that are leading their organizations to develop new technology to support learning. The second were chief executives, presidents, chief learning officers, and provosts who are focused on executive leadership in either educational or business strategies. The third were the chief information officers, vice presidents of academic technology or e-Learning, representing the huge growth in the last ten years of end-users who are interacting with or leading the deployment of learning technology on a daily basis.

This report is provided to the general public of leaders and decision makers around the world focused on the same thing that IMS GLC is focused on: improving learning and education with the support of technology. It does not represent the views of any particular organizational participant and was not developed through sponsorship of any kind. This report reflects the best efforts of the IMS GLC staff to integrate an extremely diverse set of viewpoints and data presented at the Learning Impact 2007 conference, with industry backdrop gleaned from interactions with the IMS GLC Executive Strategic Council, Board of Directors, Members, and Subscribers.

We hope you enjoy this report and find it useful. We are always interested in your ideas and feedback. Most importantly, please join us for Learning Impact 2008 to be held 12-15 May at the Omni Downtown in Austin, Texas, USA. We are eager to add your name to the group of world leaders who are helping to set new and greater expectations for the role of technology to enable better learning.

Best regards,

Rob AbelChief Executive OfficerIMS Global Learning Consortium


Organization of this Report

About this Report Contains an introduction from Rob Abel, CEO of IMS GLC, a brief summary about IMS GLC, a primer about the Learning Impact conference, and identification of the Executive Strategic Council Members and IMS GLC Board of Directors.

Executive Summary Offers a definition of the meaning of learning impact and describes how technology is impacting learning, gives a historical perspective and identifies technology trends to watch in the coming months.

Achieving Learning Impact Through Strategic Investment in Technology

Comprises the IMS GLC Executive Strategic Council members’ perspectives regarding the investment in technology that impacts learning.

Summary of Learning Impact 2007 Conference

Includes reports and summaries of the primary meetings and program tracks convened during the Learning Impact 2007 conference and highlights important topics to revisit at next year’s conference.

Learning Impact Awards 2007 Recognizes the Learning Impact Award 2007 winners and provides a brief description of the winning entries.


About IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS GLC)

IMS GLC is the leading advocate for the use of technology to support and enhance learning worldwide. As a member supported global consortium, IMS GLC is the leading provider of community developed interoperability standards for learning technology, and also develops related adoption standards. IMS GLC also conducts learning technology industry research and fosters recognition of high impact learning technology innovation worldwide.

IMS GLC brings together and serves its members from across the globe, providing them with a leadership forum for shaping the future of learning. IMS GLC Members include:

Leading Providers of Educational and Training Technology and Services• Learning platform and tools, publishers, assessment products, rich media platforms, class-

room technology, educational services, enterprise systems

Education Institutions and Training Organizations• Higher and further education, K-12 schools and districts, corporate training and human resources

Member Associations and Government Agencies• Ministries of education, education R&D organizations, professional organizations associated

with learning technology

IMS GLC standards, specifications, and related publications are made available to the public at: http://www.imsglobal.org/.


ld’s , users, of


About Learning Impact 2007 and the Summit on Global Learning Industry ChallengesIn April 2007, some 210 global leaders in the development and use of technology that supports or enhanceslearning met at the Learning Impact 2007 and Summit on Global Learning Industry Challenges confer-ence in Vancouver, British Columbia. The attendees represented a unique, approximately equal mix ofexecutive leaders (CEOs, presidents, executive directors), product architects (vice presidents of productdevelopment, chief architects), and leaders responsible for the use and implementation of technology inlearning (CIOs, academic technology directors, chief learning officers, online and distance education lead-ers). This interdisciplinary group of leaders engaged in several days of keynotes, panel discussions, and pro-gram tracks, in concert with the final judging of the Learning Impact Awards (LIAs) and LIA showcase.

Learning Impact is IMS Global Learning Consortium’s annual conference that brings together the world’sleading creators, vendors, users, buyers, and implementers of learning technology to participate in pro-gram tracks focused on the latest innovations in learning systems, digital learning content, the learningenterprise, and open technologies. Presenters answer a key challenge question designed to inform theattendees on the state of innovation and best practices. For more information visit: http://www.imsglobal.org/learningimpact/agenda.cfm

The Summit on Global Learning Industry Challenges is a gathering of industry leaders to introduce anddebate ideas and issues impacting the growth of learning worldwide. This is a unique and highly directconversation for the purpose of illuminating the key business challengesfacing the learning industry. The Summit is facilitated by a focused set ofhighly interactive panel sessions with audience participation. For moreinformation visit: http://www.imsglobal.org/learningimpact/agenda.cfm

The LIAs are designed to recognize the most impactful use of technologyworldwide in support of learning. This unique program evaluates estab-lished, new, and research efforts in context at an implementing learninginstitution or organization. After a preliminary review conducted fromentries collected during the year, a set of finalists are selected to showcase at the event and a panel ofglobal experts are asked to perform the final rankings at the conference in conjunction with voting by theattendees (the attendee votes are combined to weigh as one expert vote). For more information visit:http://www.imsglobal.org/learningimpact/index.html

The IMS Global Learning Consortium’s Executive Strategic Council (ESC) was formed to provide vision andguidance in IMS GLC’s efforts to enable improved education and learning worldwide. ESC members arededicated to providing the executive leadership perspective on the role that technology can play inenabling and transforming learning in the knowledge age. The ESC plays a special role in guiding the LIAsand the Summit on Global Learning Industry Challenges. For more information visit: http://www.imsglo-bal.org/esc/index.html

The Learning Technology Trends and Satisfaction Survey (LSAT) is an ongoing survey that collects infor-mation from qualified leaders of learning technology usage for classroom, distance, or blended learning.These leaders are asked about usage, satisfaction, and topical trends in more than ten different productand service categories. The purpose of the survey report is to help inform an emerging marketplace. Toparticipate in the survey or download the report, visit http://www.imsglobal.org/ltst/index.cfm. Attendeesof the Learning Impact conference receive a copy of the 100-page report.

Learning Impact:

Bringing together the worleading creators, vendorsbuyers, and implementerslearning technology.

IMS GLC Executive Strategic Council Members

• Dr. Nicholas H. Allen, Provost andChief Academic Officer, University ofMaryland University College

• Michael Chasen, Chief ExecutiveOfficer and President, Blackboard Inc.

• Dr. Paul Clark, Pro-Vice-Chancellor(Learning and Teaching), The OpenUniversity

• Daniel J. Devine, CEO, CompassKnowledge Group

• Dr. Dae-Joon Hwang, President,KERIS (Korea Education Research andInformation Service

• Doug Kelsall, President and ChiefOperating Officer, eCollege

• Dr. John Leslie King, Vice Provost forAcademic Information at the Univer-sity of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and Pro-fessor in the School of Information

• Dr. Jolene Koester, President, Cali-fornia State University, Northridge

• Dr. Carl M. Kuttler, Jr., President, St.Petersburg College

• Dr. Arthur J. Lendo, President andProfessor of Management, Peirce Col-lege, Philadelphia, PA

• Dr. John V. Lombardi, Chancellor andProfessor of History at the Universityof Massachusetts Amherst

• Dr. Bernard Luskin, Executive VicePresident, Fielding Graduate Univer-sity, Director, Media Psychology Pro-gram

• Robert A. Maginn, Jr., Chief Execu-tive Officer, Jenzabar

• Dr. Paula E. Peinovich, former Presi-dent and Provost, Walden University

• Dr. Malcolm Read, Executive Secre-tary, Joint Information Systems Com-mittee, United Kingdom

• Edward H. Stanford, President,McGraw-Hill Higher Education


IMS GLC Board of Directors

• Rob Abel, Chief Executive Officer ofIMS GLC

• Curtiss Barnes, Senior Director,Industry Product Strategy, Education& Research, Oracle Corp

• David Ernst, Chairman of the Board,Chief Technology Officer at Califor-nia State University

• Kathy Christoph, Director of the Divi-sion of Information Technology (DoIT)Academic Technology at the Univer-sity of Wisconsin-Madison

• Cynthia Golden, Vice President ofEDUCAUSE

• Dr. Joel Greenberg, Director of Stra-tegic Development, Learning andTeaching Solutions, Open University

• Dr. John T. Harwood, Senior Director,Teaching and Learning with Technol-ogy, Penn State

• Ray Henderson, Chief ProductsOfficer for ANGEL Learning

• Alun Hughes, Director of Learningand Information Services at UHI Mil-lennium Institute

• Michael King, Director, IBM GlobalEducation Industry

• Matthew Schnittman, President,eLearning Division, eCollege

• Peter Segall, President, North Amer-ica Higher Education and Operations,Blackboard


Executive Summary: Key Trends in the Use of Technology to Support Learning


Defining Learning Impact: Access, Affordability, QualityRegardless of whether you are an executivedecision maker involved in higher education,K-12 schools, or corporate education, in theend analysis three things matter. The first isproviding access to educational resources.The second is providing that access in anaffordable way. The third is improving thequality of those educational resources. Theseare three elements that are at the heart ofIMS Global Learning Consortium’s view oflearning impact.

Access to educational resources encompassesaccess to course materi-als, references, interac-tive applications,instructors, other learn-ers or any otherresource used to sup-port learning. Much of access is about conve-nience for learners that makes it practical toengage in an educational experience when itotherwise would be impossible.

Affordability at its core in all segments isabout the return on investment—the valueadd—of an educational experience. In somesegments, affordability also encompasses aprice tag for the educational experience thatdoes not dissuade disadvantaged learnersfrom engaging in an educational opportunityas a right of citizenship. In some segmentsaffordability is measured by the organiza-tional return on investment often heavilydependent on perceived cost savings in thecreation and delivery of the educational expe-rience. Education is expensive to produce anddeliver. So lowering costs opens up new possi-bilities for access. Also, there is usually anaffordability benefit associated with moreconvenient forms of access.

Quality of an educational experience is typi-cally associated with outcomes as gauged bythe ability to remember and engage learnedinformation, the ability to perform in a similaror new context, or the ability to master one’sown sense of what is known and unknown(often referred to as metacognition). Ofcourse, access and affordability are greatlyenhanced by quality. That is, access to qualityeducational experiences and affordable qual-ity educational experiences is what is desired.However, quality may also have a higher costand resultant price tag. This is a subject of

considerable debate.

There are also addi-tional elements thatplay an important rolein achieving learning

impact. In the view of IMS GLC these areadoption, accountability, organizationallearning, interoperability, and innovation.Adoption indicates large-scale acceptance,typically meaning that a solution is highly use-able. Accountability is the leadership imper-ative to determine the appropriate mix ofaccess, affordability, and quality and toensure its realization. Organizational learn-ing is the scaffolding that supports the abilityto provide high quality educational experi-ences. Interoperability enables choice andease of implementation, a key element inenabling an efficient industry. Innovation, ofcourse, represents the ability to solve prob-lems in new ways or even envision completelynew approaches. In the IMS GLC frameworkfor learning impact, innovation replaces adop-tion as an evaluation element for research ornew products.

Access, Affordability, and Quality are at the heart of IMS Global Learning Consortium’s view of learning impact.


The primarytechnology education toback to techability to en

The State of Learning Impact via Technology 2007Access. Technology has had its greatestimpact on access to educational resources.Many feel that today the tyranny of timeand geography with respect to education isa long way toward being emancipated. TheIMS GLC Executive Strategic Council (ESC)believes that access, choice, and opportu-nity are becoming more and more avail-able to all. Evidence is apparent in therapid growth of online and distance learn-ing programs offered from a wide spec-trum of universities and colleges,providing more flexible and convenientaccess to learning experiences. However,access is not equal or easy to all educa-tional resources. In some respects it is asocietal issue to address this challenge,but it is also a technological issue with

respect to the cost ofachieving the integrationof various mixes of con-tent and applications inthe highly accessibleonline medium. Forinstance, it is a majorchallenge to convert

course materials developed in one learningplatform for use in another—not an uncom-mon scenario for educators to deal withtoday. It is also very challenging for aneducator to incorporate a favorite learningtool, perhaps podcasting or wiki develop-ment, into an integrated set of learningactivities.

Affordability. Impact on affordability ofeducation by technology has been largely amatter of the “cost savings from greaterconvenience” enabled by Internet-accessi-ble learning experiences. The economicvalue-add of higher education credentialshas been strong and well-documented andhas permitted tolerance of price increasesin many countries. But the general feelingis that we have approached or areapproaching the tolerance for priceincreases, even in countries such as the

U.S. which has been market-oriented in itsapproach. In the corporate education sec-tor there have been well-demonstrated“savings” by reducing the cost of meetingsthrough distributed learning or the costs ofmaterials replaced via simulations. There-fore, return on investment is a matter ofdetermining if the cost of implementationis less than the assumed cost savings. How-ever, more examples of measuring returnby achieving improved performance frominvestment in education, whether creden-tialed or not, are warranted.

Quality. The impact on the quality of edu-cational experiences by technology can beviewed from a couple of different perspec-tives. One perspective is technology-assisted instruction that results inimproved learning outcomes or the aca-demic return on technology. Another is theentire field of assessment in the criticalrole of helping to ascertain learning out-comes and enable improvement of educa-tional processes in a scalable way. It is alsoimportant to note that improved learningoutcomes could result from engagement orfrom more effective instructional activi-ties. Technology is capable of playing arole in both. However, in the end analysis,we are still in an era where education isconsidered highest quality if it occurs viaaccess to the best educational resources.Our current higher education era is influ-enced greatly by the push toward researchas the pinnacle of prestige and knowledgein the 20th century. It is assumed todaythat physical presence at the centers ofresearch result in the highest quality edu-cation. This means that overall the pri-mary impact of technology to quality ofeducation today goes back to technology’sability to enable access to “high quality”resources. The growth of online and dis-tance offerings are as “high quality” as theinstitutions (or perhaps individuals in othersettings) that create and deliver them.

impact of to quality of day goes nology’s

able access.


The Road AheadIn many respects, the distinctiveness of aneducational experience is determined byhow well thought out the mix of access,affordability, and quality is. In other words,is the educational experience distinctive bydesign and does the design permeate allaspects of the experience? As pointed outby the IMS GLC ESC, whiz bang productsand technologies that don’t fit what educa-tors want to do are not embraced. But, theimportant question for education providersis how clear are you on what is distinctivein your approach? Going forwardthe value of technology ineducation will be about howwell it can support this dis-tinctiveness. How true this isnot just among and betweenvarious organizations but alsoregions and countries. Distinc-tiveness is the key variable.

Access. While there has been greatachievement in access and it can be arguedthat we primarily need access to greateraffordability and greater quality educa-tional experiences, we see several otherkey trends in access. The first is a betterdesign for access to integrated learningresources. The second is access to contentcollections that are significantly more use-able than those of today. The third is moreintegrated access to one of the greatestsources of learning resources: libraries.

Affordability. The road ahead for afford-able education will continue to be domi-nated by return on investment. And webelieve that return on investment will bestrongly connected to distinctiveness. Theother important aspect of affordability willbe evidenced through adoption. There will

be several key trends. The first is the needfor technological support for learning tobecome largely transparent to the users,reducing the need for costly training anddevelopment. The second is greater use ofinnovative products that enable self-directed learning with an instructor in-the-loop. The third is digital or hybrid alterna-tives to textbooks that reduce costs whilemaintaining profit incentives for creatorsand publishers.

Quality. Going forward, quality will bemost linked to the aforementioned design

of the distinctiveness of theexperience and how welltechnology supports thatdistinctiveness. We see sig-nificantly more activityprogressing in services thathelp achieve a technologydesign to support distinc-

tiveness. This may encourage educationalprocess redesign by leading institutions andorganizations. Education providers will belooking for ways to capture their distinctiveapproaches with a reasonable investment.Several key trends supporting quality areapparent. The first is tools and techniquesfor designing and measuring accountability.The second are use of tools that can cap-ture the distinctive curriculum and class-room-based instructional approach of aneducation provider and make that contentavailable online. The third is use of this andother content alternatives to enhancestudy techniques. The fourth is greaterintegration of formative assessment intolearning experiences. The fifth involvescombinations of all of the above to improvethe personalization of learning.

The important question for education providers is how clear are you on what is distinctive in your approach?


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The State of Learning Technology 2007

The Context—10 Years of Learning Technology Industry EvolutionThe Rise of the Learning Platform.Scenarios vary by region, but thereare some clear results after tenyears of global investment. The lastten years has seen the rise of the“centralized learning platform”,referred to by several names (includ-ing course management system, vir-tual learning environment, learningmanagement system, and instruc-tional management system), as anestablished category along sideadministrative systems, in both theeducation and training contexts.There have been significant varia-tions in adoption and by sector glo-bally. For instance, in the U.S., thehigher education sector adoption ofcourse management as a core ele-ment of the enterprise has beennearly ubiquitous, while the K-12sector is just now beginning its adop-tion, led by the needs to supportteachers in lesson planning (instruc-tional management systems), state-run virtual schools, and computer-based intervention and tutoring sys-tems. The K-12 schools sector in theUK, Korea, and other countries hasmoved forward more aggressively inadoption of learning platforms to addresssuch areas as personalized learning andtutoring. The corporate training sectorworldwide has seen the rise of the learn-ing management system, primarily tosupport self-paced learning, with anevolving new emphasis on “talent man-agement”. The corporate education andtraining sector has been dominated bythe influence of the human resourcesdepartment and other functional depart-

ments (such as sales) that have responsi-bility for substantial training goals.

Continued Dominance of Instructor Ledand Credentialed Learning. Despite themany overlaps among the sectors, therehas been somewhat of a divergencebetween the educational scenario, whichis dominated by instructor-in-the-loop,with centralized ICT support and deci-sion-making and the training scenario,dominated by self-paced learning withdepartmental objectives and support.Interestingly, over the last ten years the

The Context of the Evolution of theLearning Technology Industry

• Rise of the Learning Platform

• Continued Dominance of Instructor Led and Credentialed Learning

• Custom and Supplementary Content is King

• Consolidation Leads to Stability with Open SourcEmergence

Six Strategic Trends to Watch1. Increasing Emphasis on Integrated Access to

Teaching and Learning Resources

2. Content Collections Resulting in More Usable, Efficient, and Effective Digital/Print Options

3. Self-Directed Learning Programs with Instructor the Loop for Entry-Level Education or Domain-Specific Learning

4. Evolving Forms of Collaborative Learning

5. Capturing the Classroom for Transparent “Authoring” Techniques, Rich Media, and MobileLearning

6. Defining and Implementing Accountability and Dashboard Metrics


higher education and further educationsectors have dominated the lifelonglearning sector. Despite high hopes forvarious new and unconventionalapproaches, there has been a clear pref-erence among adult learners to engage indegree-credit programs.

Custom and Supplementary Content isKing. The use and evolution of digitalcontent for learning has varied across thesectors as well. In the corporate educa-tion and training sector, digital contentten years ago was focused on one of twoareas: computer-based training in non-custom, longer shelf-life titles (such as ITtraining or leadership) or custom-devel-oped content. Much of the custom devel-oped content was in support ofenterprise implementations of ERP(Enterprise Resource Planning), com-pliance or departmental trainingobjectives. While web technologydominates today, the split is largelythe same with custom-developed con-tent continuing to dwarf a relativelysmall market for web-based, pre-packaged content. In the higher edu-cation sector it has become common-place for textbooks to besupplemented by a variety of digitallearning materials that can beaccessed through the learning plat-form or otherwise. While a smallminority of faculty have becomedevelopers of online courses, a majorityfeel comfortable using the learning plat-form to post course information, distrib-ute various documents, and conductonline discussion forums. In the K-12schools sector, use of digital content hasvaried regionally in relation to the use oflearning platforms, typically associatedwith overall student access to the Inter-net.

The value proposition of content in con-junction with the learning platforms has

largely been one of ease of distributionand access (resulting in productivitygains), as opposed to fundamentallychanging the nature of instruction orlearning. While gurus and pundits pro-moted the concept of just-in-time perfor-mance support and learning objects tenyears ago as the coming trend in the cor-porate learning sector, this has, so far,come down to the use of web technolo-gies to make access to relevant and up-to-date information easier, as opposed toa revolution in learning.

Consolidation Leads to Stability withOpen Source Emergence. While thelearning platform and supplementary dig-ital content have gained acceptance in

the last ten years, there has been a verysignificant level of consolidation in termsof the number of providers. This has bothcaused some churn in the marketplace aswell as provided a more stable and viablebase of core competitors. There havebeen very few examples of providers thathave been able to cut across sectors.However, the learning platform providershave had some success across geogra-phies. There has also been the emer-gence in the last four to five years of newopen source learning platforms and openlearning content providers in the educa-


tion sectors. Open source is evolving as away to pool investment through partici-pation in a community effort, whileenabling customization.

Six Strategic Trends to WatchThe Learning Impact (LI) conference andshowcase features the complete spec-trum of learning technology innovationfrom participants around the globe. TheLI venue explicitly brings together per-spectives on executive level issues, archi-tecture issues, and technology-supportedlearning for the purpose of determiningthe “state of” and future directions.There are as many opinions and conclu-sions formed as attendees at the confer-ence. However, the unique blend ofperspectives and participants enables agauging of “how real” are new develop-ments and “how compelling” is the needthey are addressing. Each of the four pro-gram track summaries contains a view ona particular area of learning systems, dig-ital content, academic enterprise/assess-ment, and open technologies. Whatfollows here are the top six strategictrends to watch – those that look “real”and have very compelling drivers. By“strategic” we mean worthy of consider-ation of being in your planning, purchase,and integration cycle during the next 36months. Note that products may addressone or more of these trends.

Increasing Emphasis on IntegratedAccess to Teaching and LearningResources. This trend is being driven bythree very compelling needs: conve-nience, productivity, and strategic inclu-sion of new learning tools. While it hasoften been noted that digital natives haveno problem switching between differentinterfaces and applications, the reality ofeducation today is that convenience andproductivity, that is, time savings, is oneof the most important potential added

values from technology. In addition, fac-ulty and teachers are not technologistsand do not have the time to becomefamiliar, let alone expert with new tech-nologies. Therefore, an education pro-vider’s value can be greatly enhanced byproviding integrated access to a variety ofresources that fit seamlessly into theteaching and learning process.

There are many exciting new educationalproducts emerging. There is also a desireto encompass similar functionality ofpopular social networking sites into a col-laborative learning environment. Suchproducts and functionality are made thatmuch more impactful if they are madeavailable at a single access point and inthe appropriate context. This is also trueof digital content integration and access.LIA Gold winner HarvestRoad Hive & theResource List Management System at theUniversity of Western Australia repre-sents a breakthrough in an easy to useproduct that allows integration of libraryand other digital resources into a familiar“reading list” construct while handling allthe underlying technical complexity.

There is a very interesting competitivedynamic as to what should be the centralaccess point for the very large volume oflearners and instructors in the educa-tional enterprise. There are at leastthree options in terms of product catego-ries: learning or course management sys-tems, portals, or administrative systemsthat provide portals, all of which arevying to be the key point of entry thatadds the most value to the educationalprocess. It will be interesting to see if thepredominant approach becomes solution/product-, administrator-, student-, orfaculty-centric. In addition, the assess-ment and usage data from new and exist-ing learning tools needs to be usedstrategically by the education provider inorder to improve how education is deliv-


ered. There are at least three options interms of product categories: learning orcourse management systems, portals, oradministrative systems that provide por-tals, all of whom are vying to be the keypoint of entry that adds the most value tothe educational process.

Content Collections Resulting in MoreUsable, Efficient, and Effective Digital/Print Options. The future of educationalpublishing may be online environmentsthat are mosteffective for spe-cific educationalpurposes. There iscompelling pres-sure to addressthe cost of text-books while pro-viding alternativeapproaches thatfit how depart-ments, programs,and individualinstructors createand delivercourses. Booksand print will not be replaced com-pletely, but the production will becomeoptimized to help reduce costs to learn-ers. Publishers are exploring, and someare already offering, digital contentoptions that are much more usable byfaculty, teachers, and instructors thancurrently available products. Thisincludes customizable courses, supple-mentary reference web sites, and domainspecific adaptive learning environments.

Environments such as LIA Platinum win-ner Cyber Home Learning System ofKorea show that even at large scale,effective support for studying supportedby technology is viable. Several states inthe U.S. are in the process of piloting

new initiatives that are testing variousnew approaches to supplementary use ofdigital content that will inform thistrend. LIA Platinum winner OpenLearn atthe Open University, United Kingdom(supported by Moodle) representsanother innovative approach to openaccess to online courses. This continues aseveral year trend of making variousforms of content openly available inorder to encourage dissemination of edu-cational practices. We feel that projects

such as this willinform the futuredirection of digitalcontent for educa-tion. Anotheraspect of thistrend will beaccess to bestpractice commu-nities for makinguse of onlinecourse materialsor other instruc-tional content andsupport, exempli-fied by LIA Gold

winner European eTwinning Action byEuropean Schoolnet.

Self-Directed Learning Programs withInstructor in the Loop for Entry-LevelEducation or Domain-Specific Learning.It is very clear that educational leadersnow “get it” when it comes to redesign-ing high enrollment courses to make bet-ter use of technology in order topersonalize the experience. Much of thisis due to the great work by the NationalCenter for Academic Transformation.However, this trend is also exemplified byLIA Platinum winner ETS Criterion OnlineWriting Evaluation service at FarragutHigh School, Knox County Public Schools,and LIA Gold winner California State Uni-


versity (CSU) Math and English SuccessWebsites and the CSU Fresno Fast For-ward Program. Both of these winnershelp learners gauge their own progress,but in different ways. Development ofeffective and sophisticated applicationsto support self-directed learning will typ-ically be focused on high enrollment,entry-level subjects. A critical need is tosupport efficient ways for instructors tobe able to monitor and aid self-directedlearning. ETS Criterion Online allows andenables this. LIA Silver winner UsingGiunti Labs learn eXact LCMS at the UKNHS and Royal College of Radiologists R-ITI Project applied many of these sameprinciples in supporting a domain-specificcurriculum that enabled greater access,scale, and quality.

In addition, this trend area portends thegrowing importance of being able to eas-ily integrate assessment into the websupport for courses. LIA Silver winnerRespondus 3.5 and University of Albertarepresents the growing value of assess-ment creation that can pull together pre-developed test items from publishers, aswell as institution-created items. It isvery possible that the market will seemore preformed collections of assess-ment items to supplement topical areasto make it easier for education providersto incorporate customized formativeassessment into web-based course sup-port.

Evolving Forms of Collaborative Learn-ing. Online discussion forums havebecome a mainstay of instructor-ledonline courses or seminars. This isbecause there is ample evidence thatthey can be utilized in pedagogically suc-cessful ways that enhance the level ofinteractivity beyond what is achievable inmany classroom settings. The “Web 2.0”phenomena of social networking, blog-ging, video sites, wikis, with texting and

instant messaging replacing email, arecausing educators to take note and see ifthis energy and collaboration can be har-nessed towards instructional goals. Forinstance, it is clear that in the appropri-ate instructional scenario the peer cre-ation and review of a wiki can representa very realistic and effective learningscenario that builds critical thinking andmetacognitive skills. A new wave of inno-vative companies and products are begin-ning to address this need in a way that ismore straightforward for faculty and stu-dents to integrate into the educationalonline experience. LIA Bronze winnerWimba (Wimba’s Course Genie: AnAuthoring Tool for Common Cartridge atLangside College) is a leader in thisemerging area. There are more exoticapproaches being experimented with,such as Second Life communities for vari-ous aspects of teaching and learning. LIASilver winner Microsoft Research Confer-enceXP at Australian School of the Airand Classroom Presenter at University ofWashington represents anotherapproach—use of a flexible platform fordesigning innovative approaches to col-laborative learning that are institution ordomain specific.

Capturing the Classroom for Transpar-ent “Authoring” Techniques, RichMedia, and Mobile Learning. IMS GLCresearch into learning technology trendsand satisfaction indicates that authoringof content for online environments andthe tools to do so remain a challenge andhigh priority. The reality is that the over-whelming majority of instructors haveabsolutely no desire to be web develop-ers, instructional designers, or the like.The answer that is emerging after tenyears of development, deployment, andtesting are the use of low cost, easy touse digital media capture with seamlesspublishing through a learning or coursemanagement system. LIA Bronze winner


Tegrity Campus 2.0 at Saint Mary's Uni-versity exemplifies this emerging cate-gory. The compelling need is to givestudents options for reinforcing theirstudy by being able to revisit the class-room experience in an efficient way,while adding little to no extra burden onthe instructor to make this possible. Theapplications to distance learning areobvious, but we see this development asprobably the most realistic and usefulclassroom support for learning in themarket today, with a high probability ofbecoming mainstream. Two LIA Bronzewinners, Articulate at Jefferson CountyPublic Schools, and Wimba’s CourseGenie: An Authoring Tool for CommonCartridge at Langside College bothaddressed a slightly different solution tothis same issue by enabling very easy andintuitive use of familiar desktop applica-tions to develop course materials.

Solutions such as Tegrity’s also addressthe potential for mobilelearning with download andreplay through iPods orother devices. In fact,whereas the use of richmedia for learning has beenlong-touted, classroom cap-ture, high-speed connec-tions, and ubiquitousplayback platforms aremaking it a reality in some segments.This is especially the case in serving tra-

ditional students in the U.S. higher edu-cation segment.

Defining and Implementing Accountabil-ity and Dashboard Metrics. Accountabil-ity is perhaps the single most importantissue for any provider of educationwhether K-12 schools, further education,higher education, or corporate educa-tion and training. However, in all seg-ments defining appropriateaccountability metrics and measuresbeyond completion and retention ratesand satisfaction surveys has proven elu-sive or controversial, or both. The chal-lenge of thoughtful and usefulaccountability is as much a call to leader-ship as it is to the technological supportfor that leadership. This seems to be oneof the most important and promisingareas for breakthroughs for the studentsystem vendors, learning managementplatforms, and service providers alike.Activities in IMS GLC indicate that we

expect to see implementa-tions and exemplars emerg-ing to provide additionalleadership in this importantarea. LIA Honorable Men-tion eCollege ProgramIntelligence Manager atIowa Community CollegeOnline Consortium focusedmost explicitly on this topic

out of all of this year’s entries.

The challenge of thoughtful and useful accountability is as much a call to leadership as it is to the technological support for that leadership.


Status of Products and Services that Enable Enterprise LearningHow are the strategic trends going to beactualized in the average educational enter-prise? Only time will tell. A picture we use tolay out the components needed is shownhere as the IMS GLC Learning Enterprise.While there will be some variation by seg-ment and need, we believe that all educa-tional institutions and systems should beaware of developments in the functionalareas depicted in the picture by each box.Whether each of those boxes represents aproduct or a functional service will dependon the strategies of product providers asthey vie for a share of the learning enter-prise. Interoperability standards enableinteroperability of services regardless ofwhich product they reside in. Also note thatthe term “enterprise” is not meant to implya physical location. It is assumed that thefunctionality may exist anywhere that isreachable via the Internet.

CoreWe define the core functional-ity of the learning enterpriseas that which is well estab-lished today. This consists ofportal, learning management(also referred to as coursemanagement, instructionalmanagement, or virtual learn-ing environment), contentmanagement, and student sys-tem functionality.

EmergingWe define the emerging functionality of thelearning enterprise as that which is showingpotential for becoming mainstream, but hasnot yet crossed the chasm to mainstreamusage. In our opinion, this consists of contentauthoring, rich media capture tools, digital

publisher content, digital library content,assessment, and collaborative learning func-tionality. We also consider the use of webservices for learning as emerging.

Niche or R&DWe define the niche functionality of the learn-ing enterprise as that which appears to befinding niche application in some segments ofthe learning industry. We define the R&D func-tionality of the learning enterprise as thatwhich needs further development or compel-ling need to achieve more robust adoption.This does not mean that these functions willremain as niches or R&D. It is solely a reflec-tion on our perception of the current status ofthese functions. In our opinion these includeportfolio, repository, analytics, adaptivelearning, mobile communication devices (used

explicitly for learning), federated digital con-tent, search (for educational and learning pur-poses), personalization, and accessibility. Wealso consider the use of service-orientedarchitecture (SOA) approaches in this cate-gory.


LIA 2007 Awards SummaryPlatinum Winners:* ETS Criterion Online Writing Evaluation service at Farragut High School, Knox County

Public Schools* Cyber Home Learning System of Korea* OpenLearn at the Open University, United Kingdom (supported by Moodle)

Gold Winners:* HarvestRoad Hive & the Resource List Management System at the University of

Western Australia* The California State University (CSU) Math and English Success Websites and the CSU

Fresno Fast Forward Program* European eTwinning Action by European Schoolnet

Silver Winners:* Using Giunti Labs learn eXact LCMS at the UK NHS and Royal College of Radiologists R-

ITI Project* Microsoft Research ConferenceXP at Australian School of the Air and Classroom

Presenter at University of Washington* Respondus 3.5 and University of Alberta

Bronze Winners:* Tegrity Campus 2.0 at Saint Mary’s University* Articulate at Jefferson County Public Schools* Wimba’s Course Genie: An Authoring Tool for Common Cartridge at Langside College

Honorable Mentions:* eCollege Program Intelligence Manager at Iowa Community College Online Consortium* Desire2Learn at Office of Open Learning, University of Guelph* Microsoft Learning Gateway at Shireland Language College* BlueStream Digital Asset Management System At The University Of Michigan

(supported by Ancept and IBM)* ANGEL at Penn State* UGO Online Academic Resource Management system at the University of Montreal

(supported by Logiweb)* A study on how to enhance support for the Cyber Home Learning System by Korea

Education & Research Information Service* Meeting the Needs of a Global Student Body with Jenzabar at Park University* Microsoft Partners in Learning at Ministry of Education, Thailand


Achieving Learning Impact Through Strategic Investment in Technology:

The IMS Global Learning Consortium Executive Strategic Council Perspective

IntroductionWho has the responsibility for improv-ing learning worldwide? Albert Einsteinhas been quoted as saying, “The signifi-cant problems we face cannot be solvedat the same level of thinking we wereat when we created them.” Perhaps thesame can be said about our educationalsystems and processes.

The IMS GLC has formed the ExecutiveStrategic Council (ESC) for the purposeof providing leadership in highlightingthe major challenges to the learningindustry community worldwide, cur-rent and future, and to help guide thestrategic priorities of IMS GLC. Toencourage innovative responses tothese challenges the ESC provides guid-ance to IMS GLC’s Learning Impact

Awards (LIAs) and Recognition Programand is featured in the IMS GLC’s annualSummit on Global Learning IndustryChallenges. The annual LIA programrecognizes the most impactful uses oftechnology to address global learningchallenges, and recognizes product andservice innovation within the context ofa specific organizational, system, coun-try, or wider implementation.

In preparation for the inaugural April2007 LIAs, the ESC members were inter-viewed to provide their thoughts on thepotential use of technology in address-ing learning challenges. This articlesummarizes those thoughts and pro-vides a brief synopsis of the 2007 LIAfinalists.


The contextJust a few decades ago, post-secondaryinstitutions operated virtually unchal-lenged. Increasing costs were not ques-tioned and institutions expressed littleconcern over the wants and needs oftheir students. Today, the focus hasshifted to students as “customers” and awide variety of parties interested inaccess, affordability, and accountability.

Is higher education in the midst of a revo-lution, or is the world merely experienc-ing a seismic adjustment? What is drivingthis change? And where is this discussionabout assessment and learning outcomesheaded?

“Every generation wants to believe thatthe crises and challenges of their genera-tion will transform the world. No oneknows if they are at a watershed until thewatershed is history,” says John Lom-bardi, chancellor and professor of historyat the University of MassachusettsAmherst.

There have been moments in the historyof U.S. higher education, Lombardi adds,that were expected to change the worldin dramatic ways; events like the landgrant phenomenon of the late 19th Cen-tury, the GI Bill, and the decade of the1960s that ushered in student revolution.In the end, most institutions havechanged primarily in response to avail-able revenue and the needs of their vari-ous constituencies. And while they haveresponded to those demands for changein subtle ways, most institutions, conser-vative by nature, have resisted changingtheir core values or structures.

However gradually, higher educationappears to be shifting its focus from rep-utation and prestige to performance, andfor a variety of reasons.

“While reputation and prestige (i.e.,exclusiveness) will always be an impor-tant differentiator for certain schools,there is intense competition in highereducation for students, and this competi-tion drives the need for differentiation,”says Doug Kelsall, president and COO ofeCollege. “Performance and learning out-comes are one way for schools to differ-entiate themselves in a competitiveenvironment.”

Another driver for the increasing focus onperformance is the intense competitionfor access to public funding. As highereducation comes under greater scrutiny,legislators and other key constituents arelooking for greater accountability andreturn on their investment. A continuedfocus on the performance of higher edu-cation is one way to justify public invest-ment in higher education.

Nick Allen, provost and chief academicofficer of the University of Maryland Uni-versity College, says another factor driv-ing the focus on performance is society’sJohn Lombardi


need for increasing numbers of studentsto have access to a post-secondary edu-cation. “The elite academic institutionsthat were built on reputation for theirinputs and selectivity will not disappear.But they will become less and less rele-vant in terms of providing educationalopportunities for society as a whole.

They will con-tinue to playan importantrole in carry-ing out theirresearch func-tions, but notfor delivery.”

While accred-iting agenciesand regulatorswill increas-ingly insist onmeasuring per-formance out-comes, Allen

says it is incumbent upon higher educa-tion institutions to monitor those out-comes to determine the learning rates oftheir students. “In earlier times, whenselectivity was emphasized, the assump-tion was that if only the few best quali-fied students were admitted, and if thosestudents put in the required seat timeand were exposed to the right faculty,then learning would take place. Highereducation in America was built on thatpremise for the most part. But highaccess institutions today can no longerafford to make that assumption withoutmeasurement, if they want to be qualityinstitutions.”

Many of the most prestigious institutionsreceived their status by setting the barfor performance as measured by the repu-tation of their graduates or helping todrive exacting professional standards inspecific fields for which their programs

have become synonymous with excel-lence. Those institutions measured per-formance in new ways, such as learningoutcomes. And for those interested inlearning outcomes, there is widespreaddisagreement over what the goals for per-formance should be. “Different schoolsand different students are looking for dif-ferent outcomes from the educationalprocess,” says Kelsall. “For some, it isskills for a career. For others, it is a wellrounded individual. The ‘focus’ on perfor-mance can get a bit hazy if there is notwidespread agreement on the goals, orallowance for different types of goals.”

Yet, despite all the talk of learning out-comes and performance, is the realitythat the connection between researchand international prestige going to drivegovernmental investment in higher edu-cation around the globe? “I do notbelieve that there is a movement awayfrom the importance of reputation andprestige in the British higher educationsector,” comments Paul Clark, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Learning and Teaching), ofThe Open University of the U.K. “There isthe perceived need to compete interna-tionally at the highest level of researchperformance and available Government-provided research funding have limitedthe resource input into teaching in orderto focus on research.”

Arthur Lendo, president and professor ofmanagement at Peirce College, says theadvancement of technology, especiallyinternet mediated distance learning, iscontributing to the continued develop-ment of a commodity-like marketplace inhigher education and that those institu-tions without large endowments will beforced to focus more on performance.

“Technology is driving both evolutionaryand revolutionary changes simulta-neously,” adds Lendo. “Institutions will

Doug Kelsall


best students ey need g world.

respond to the marketplace unevenly.Elite privates and flagship state institu-tions will be the last sectors to respondbased on perceived prestige.” He pre-dicts that the rapid creation of newknowledge will likely dictate a faster rateof change in higher education althoughreactionary forces will continue to dig intheir heels.

Dr. Carl Kuttler, President of St. Peters-burg College in Florida, notes that we areon a “change treadmill” today, driven by“the changing nature of our students, therapid evolution of technology in support-ing teaching and learning, and, yes,demands from the students and the pub-lic for improved performance.” He doesnot see this as a negative, or somethinginstitutions should have to be forced todo. “Accountability in the best sensemeans giving students the skills and toolsthey need to be successful in a dramati-cally changing world.”

Malcolm Read, executive secretary of theJoint Information Systems Committee inthe United Kingdom, says the British gov-ernment has so far placed less pressureon documented performance measure-ment. He also believes that measuringthe performance outcomes of graduatesis complicated.

“Universities are judged by the caliber oftheir graduates (and their research),” hesays. “However, as the caliber of gradu-ates is based on their subsequent perfor-mance in the world, this takes time toestablish and the perception may lagbehind realities, for better or worse. Theperformance and reputation of graduatesdetermines the perceived value of aninstitution’s degree. A performance tableof cost / (immediate) learning outcomesthen appears too simplistic.”

As the number of institutions, both for-profit and not-for-profit, increases innumber, there is more opportunity forperformance-centric programs that caterto students interested in job and careeropportunities. “Access, choice andopportunity are becoming more and moreavailable to all,” adds Bernie Luskin,executive vice president and director ofthe media studies program at FieldingGraduate University. “The impact oncommunity colleges is a good example ofthat. It is happening through improvedmedia communication, entrepreneurism,and that the fact that the world is flat.”

Kelsall believes the current focus on per-formance is an outcome of the transitionas opposed to its cause. “The major tran-sition which is occurring in education isgreater demand, greater access andchoice, and thusgreater competi-tion for students.Further, the expan-sion and continuedgrowth of onlineeducation has pro-vided students witheven greater access and choices, as wellas additional delivery mechanisms forschools to reach new markets.”

U.S. Spellings Commission findings on target or off base?The recent Spellings Commission reportaddresses the quality of U.S. higher edu-cation and talks of the need for improvedaccess, affordability, and accountability.While most agree that many of the issuesoutlined in the report need to beaddressed, the devil can be in thedetails.

Accountability in thesense means giving the skills and tools thto be successful in adramatically changin


With all due respect to those conversa-tions currently taking place behind Amer-ica’s ivy-covered walls, Lombardi saysdiscussion about affordability, accessibil-ity and accountability has been takingplace for decades. Most would agree thatU.S. higher education is generally doing abetter job of preparing students thanU.S. K-12, but could it do more? Sure,says Lombardi, but cautions that institu-tions will be more likely to pay attentionto what their customers do rather thansay. “Legislators, for example, say theywant cheap, affordable, high quality edu-cation available to all. They supportcheap education that is of generic qualityand is affordable to many. They sendtheir children, however, to the mostexpensive, selective institutions they canfind. It’s important to track what the cus-tomers actually do,rather than focus onwhat they say.”

The real issue withthe Spellings find-ings, says Read, ishow does one reallyjudge quality? Overwhat period of time?In the judgment ofwhich stakeholders?Although the reportspecifically ques-tions U.S. higher edu-cation, the issues arerelevant to aca-demia worldwide.

Lendo believes thecommission’s find-ings will have littleimpact on higher education until some ofthe underlying accountability issues areaddressed. The notion of tenure andguaranteed lifetime employment is oneof the items he puts at the top of the list.He noted there has been insufficient

debate about considering multi-year con-tracts in lieu of tenure. An all-out effortregarding ineffectiveness and ineffi-ciency in American public school systemsis needed, he says, because fewer stu-dents are prepared for college and work.Studies indicate students from otherdeveloped countries are outperformingtheir U.S. counterparts in many subjects.

Allen considers the findings a profoundstatement of expectations about oppor-tunity, but also a challenge. The valuesthe report espouses can only beachieved, he says, by leveraging the useof technology and good process re-engi-neering principles of both academic andadministrative systems in America’s col-leges and universities.

“Technology has given us an opportunityas never before to accomplish all of thesevalues concurrently,” says Allen. “In pre-vious times, they were at tension withone another. It was assumed that to have

Nick Allen


kin

quality, one had to limit access, thatquality had to cost more and thus beunaffordable to most individuals, andthat higher education institutions werereally only accountable to themselves.All that has changed thanks to technol-ogy. Technology will enable a revolutionin access to a quality higher educationfor large numbers of people that will sur-pass what was experienced in the U.S.when the GI Bill was introduced followingWorld War II.”

A quality educational experienceThe Spellings Commission report, alongwith work being conducted by organiza-tions such as the Council for Higher Edu-cation Accreditation (CHEA) and theNational Association of State Universitiesand Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC) inthe U.S., and the Quality AssuranceAgency for Higher Education (QAA) in theU.K., highlight the struggle to define aquality educational experience. Whatcomponents make for a quality educa-tion? Most agree the answer to that ques-tion is complex.

Luskin believes a key component is learn-ing how to learn; the ability to write andspeak clearly and to think critically andcreatively. Another component, adds DanDevine, CEO of Compass KnowledgeGroup, is to be able to complete one’sformal education with a marketable skillthat will allow one to adapt to the needsof the marketplace. Says Lendo: “Stu-dents must be prepared to live and workin a ‘flat,’ 21st century environmentrooted in global competition and com-plex, strategic partnerships.”

Read cites as an important component isexcellent teachers who are knowledge-able, enthusiastic and, when relevant,

able to relate their research activities totheir teaching. Other important compo-nents, he says, include: a stimulatingcohort of students; a balance of passive(reading and lectures) and active(projects, production, performance)learning; good facilities and resources;and awareness and confirmation of theknowledge and skills being acquired.

“On what level does one define ‘educa-tional experience?’ asks Allen. “Does itinclude the menu of services an institu-tion wraps around its courses and pro-grams to support a student’s progress andneeds? Is it a student’s experience in aparticular class from her interaction withfaculty, class-mates, coursematerials, andlearning objects?Is it the student’smeasured growthin knowledge,skills, and abili-ties between thebeginning andend of that expe-rience? Is it astudent’s mea-sured growthover a programof courses? Iwould argue thata quality educa-tional experi-ence includes all of these, as defined insome set of agreed upon metrics, how-ever imperfect.”

Technology can serve as a powerfulenabler of the learning experience, par-ticularly for the new majority of stu-dents: the older, working adult studentwith working and family obligations aswell as a non-traditional schedule and

Bernie Lus


outlook. Says Read: “By supporting thelearning process and flexible learning,technology allows students freedom fromthe tyranny of time and geography.”

Lombardi defines learning technology assimply the implementation tools for thework that higher education wants toaccomplish. “Technology is always expen-sive, and its value is hard to predict. Peo-ple should sell their stuff, see if it getsused, and watch markets emerge. Who-ever figures out how to make YouTube,iPod, and Facebook useable technologieswill win the war. Short term, however,there’s lot of money to be made in spe-cialized niche products that give gee-whizvalue to standard educational products.”

Learning technology can enhance notonly the access to content, but also theinteraction that takes place between stu-dents and faculty, and improve assess-ment through the use of data, reportinganalytics and assess-ment portfolios, saysKelsall. “With the rightinformation, faculty andother stakeholders canuse this data to enhancethe learning experiencein a more systematicfashion than is possible if relying purelyon in-classroom information. Educationaltechnology is a tool; the effectiveness inthe use of this tool requires training andexperience.”

Kuttler notes that as an increasing per-centage of students opt to complete theireducational programs online, it is incum-bent on educators to “use the new tech-nology tools effectively to promotestudent-to-faculty and student-to-stu-dent communication, to work collabora-tively, and to engage in higher order skilldevelopment in areas like critical think-ing.”

Defining learning outcomesLearning outcomes are, quite simply,what we want our students to take awayfrom a particular unit of study, whether amodule, a course, or a program. They area defined set of learning objectives asso-ciated with an educational activity, thecriteria to measure the success or failureof those objectives, and an assessmentmechanism to measure the mastery ofthose objectives.

Learning outcomes can also be defined asa buzzword that means whatever theindividual using it wants it to mean. Forone group, it may mean an employablegraduate. For another, it might meansomeone who can go to grad school. Andfor yet another, it might define the abil-ity to read and write and count. Out-comes are a function of purpose, and tofocus on outcomes without understandingpurpose is to create expectations thatnurture government bureaucracy and

promote an environ-ment where some par-tially succeed, allpartially fail, and theelite are the primarybeneficiaries. So thequestion really becomes:

learning outcomes forwhom? And for what? It is not a “one sizefits all” solution.

Clark points out that improving the clar-ity of expression of the learning outcomeand making the teacher more capable ofarticulating the outcomes that s/he isexpecting can improve both the studentunderstanding of what is expected andsharpen the focus on the learning activi-ties that lead to the achievement of theoutcome. To what degree do institutions,programs, and individual faculty “con-nect the dots” between the goals of theeducational experience at all three lev-els?

Learning technology can enhance not only the access to content, but also the interaction that takes place between students and faculty.


Allen points out that at an institutional orprogrammatic level, learning outcomesneed to be established for what we wantour students to have acquired by thetime they leave with a degree or certifi-cate. At the baccalaureate level, he says,learning outcomes seem to fall into six toten broad areas (at least for those insti-tutions that focus on outcomes): commu-nication skills (written and oral);quantitative fluency; critical thinking;information literacy; technology fluency;scientific fluency; historical perspective;global perspective or cultural awareness;citizenship; and, of course, specific disci-plinary knowledge. These outcome areasare the ones often advocated by regionalaccrediting agencies aswell as some state regu-latory commissions.Clark believes that high“value-added” in theacademic experience issome measure ofachieved outcomesrelated to initial educa-tional “qualifications”.This includes: indepen-dence of thought, abilityto work in conditions ofuncertainty, critical andanalytical capabilities,ability to work produc-tively in collaborative orindependent mode, andpossession of ICT skillsand information literacyskills to permit life-long learning.

With the great majority of its institutionsautonomous and government funded,Read says universities in the United King-dom see their primary objective asincreasing knowledge and diffusing itthroughout society. “They all would liketo provide higher quality courses and bet-ter educated graduates. Unfortunately,they are under twin constraints of having

to enlarge their student intake on rela-tively fixed budgets, while having tomaintain quality. That they have beenmanaging to do this, more or less, is anindication that they have improved learn-ing outcomes. However, there is adilemma between tightening up effi-ciency and flexibility and maintaining theability to take advantage of new technol-ogies. There needs to be some freedomand willingness to innovate and take risksin the systems for HEI’s to be able todevelop and try out new technologies andco-develop enhanced practices and pro-cesses.”

The old adage defines insanity as expect-ing different outcomesfrom the same pro-cesses. In like fashion,without clear measuresand defined purposes,higher education cannotexpect significantimprovement in learn-ing outcomes. Vaguegeneralizations are oneof the most effectivetools in the academickit for avoiding change.

Jolene Koester, presi-dent of California StateUniversity, Northridge,believes improvementwill occur with specific-ity, through measure-

ment or assessment, and in the publicdissemination of those results. She alsobelieves providing faculty with incentivescan bring about positive change.

“Tuition-dependent institutions mustevolve to more business-like models tomaximize limited resources in increas-ingly competitive environments driven bypowerful, for-profit entities,” saysLendo.

Jolene Koester


We reach on the invewell beforediminishinginvestmen

Devine says technology has enabled insti-tutions to more effectively communicatewith students, monitor their progressthrough the learning process, and openthe door for increased collaborationbetween students and faculty forresearch. “Not only has it improvedlearning, but it also has opened up themarketplace. Non-traditional studentswho couldn’t afford to quit their jobs,abandon their families and move toanother city to attend college can now

improve their livesand engage in life-long learning.”

“We have tochange the busi-ness model for

higher education, especially in the publicsector,” adds Allen. “This is particularlytrue in the outcomes assessment area.Learning assessment in higher education islike a cottage industry. Every facultymember does it differently, according totheir own judgment, interests, and per-sonal experience. At least on a program-matic or institutional basis, we need tomove to systemic, scalable approaches.We need to take advantage of the learningtechnology available to us now.”

The tradeoff between access, affordability, and qualityDoes a high quality traditional collegeeducation cost more? In a word, yes. Thereasons vary.

“Access is a function of who pays for thequality you want,” says Lombardi. “Is itnecessary for an education to cost $40Kper student? No. But is it necessary thatit cost $10K per student? And if the stu-dent is poorly prepared, wants to studychemistry, or is interested in being wherethere is a high quality non-academicextracurricular life, then the cost will go

well beyond $10K. There is a differencebetween quality and utility. A $90K Mer-cedes is better than a $20K Ford. But is itbetter for getting groceries? The issue ofquality is a matter of cost. The issue ofutility is a matter of cost. But they do notcost the same. We reach diminishingreturns on the investment in utility wellbefore reaching the diminishing returnson the investment in quality.”

Depending on how one defines quality, itcan be improved at a reduced costthrough the use of technology. While tech-nology has been used to improve theadministration of the learning process,there is less evidence that its use toimprove the delivery of learning has sig-nificantly increased. And while technologymay enable the delivery of some forms ofutility at lower cost than traditional edu-cation, institutions will need to employhigh cost technology in order to achieve ahigher quality educational product.

In describing the challenge, Allen alsoshares an analogy from the automobileindustry: The difference between deliv-ering a high quality, machine tooled, cus-tom-made automobile to the few whocan afford one, as opposed to the basic,but still high-quality vehicle that’s rea-sonably customizable to a mass audience.It’s the concept of mass customizationthat is only made possible through theuse of technology.

“What I am saying is that the educationindustry has the opportunity to do thesame as the automobile and other indus-tries if we can give up the paradigm thata college education is only possible if onegoes to an ivy-covered school in a littleNew England village for four years out ofhigh school, and that’s it,” he says. “Itwas a great experience then, and still is,but only for the select few who get theopportunity. Twenty-first century societyneeds much more.”

diminishing returns stment in utility reaching the returns on the

t in quality.


nology, ormation ogy to forcing ation to .

Kelsall says one of the often undervaluedbenefits of technology is the improved fac-ulty and student efficiency that is obtainedthrough its use. This improved efficiency,while difficult to quantify, can be substan-tial, and can result in an improved returnon investment. Kuttler concurs, pointing toactivities like the creation of media-richRLOs (reusable learning objects) throughprojects like Merlot, which can enrich bothinteractivity and the understanding of com-plex concepts.

Roadblocks to progressSo what’s standing in the way of moreimproved methods of teaching and learn-ing? Resistance to change on the part offaculty and administrators? The cost ofinvesting in development learning objec-tives and technology tools to improvelearning outcomes? Fear of business pro-cess redesign in a risk adverse environ-ment? Perhaps all of the above.

A primary obstacle to progress, says Allen,is belief in the outdated higher educationparadigm that learning will naturally takeplace when the brightest students are putin a classroom with the best faculty, sur-rounded by ample resources. It’s anapproach that may work in some cases, headds, but won’t meet all the needs of thepresent century.

“The other problem for investing in learn-ing outcomes is that it is complex andexpensive to do,” says Allen. “There are nosilver bullets, no one size fits all, and thereare costs. Institutions that are trying to doit are just now finding out how difficult itis. The culture shift necessary to do it inmost higher education institutions alone isenormous. It requires getting traditionalfaculty to let go of cottage industry assess-ment practices to move to systems in whichothers may be involved in assessing howeffective they have been as teachers. That

hits raw emotions and causes much of theresistance.”

Read adds that it may be more effectiveto use technology to remove, as much aspossible, the administrative burden fromteachers and allow them to do what theydo best, which is help students overcomemental blocks, understand what they arelearning, and become comfortable withthe language and practices of the disci-pline or profession. These characteristics,he says, are what students value andInternet communications technology isgenerally not capable of providing.

The role of technology as change agentThere is no ques-tion that technol-ogy is having aprofound changeon teaching andlearning. What isthe impact andwhat are its long-range implications?

Media is more than a stimulant for socialchange, says Luskin. Media is socialchange. It is transformational in that itchanges the method by which learningtakes place.

“The confluence of technology, includingaccess to information and the use of tech-nology to reach new markets, is forcingtraditional higher education to addressstudent needs,” says Kelsall. “Further, thepublic fiscal crisis is resulting in scrutinyand justification of public investment ineducation. The confluence of theseevents: Technology, improved access toinformation, seeking new markets,increased competition and the demand forpublic justification of education invest-ment are all impacting higher educationtransition.”

The confluence of techincluding access to infand the use of technolreach new markets, istraditional higher educaddress student needs


Technologyscale and ethe per-unieducation. improve acstudents lehelp facultyassess the

Read says increasing globalization andgrowing competition from China andIndia are forcing the United Kingdom tostrengthen its knowledge base throughcontinued research and the developmentof creative and high-tech industries. Thelabor market is also demanding change asa result of the increased outsourcing ofmanufacturing and services.

Technology has become a true enabler ofperformance monitoring, says Devine.Contrary to the fear that the increasinguse of technology will make learningimpersonal, the opposite has occurred.Its application has allowed learning tobecome more individualized, whether in

the classroom orthrough distancelearning. It has largelyremoved the conceptof higher education asplace and has madelearning a 24x7 andlifelong process.

Are these changes inhigher education mak-

ing the transition to a new learningmodel more imminent or radical than inthe past?

Absolutely, says Allen. “This transition isbeing brought about by raising expecta-tions of the public at large, their hope fora better future through an education, abelief that cuts across economic, ethnic,and cultural differences. Add a globaleconomy that drives the off-shoring of jobsin a ‘flat world,’ and a new view of learn-ing that sees it as something that takesplace over a lifetime rather than in a shortperiod of adulthood. All these factorstogether have resulted in a need, ademand for education that is unequaledand unfulfilled. Fortunately, the explosionof information and communication tech-nology (ICT) over the past decade changes

the equation for scale, cost of delivery,and access to higher education. It providesus an opportunity to meet the need forhigher education as never before, if weare clever enough to figure it out quickly.”

Investing in technologyIs investment in educational technologyjustified? Yes, provided it supports theimprovement of student learning out-comes and is not implemented for its ownsake. So, to evaluate and recognize theacademic return on technology, baselinelearning outcomes (non-technologyenabled) should be identified and com-pared against student learning outcomesderived through technology-enableddelivery. If so, this suggests the determi-nation of the value of educational tech-nology is linked to the establishment ofclear learning objectives and expectedoutcomes. Technology should enablescale and eventually lower the per-unitcost of education. It also can improveaccess, help students learn better, andhelp faculty and institutions assess theireffectiveness.

“Technology is only helpful if we knowwhat we want to do,” says Lombardi.“The role of technology is to help peoplefigure out better ways of doing what it isthey want to do. But if they don’t knowwhat they want to do, or if the technol-ogy just adds cost and no efficiencies orimprovements, it will be gee-whiz value,but not real or lasting value.”

“The appropriate use of technology canincrease revenue by accessing new mar-kets, improving efficiency and effective-ness of educational resources, and gatherand analyze data,” adds Kelsall. “Thisdata can be used to reduce the cost ofregulatory compliance. Increased reve-nue while improving operating efficiencyresults in improved education economics.

should enable ventually lower

t cost of It also can cess, help arn better, and and institutions ir effectiveness.


Further, data gathered through technol-ogy can be analyzed to determine behav-iors that improve learning outcomes.”

Investment in technology can come froma variety of sources; government funding;endowments; higher tuition and feesbased on the belief that the technologyproduces higher utility or quality; andnew savings from the technology itself,which is rare. Some institutions have suc-ceeded in reallocating savings from back-end technology services realized throughefficiency. As the cost of hardware, soft-ware and some administrative servicescomes down, those savings can be re-invested in learning technology.

“Educational institutions have to do abetter job of carving out and protectingfunding in their annual budgets that willbe used solely for strategic investmentsin learning,” adds Allen. “Private industrydoes this, of course, and it’s usuallycalled R&D. Whether the college or uni-versity is public or private, strategicinvestment money needs to be taken offthe top of the institution’s budget at thebeginning and before budgets are givento schools and departments to develop.Institutions have the ability, if they havethe will, to do some investment of theirown. That’s a function of leadership.

It also appears to be a function of missionfocus. Clark says that at the Open Univer-sity it is a given that the institution mustallocate for investment in technology tosupport its distance delivery approach.Open U has chosen to, in essence, poolresources by investing in open source soft-ware. Clark adds, “The investment into ICT

for a distance education outfit is a must,but it has to be used within a framework ofpedagogic analysis that guides its use andshapes the expected learning outcomes.”

An additional source of revenue forinvesting in technology is the develop-ment of partnering relationships betweenacademic institutions and private indus-try. Care must be taken, however, inselecting strategic partners; the culturesof industry and academia are so differentthat “pooling” efforts, says Lendo, canbecome counter-productive.

“Vendors sell generic applications whileuniversities and colleges want specificapplications that help them differentiatetheir products,” adds Lombardi. “Ven-dors often sell products that require highcosts to implement, and institutions,while buying these products, do notbelieve the vendors care about the users.Vendors are interested in extracting highmargins from very low-margin universityand college businesses. This lack of con-vergence in business models makes forpoor relationships.”

“There has to be a willingness for both towork together on projects that will facili-tate the provision of educational ser-vices, the delivery of curriculum andstudent learning,” says Allen. “I thinkmore attention needs to be given to thestudent life cycle and the particularneeds of the student in each phase ofthat cycle that could be facilitatedthrough the use of new technology. Thetechnology industry can’t do this in isola-tion from educational institutions. It hasto be a true partnership.”


Summary of Learning Impact 2007 Conference



Summit on Global Learning Industry ChallengesThe following panel discussions were led by the individual contributors identified below.

What are the Successes of Open Initiatives in Education So Far and What is Coming Next?What Business Models are Working and Why?

• Ted Dodds, CIO, University of British Columbia• Dr. Joel Greenberg, Open University’s Director of Strategic Development, Learning and Teach-

ing Solutions• John Norman, Director of the Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technologies and

‘Head of e-Learning’, University of Cambridge and Sakai Board Chair• Joel Thierstein, J.D., Ph.D.,Associate Provost, Rice University, Executive Director, Connexions

Exploring Best Practices in Government Support for ICT

• Mr. Lawrence K. Grossman, Lawrence K. Grossman, Co-Chair of Digital Promise, former presi-dent of NBC News and PBS

• Sarah Porter, Head of Development, Joint Information Systems Committee, United Kingdom (JISC)• Jonathan Shennan, Manager, Enterprise Architecture, New Zealand Ministry of Education• Mr. Tae-Myung Han, Executive Director of Educational Information Center, KERIS

Performance vs. Prestige: Does the Work of the Spellings Commission Signal a New Era ofAccess, Affordability, and Accountability? Why or Why Not?

• Dr. Paula E. Peinovich, former President, Walden University• Dr. Bernard Luskin, Executive Vice President, Fielding Graduate University, Director, Media

Psychology Program, Founding President of Coastline Community College, including KOCE, TV in Orange County California, Orange Coast College and Founding Chancellor of Jones Interna-tional University

• Dr. Arthur J. Lendo, President and Professor of Management, Peirce College, Philadelphia, PA

Will Technology Enable Higher Education to Solve the Access-Affordability-Quality Tradeoff?

• Dr. Nicholas H. Allen, Provost and Chief Academic Officer, University of Maryland University College• Daniel J. Devine, CEO, Compass Knowledge Group• Dr. Paul Clark, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Learning and Teaching), The Open University• Kendrick McLish, Vice President, Product and Marketing, eCollege

The Evolving Business Model(s) of Learning Content: Does Free or Ad-Supported Equate toBetter? Why or Why Not?

• Ray Henderson, Chief Products Officer, Angel Learning• Sebastian Vos, Vice President of eEducation, Elsevier• Jim Behnke, Pearson Higher Education’s Chief Publishing Officer• Dr. Mark R. Nelson, Digital Content Strategist, National Association of College Stores

Program Track Summaries

During Learning Impact 2007 attendees were invited to participate in fourProgram Tracks running in parallel. Each track offered a different themewith presentations from IMS GLC member organizations about the currentstate of the art and best practices in products, services, and trends. TheProgram Tracks included:

• What’s Next in Learning Systems• What’s Next for Digital Learning Content• The Academic Enterprise: Assessment, Analytics and Student/Institu-

tional Performance• Progress in Open Source, Open Content, and Open Services

A summary of each program track follows.


What’s Next in Learning Systems

Introduction

Challenge Question: What have beenthe primary impacts of instructional,learning, and course managementsystems to date and what newinnovations will become mainstream inthe next two years?

The executive panel sessions at the Sum-mit on Global Learning Industry Chal-lenges included representatives fromseveral of the largest distance learningproviders in the world including the OpenUniversity UK and the University of Mary-land University College (UMUC).

Participants in the learning systems pro-gram track at the LI 2007 event weretasked at defining the current state-of-the-art and establishing a way forwardfor the next 24 months. A series of per-spectives from Open University UK, Sakai,Wimba, Tegrity, Blackboard, Ucompass,Giunti Labs, and ANGEL Learning wereprovided to prompt the discussions. Fur-ther perspectives were presented as partof the Summit on Global Learning Indus-try Challenges in which a panel of expertsdiscussed the question of whether tech-nology can enable education providers tosolve the access-affordability-qualitytradeoff.

The ContextDuring one of the conference keynotesand the Summit on Global Learning Indus-try Challenges, Bernie Luskin of theFielding Graduate University, referencedthe data from the Sloan-C that over threemillion students involved in post-second-ary degree programs in the U.S. took atleast one fully online course, which is

nearly one in every five students, in theFall of 2005. Data from a variety of Sloan-C studies and others has indicated that inthe postsecondary segment, there is nosubstantial difference between outcomesin online and traditional classroom set-tings, assuming use of best practices areadhered to. The most recent NationalSurvey of Student Engagement reportincluded a finding that distance learnersengaged more often in deep learningactivities than campus-based students. Inaddition, course management systemsare deployed in nearly all U.S. postsec-ondary institutions to support instructionin a variety of ways. In short, InternetAssisted Learning is already a staple ofU.S. higher education.

During the program track, Joel Greenbergfrom Open University UK asked the ques-tion, “Are we there yet?” Well, as indi-cated in the Luskin keynote, theexecutive panel sessions, and a whitepaper distributed to conference attend-ees developed by educational researcherand IMS GLC CEO, Rob Abel, entitled,What’s Next in Learning Technology inHigher Education?, it appears that overthe last ten years the Internet hasenhanced access to resources that sup-port higher education, and this hasimproved and increased the scale of useof distance learning in the post-secondarysegment. This same feature of coursemanagement systems (also called learningmanagement systems and virtual learningenvironments in some regions) is useful inthe on-campus learning environment pri-marily as a convenient communicationhub where materials and discussions thatsupport learning are organized in a waythat facilitates more flexible use of timeand space.


In general,radically chlearning achow they a

Therefore, considering the state of thekey parameters of access, affordability,and quality, learning technology to datehas had the most influence on access.The required resources to support educa-tion, including interaction with instruc-tors, instructional materials, interactionswith peers, plans of study, and the cre-dential granting institutions themselves,are all more readily accessible. Technol-ogy has improved efficiency for thelearners, removing access barriers ofspace and time.

It was generally agreed that the environ-ment in which education occurs is animportant factor. Depending on the needsand objectives of the learner, differenttypes of environments can contribute tothe ‘quality’ and success of the educa-

tional experi-ence. Forinstance, for stu-dents having theneed for social-ization in order

to develop groupskills, a robust face-to-face experiencemay be a critical factor in quality. Forother students who may already havethese skills but lack the time to assimi-late knowledge, a distance program thatsaves the time associated with campusactivities may produce a higher qualityexperience. However, in general, tech-nology has not radically changed whatthe learning activities are but rather howthey are accomplished.

Technology has not radically impactedthe affordability of the educational expe-rience either in that the costs of most ofthe resources supporting the educationalexperience have not been radicallychanged. However, since the overall costof access (in terms of efficiency) is lower,quality and access are no longer as diffi-cult to achieve simultaneously as they

once were when access was place andtime dependent. Technology has beenslow to show it can help improve the effi-ciency of most faculty, teachers, orinstructors.

The State-of-the-ArtBob Alcorn from Blackboard discussedhow the course management system hasbecome the most mission critical infor-mation system in higher education interms of the essential 24x7 operation andthe most used of any system among fac-ulty and students. It is interesting to notethat five years ago the notion of 24x7support for these systems was considereda daunting challenge. The ability to keepa very large scale course management orportal environment operational on a glo-bal basis 24x7, while impressive, is nolonger pushing the envelope of innova-tion: it is the expectation. The emphasistoday, in contrast, appears to be on howthe learning environment is used. Severalextremely large-scale and impressivedeployments of learning platforms wereLIA Honorable Mention winners:Desire2Learn at Office of Open Learning,University of Guelph, ANGEL at PennState, and Meeting the Needs of a GlobalStudent Body with Jenzabar at Park Uni-versity.

Between the LIA finalists showcase andthe program track, a dizzying array ofinnovations was presented. A theme ofmany presenters in terms of what is com-ing next featured the reality of rapidlyemerging and pervasive technologies thatmay have implications for support of edu-cation and instruction.

Blackboard emphasized the need to inte-grate results, such as gradable events andstudent portfolios, from the various inno-vative technologies, in order for their useto be of strategic use in the learning

technology has not anged what the tivities are but rather re accomplished.


enterprise. John Norman of University ofCambridge and Sakai indicated that Sakaiis working to support the new IMS GLCEnterprise interoperability standard toenable real-time exchange of informa-tion between course management plat-forms and administrative systems.Norman also discussed what seems to bean important trend of integrating newtools to facilitate scholarship, termed a‘scholar’s workbench’. Sakai also demon-strated at the conference the use of theIMS GLC LTI (Learning Tools Interoperabil-ity) specification for enabling portletintegration into Sakai.

The potential opportunity to exploit theease with which video can be producedto enhance the instructional experiencewas discussed by Tegrity. Tegrity’s LIABronze winner (Tegrity Campus 2.0 atSaint Mary's University) featured theability for faculty to make searchablelecture recordings automatically avail-able online without having to change howthey teach. Interestingly, the approachused by Tegrity also has been proven toaddress the mission criticality issue, withthe platform being used to rapidly sup-port moving to a distance mode when acampus was forced to shutdown due toHurricane Katrina.

Wimba discussed new approaches forintegrating collaborative ‘Web 2.0’ fea-tures into the learning environment,including instant messaging, wikis, digitalworld features (identity, emotions),blogs, and other collaborative tools.Wimba’s LIA Bronze winner, Wimba'sCourse Genie: An Authoring Tool forCommon Cartridge at Langside College,featured IMS GLC’s new digital learningcontent standard, Common Cartridge,which facilitates integration of learningtools, assessments and discussion forums.

Ucompass introduced integration oflearning tools with the user’s desktopenvironment, making the use of learningtools more intuitive. In addition, Ucom-pass demonstrated a prototype applica-tion interface and web service to launchand “play” learning applications in thenew Common Cartridge standard format.

ANGEL Learning discussed a host of newfeatures including full incorporation ofCommon Cartridge into the next releaseof ANGEL, the launching of a new digitalworld in Second Life to support learning,and full support of the latest version ofthe IMS GLC Question and Test specifica-tion, enabling faculty and teachers tomore readily find and use test items.ANGEL also introduced new accessibilityfeatures, including a new wizard to cre-ate learner profiles that enables use ofthe IMS GLC Access for All accessibilityspecifications.

Open University UK discussed severalinnovations that they are targeting forcurrent and future development. Open Uhas become an important contributor toMoodle enhancements, therefore, theOpen U work may portend some futureevolution of the Moodle platform. Open Ubrought to LI 2007 a half dozen coursesfrom its new OpenLearn initiative (win-ner of a LIA Platinum) in the new Com-mon Cartridge format. These weredemonstrated to work in Sakai, ANGEL,and Ucompass platforms. Open U is inno-vating with respect to using the learningmanagement system for ‘activity-centric’learning.

There was much speculation at LI 2007that the IMS GLC Learning Design specifi-cation could be coupled in some way withCommon Cartridge to specify sequencingof learning activities, including online


and in-class, for export and import. OpenU also reinforced the previous themes ofimproving accessibility via IMS GLCAccess for All and incorporation of wikisand blogs into the learning environment.Open U is also grappling with somethingof major importance to institutions thatpublish online and in print, which is theinclusion of document management capa-bilities based on open standards. Ele-ments of the importance of incorporatingdocument management into the learningenvironment were reiterated by theselection of LIA Gold winner HarvestRoadHive & the Resource List ManagementSystem at the University of Western Aus-tralia.

Fabrizio Cardinali of Giunti Labsdescribed the need to move beyond tra-ditional pedagogical content and self-generated content to personalized learn-ing based on competencies, perfor-mance, and skills management. GiuntiLabs presented an innovative approach tolearning in context using mobile deviceswith GPS (Global Positioning System) toactivate learning materials based onlocation, such as when touring amuseum. Several presenters mentionedthe pervasiveness of mobile devices inthe hands of students. Giunti introducedthe term “personal ambient learning”

and “blended publishing” to capture theessence of Cardinali’s earlier character-ization toward a “Learning 3.0”. Giunticaptured a LIA Silver with Using Giunti

Labs learn eXact LCMS at the UK NHS andRoyal College of Radiologists R-ITIProject.

The Challenges & OpportunitiesA key point of Alcorn (which he character-ized as ‘from island to archipelago’) wasthat to enable new innovations greaterinteroperability, integration, and federa-tion of new capabilities with establishedplatforms, transparent to the many userswho are used to their now familiar envi-ronment, is going to need to be a keyfocus going forward. The need to incorpo-rate ideas and tools from the emergingweb world into an integrated learningexperience that is easy to use for faculty/teachers and strategic for the institutionpresent both an opportunity and a chal-lenge. The relative stability of the coursemanagement platforms in the higher edu-cation segment and the emergence ofeasier and more pervasive ways to authorand collaborate via the web seems to por-tend, potentially, a new phase of integra-tion into the learning enterprise. It isclear that although many of these newcapabilities will be ‘tested’ with respectto instructional use in a non-integratedway (for instance, see the high ratings ofWikipedia, iPods, and Google in the Feb-ruary 2007 IMS GLC LearnSat Report http://www.imsglobal.org/ltst/ltsttt.cfm), thepervasive view at LI 2007 is that thesecapabilities will be brought into an inte-grated learning experience.

The executive panel sessions at the Sum-mit on Global Learning Industry Chal-lenges highlighted what some specificopportunities for application of technol-ogy to enhance the quality of the learningexperience. And clearly one emphasis forthe future is enhancing the quality oflearning that can be achieved at reason-able cost. The areas of opportunity high-lighted were:


• Enhancing student interaction• Improved student study tools• Assessment, especially formative

assessment• Improved resource searching and

evaluation of online resources

Clearly, the presenters in this programtrack appear to be largely in sync withthe views expressed by the ESC on thestrategic investment in technology. It isalso fascinating to note that the topranked LIAs went to entries that hadmade outstanding progress in theseareas. In addition to those already men-tioned:

• LIA Platinum winners ETS CriterionOnline Writing Evaluation service atFarragut High School, Knox CountyPublic Schools and Cyber HomeLearning System of Korea both exem-plify improved study tools with for-mative assessment.

• LIA Gold winner The California StateUniversity (CSU) Math and EnglishSuccess Websites and the CSU FresnoFast Forward Program exemplifiesusing self-assessment to ascertainperformance to college standards.

• LIA Silver winner Microsoft ResearchConferenceXP at Australian School ofthe Air and Classroom Presenter atUniversity of Washington exemplifiescollaborative learning both at a dis-tance and in the classroom.

Influence on IMS GLC InitiativesFrom the perspective of IMS GLC the callto action includes the following:

• Content management, documentmanagement, resource lists, andrepositories based on standards;including clarifying best practice foreffective adoption. This is a potentialtopic for the IMS GLC Learning ObjectDiscovery and Exchange workgroupcurrently under formation.

• Incorporating interoperability of abroad set of collaborative learningtools into the newly chartered Learn-ing Tools Interoperability (LTI) work-group.

• The importance of defining quality ofthe overall educational experienceand how technology can support andenable higher quality. This is a poten-tial topic for the Technology-EnabledFlexible Learning workgroup currentlyunder formation.

• The importance of tying assessmentinto the learning interactions contin-ues to grow and it is clear from thistrack and the academic enterprisethat there needs to be greater inte-gration between gradable events andother evidence of learning fromlearning platforms and tools and theenterprise administrative systems.Therefore, taking the next steps tointegrate IMS GLC Question and TestInteroperability (QTI) with the latestAcademic Enterprise work in IMS GLCis key.


What’s Next for Digital Learning Content

Introduction

Challenge Questions: What willpredominate the future of educationalcontent and why: recorded lectures,supplementary cartridges, web sites,web searches, or adaptive learningsupport systems, or something else?

Daniel Rinn and Tom Grega of ThomsonHigher Education chaired this sessionwhich delivered a number of informativeperspectives on the future direction ofdigital learning content (see the list ofpresentations below). Throughout thesession, four key themes emerged;institutional issues, innovative tools,understanding end-users and systemarchitectures. The coverage of thesethemes is summarized below, followed bya list of the key what’s next issues thatemerged.

The ContextThe value of technology to support andenhance learning often is intricately tiedto the quality of the presentation of thelearning materials. While at many pointsin the last ten years we have heard thefamous cry “content is king”, it has notbeen a straightforward matter to adaptweb-based or web-delivered content tothe needs of learners. We have alsorelearned a lesson known for a long time:most content by itself does not suffi-ciently support an educational experi-ence. This is why proliferation of librariesby itself did not change the need forinstitutions of learning and so forth. Forthis reason, high production value con-tent that succeeds in the marketplacehas been rare, with simpler content thatis better conceived to be valuable in an

instructional context has proliferated. Asa result, content providers and authoringtool providers have the challenge of fit-ting into a variety of accepted instruc-tional creation and delivery modes.

The State-of-the-ArtInstitutional Issues. As online delivery ofeducation has become a mainstreamactivity for institutions, the expectationof what the technology should be capableof achieving has similarly risen. Featuresonce on the wish list for the future arenow setting a new bar for suppliers tomeet. Learning content is now expectedto be:

• Capable of being personalized• Assessable, including being adapt-

able for individual remediation• Gradable (measurable)• Portable • Interoperable • Suited to the construction of hybrid

courses, comprised of lecture notes,services, learning content etc. toaugment classroom experience

Daniel Rinn described how ThomsonHigher Education are working with Sakaion their ThomsonNow offering to addressthese very issues, building on a numberof IMS GLC standards. Tom Grega went onto highlight how learning systems areincreasingly expected to integrate withthe institutional infrastructure to ensuresecurity and protect student privacy. Hereferenced work with Sakai and Unicon toachieve single sign-on authenticationwith the Thomson Homework manage-ment system and the need to adopt a


federated identity management serviceto meet institutional requirements onprivacy protection.

Bryan Eldridge of Giunti Labs focused onthe problems institutions can experienceattempting to integrate a learning systemwith the broader institution and achiev-ing a real cost benefit. Bryan stated thatthese issues often arise from a generallack of coordination across the enterprisewith little understanding of how systemsactually need to interoperate. This iscompounded by a dearth of availablecase studies by which implementerscould learn from the experience of oth-ers. But perhaps few would be suffi-ciently brave to publish the full facts of acostly nightmare project (inevitably, suchcases might be the most illuminating).

Giunti Labs has devised a methodology(the exact Method) which institutions canfollow to work through these issues andencourage an ongoing process of plan-ning, tracking, and improvement toachieve continuous improvements toinstitutional learning management sys-tems. Giunti Labs received a LIA Silverfor the work it had done with its learneXact LCMS for the UK NHS on the RoyalCollege of Radiologists R-ITI Project.

Greg Flesher described how Elsevier ismoving from being product focused tobeing more consultative, offering a mixand match of products and services tomeet the needs of the institution. Their“Evolve” Solutions products are living upto their name—evolving to provide solu-tions for institutions creating the virtualuniversity. But equally important are theservices to back these up. Faculty needtraining and 24/7 support in order to beeffective in this new regime.

Core print products are increasingly beingcomplemented with digital resourcessuch as simulations, case studies (e.g.,

for the medical arena), and diagnostictesting and evaluation tools offeringremediation. The IMS GLC Common Car-tridge (CC) standard offers a solution fordistributing these resources. CC com-bines interoperability specificationsenabling content providers, developers,and users (faculty/teachers) to accessand distribute these resources withouthaving to conduct significant conversionactivities prior to distributing or install-ing content. This is of great value in thecontext of integrating LMSs within theinstitution or at the system level as theCC standard provides the ability toexchange institution-specific or vendorprovided content packages among dispar-ate LMS systems, reducing the costrequired to develop, maintain, manage,share, and house/store these resources.It also provides access to quality contentresources that occurs as vendor-providedand faculty developed, scrutinized, andapproved resources accumulate.

Innovative Tools. Chris Moffatt ofMicrosoft introduced the ConferenceXPResearch Platform, offering high qualitybroadband video conferencing and appli-cation sharing. The platform harnessesthe Classroom presenter, Conference XPclient and Microsoft OneNote applicationsand appears to build on the premise that,far from eliminating student-to-studentinteraction, online learning needs to beaugmented with collaborative tools thatoffer communication at least as rich asface-to-face interactions. MicrosoftResearch took a LIA Silver for its Confer-enceXP tool used by the AustralianSchool of the Air and Classroom Pre-senter used at University of Washington.Microsoft also received two HonorableMentions, firstly for the Microsoft Learn-ing Gateway at Shireland Language Col-lege and then for Microsoft Partners inLearning, the Ministry of Education,Thailand.


Ed Mansouri of Ucompass.com gave ademonstration of Enrich, a contentenrichment tool that can be used poten-tially even with legacy content hostedwithin an LMS/CMS. The Enrich toolexploits tags used to embed javascriptfor adding enhanced features to the con-tent. Content can be uploaded to anEnrich server so that the desired tags canbe applied automatically. He then dem-onstrated an Enrich Common CartridgeServer, able to play a cartridge directlyfrom the source zip at the server end viaa flash client on the desktop.

Understanding End-Users. AndrewShelffo of Jenzabar focused on thechanging nature and attitudes of learn-ers. Typifying the older generation as dig-ital immigrants, then the youngergeneration are perhaps more digitalnatives, having grown up with the tech-nology and for whom it is more intuitive.For the younger generation, their senseof community embraces much moreonline interactions and they happily con-sume online content but, they read fewerbooks. Andrew suggested that institutionsneed to rethink how they present tolearners their learning community.

Alan Wolf of the University of Wisconsingave some useful insight into how facultysearch for and use digital resources. Theconclusions drawn were based upon asurvey of more than 4,500 academic staffacross 250 institutions. Whether a gen-eral search engine or a collection wasused depended upon the nature andintended use of the material sought:

• Gathering information for teaching(content)—search

• Pedagogical information—collection(except when seeking syllabi—search)

• Primary source material that can beintegrated into a course—collection

Alan suggested that when the individualhas an organizing schema, then they willsearch. When they do not, they seek acollection of materials, often offeringpeer review and additional informationon use of the material. Interestingly, ani-mations and simulations were the leastused of the various digital resourcesavailable, even though they have greatpotential for communicating processesand concepts. Perhaps digital nativesentering the teaching profession will bemore at ease with the use and creation ofthese materials in education?

System Architectures. Peter Lamothe ofHarvestRoad covered the evolution fromthe stand-alone LMS to its integration witha dedicated Learning Content Manage-ment System and the emergence of theinstitution-wide repository-enabledmodel. Moving to the present day, Peteradvocated the adoption of a Service Ori-ented Architecture (SOA) to construct anenterprise service bus, capable of achiev-ing the integration of learning systemsinto the wider institution and its existingservices. Peter further proposed adoptingfederated search as the means of facilitat-ing cross-repository access. HarvestRoadwere awarded a LIA Gold for their Hive &the Resource List Management System atthe University of Western Australia.

George Ward of California State Universityalso proposed an SOA approach for theinstitutions Academic Technology eFrame-work, the first instantiation of which willbe the CSU Digital Marketplace.

He predicted the need for a new genera-tion of applications for use by faculty(e.g., syllabus builders, portfolio manag-ers, ...) which will need to plug into theinstitutional infrastructure. However,here a layered SOA model is proposed,comprised of desk-top clients calling edu-cational applications, which sit over com-



mon services, which in turn sit over back-office systems and federated repositories.

With respect to students, there is a per-ceived need for new collaborative applica-tions, along with automated systemremediation and a general move towardself-paced learning.

The Challenges & OpportunitiesWhilst the main focus of the session wasdigital content, the discussion was allowedto roam when it came to identifying thechallenges and opportunities now beforethe learning community. Recognizing thatlearning systems have evolved from beingstand-alone, discrete applications, to them-selves being increasingly composed of mul-tiple software components, and which alsohave to interwork with the wider institu-tional infrastructure, there was a keeninterest in SOA and the Enterprise Bus tohelp educational institutions manage thiscomplexity. But equally, it was stressed thatthis complexity needed to be transparent tothe user and single sign-on authenticationshould now be the norm, not the aspiration.There was also felt to be a need for agreater emphasis on identity managementto protect students.

Expectations for content advances were cen-tered around the need to be able to person-alize learning and provide timely adaptiveassessment for remediation. There wasexpectation that greater use could be madeof animations and simulations in onlinelearning, but also recognition that these arecurrently very expensive to implement. Thesolution proposed was the development ofsuitable authoring tools for the next genera-tion of teachers to speed up creation of ani-mations/simulations.

But, learning is not just about more or bet-ter content. Many felt a need for richer col-laborative tools, able to offer greatersupport to the virtual learning communityand there was a call for the whole commu-nity to embrace virtualization as a vehiclefor online social networking.

Interestingly, it was suggested that per-haps the most effective way to improvelearning provision generally, would be agreater exchange of knowledge and expe-rience amongst practitioners. Publicationof case studies of experiences workingwith the technology and best practices onsourcing, implementing and operation oftechnology would enable the inexperi-enced to learn from the experts and gen-erally foster good practice.

Influence on IMS GLC Initiatives• IMS GLC has embraced SOA in its web

services approach, but this work willneed to be periodically revisited tokeep it abreast of new developmentsin the field.

• Content Packaging and Common Car-tridge should be examined forenhancements that will enable person-alized learning to be more readily con-structed from available content.

• Adaptive assessment suggests the needfor a harmonized sequencing mecha-nism across content and assessments(i.e., QTI).

• The newly formed Learning TechnologyAdvisory Council (LTAC) within IMS GLCis in an excellent position to publishcase studies of experiences with thetechnology and define best practice onsourcing, implementing and operationof technology.

• Single access integration across a myr-iad of emerging tools.

The Academic Enterprise: Assessment, Analytics, and Student/Institutional Performance

Introduction

Challenge Question: What are the mostimportant metrics by which to measurequality and success of courses orprograms? What will be the role offormative and summative assessmentsand analytical tools?

Participants in the assessment, analyt-ics, and student/institutional perfor-mance program track at the LI 2007 eventwere tasked at defining the currentstate-of-the-art and establishing a wayforward for the next 24 months. A seriesof perspectives from Blackboard, Respon-dus, Desire2Learn, Oracle, SunGuardHigher Education and Pearson Educationwere used to prompt the discussions. Afurther perspective was presented aspart of the Summit on Global LearningIndustry Challenges in which a panel ofexperts discussed the work of the Spell-ings Commission and its implications foraccess, affordability and accountabilityin U.S. Higher Education. The earlynature of this work was also reflected inthe Learning Impact Awards (LIAs).

The ContextDuring the Summit on Global LearningIndustry Challenges, Nicholas Allen of theUniversity of Maryland University College,provided an overview of the SpellingsReport. In September 2005, MargaretSpellings (U.S. Secretary of Education)convened a Commission charged to exam-ine vital issues central to quality HigherEducation, namely: accessibility, afford-ability, accountability and quality. TheCommission’s report was released inOctober 2006 with its focus as compli-

ance, conformability and comparabilitywithin Higher Education (HE).

Amid a variety of findings the most perti-nent to our discussion is “Because datasystems are so limited and inadequate, itis hard for policymakers to obtain reli-able information on students’ progressthrough the educational pipeline. Thislack of useful data and accountabilityhinders policymakers and the public frommaking informed decisions and preventshigher education from demonstrating itscontribution to the public good.” As aconsequence of identifying the lack ofsuitable metrics the corresponding rec-ommendation by the Commission is that“To meet the challenges of the 21st cen-tury, higher education must change froma system primarily based on reputation toone based on performance”.

While the Spellings Commission is solelyconcerned with the U.S. similar exerciseshave been undertaken around the World.In June 1999 the European Unionannounced the Bologna Declaration, toput in motion a series of reforms neededto make European Higher Education morecompatible and comparable, more com-petitive and more attractive for Euro-pean citizens and for citizens andscholars from other continents. In Austra-lia, the Commonwealth Governmentintroduced the Institution AssessmentFramework (IAF) in 2004. The IAF pro-duces an across-the-board assessment ofinstitutional achievements based onquantitative and qualitative data fromuniversities and external sources andincludes quality outcomes for systemsand processes in teaching and learning.


Therefore, it is clear that compliance,conformability and comparability withinHE are worldwide issues. The problem iscompounded when we need interopera-ble technology solutions that crossnational boundaries to reflect the grow-ing multinational reach of HE Institutions.

The State-of-the-ArtNeil Allison from Blackboard identified,with the other speakers confirming, thestarting point when considering assess-ment as a problem with three levels: theCourse which reflects a topic of study;the Program in which courses are com-bined; and the Institution where theteaching aspirations are reflected in thenature of the Institution. These levels aretied together using target outcomeswhich drive thecreation of theprograms andcourses andagainst whichperformance ismeasuredthrough achieve-ment or other-wise.

If Learning Out-comes combineto thread thethree levelstogether thenappropriatemeasurement is essential. We can usedirect measures, such as tests or indirectmeasures such as course evaluations. Butas David Smetters of Respondus stressed,the issue becomes one of ‘quality ofdata’. By quality we mean is the datavalid and reliable; are consistent mea-sures being used; do we have sufficientdata to be statistically meaningful; areenough courses, programs and institu-tions providing data; and are enough fac-

ulty participating at the course level?Smetters also reported that over 90% ofU.S. HE Institutions have course manage-ment systems but less than 10% of all HEcourses deliver assessment using thesesystems.

So what do we conclude? We understandthe problem and we have technology thatcan help us but we have not yet enabledfaculty to use it. The Spellings Commis-sion identified that there is resistance toa culture of inquiry and this theme wasfurther developed during Kenneth Chap-man’s presentation of Desire2Learn. Heidentified some of the key concerns fromfaculty including heavy workloads andinsufficient time to re-design courses totake advantage of the available technol-ogy; the limitations of the current one-size-fits-all approach from technology;

and, most signif-icantly, lack oftools to trackand organizelearning out-comes across anInstitution. EricBassett of Sun-Gard Higher Edu-cation providedan alternativeperspective thatbalanced thetension betweenthe expense ofaccountability

and the affordability of access. Technol-ogy is essential to establish that balancebut it is not sufficient. A culture of per-formance must be established and it iswithin such a culture that technology canenable change.

Our speakers showed how technologycurrently available could be used to sup-port various assessment activities andhow these can be used together to start


to realize some of the Spellings Commis-sion’s recommendations, including:

• The Blackboard Outcomes Systemenables an institution to coordinatemanage the assessment processwithin the classroom, at the programlevel and for the institution as awhole. The focus is on usability byfaculty to enable then to embrace aculture of inquiry.

• Respondus showed how their assess-ment tools can be used to author andmanage formative and summativeassessments. These assessments canbe integrated with a wide range ofcontent and leading management sys-tems and other third party tools andso use the Respondus tools as aninteroperability bridge. The applica-tion of Respondus 3.5 at the Univer-sity of Alberta was a LIA Silverwinner.

• Oracle described how their CampusSolutions Warehouse is used to pro-vide an ‘Admissions and RecruitingMart’, a ‘Students Records Mart’ anda ‘Students Financials Mart’. Togetherthese can be used as a database ofvarious metrics of direct and indirectmeasurement for course, programsand the institution.

• Desire2Learn presented their popular‘Design Process’ add-on that supportsthe definition of outcomes in terms ofcompetencies, learning objectivesand activities. This is closely linked toassessment and enables data to beaggregated and made available toother applications. This approach forthe Office of Open Leaning at theUniversity of Guelph received a LIAHonorable Mention.

The significance of ‘quality of data’ andthe difficulty in obtaining and analyzingsuch information was reflected in the LIA

Platinum winners ETS Criterion OnlineWriting Evaluation service at FarragutHigh School, Knox County Public Schoolsand Cyber Home Learning System ofKorea both exemplify improved studytools with formative assessment. In bothcases, the collection and depth of analy-sis of the assessment data was exemplarywhich reflected the capability of the sys-tems to supply the raw data.

The Challenges & OpportunitiesSo, we’ve established that the problem isnot just one of technology. However, thelimitations of a technology always maskthe people issues. So, what are the tech-nology-based pain-points that we need toaddress as soon as possible? A starting listincludes:

• Tools, applications, and systems thatenable the definition of outcomes interms of competencies, learningobjectives and activities and whereall of these can be defined at anylevel and shared within parts of anorganization. Different tools need tobe able to process and manage thesame information.

• Tools, applications, and systems thatenable the collection and analysis ofquality data that can be used to eval-uate assessment at the course, pro-gram and institutional levels. Thesetools need to be able to manage therelationship of the outcomes andthese different levels and to createthe appropriate reports.

• Tools, applications, and systems thatsupport direct and indirect measure-ment of assessment for courses, pro-grams and institutions. Bothformative and summative direct mea-surements required. More impor-tantly, indirect measurement of theusage and suitability of learning con-


tent is essential including student/student, student/instructor andinstructor/class interactions.

• Tools, applications, and systems thatsupport the lifecycle for perfor-mance improvement. This includesthe ability to discover, prioritize, re-design, pilot, assess, adjust, scale,portalize and monitor all aspects ofthe assessment process for courses,programs and the institution.

Influence on IMS GLC InitiativesFrom the perspective of IMS GLC the cor-responding activities to support marketdevelopment are to:

• Improve and refine the Question &Test Interoperability (QTI) specifica-tion—the QTI specification has wideadoption, particularly for formativeassessment. The latest version, QTIv2.1 (available to IMS Members nowbut publicly in late 2007), addressesthe issues of the design and deliveryof summative assessment, and incor-porates the IMS Content Packaging tosupport a wide range of meta-dataassociated with the items and assess-ments for outcomes, learning objec-tives and activities.

• Create a service to support theexchange of enterprise-wide out-comes information—the new Enter-prise Services v2.0 specification(available to IMS Members in late2007 and publicly available in mid2008) has a new Outcomes Servicethat supports the management ofresults. These results can be managedin terms of the relevant courses andprograms as well as the grouping ofrespective student groups.

• Create the next version of the ToolsInteroperability Guidelines—the newversion 2, called the Learning ToolsInteroperability (LTI) specification(available to IMS Members in early2008 and publicly available in late2008) will support a broader set oftool interactions including outcomesreporting and will be integrated withthe IMS Common Cartridge v1.0 speci-fication.

• Establish a competencies frameworkto serve as the backbone for assess-ment offering—the various buildingblocks have been established, includ-ing the IMS Reusable Definitions forCompetencies and Educational Objec-tives (RDCEO), and the next stage isto establish the best practices thatshow how the various IMS GLC specifi-cations can be used to create such aframework.


Progress in Open Source, Open Content, and Open Services

Introduction

Challenge Questions: What are thesuccesses of open initiatives ineducation so far and what is comingnext? What business models areworking and why? What is the practicalrole that Service OrientedArchitectures will play, if any?

Participants in the open source, opencontent, and open services program trackwere tasked with assessing the state ofprogress of various active open initia-tives. A series of perspectives were pre-sented by the Joint Information SystemsCommittee (JISC) United Kingdom, theDepartment of Education Science andTraining (DEST) Australia, Microsoft,Sakai, Open University UK, and the Cen-ter for Open Sustainable Learning at UtahState University. Additional perspectivesand discussion were brought forward dur-ing the Summit on Global Learning Indus-try Challenges by a distinguished panel ofexperts.

The ContextIt is clear that open initiatives in educa-tion and educational technology havebeen largely successful to this point. Thelearning community has witnessed thebirth and substantial growth of open con-tent and sharing of learning resourcesmade possible through the advancementof technology and infrastructure. Opensource software for managing and sup-porting online learning environments hasmatured and been widely received. Moreand more services are being built uparound enhancing learning systems andimproving the learner experience.

The panel of experts that discussed thesuccesses and future directions of openinitiatives during the Summit on GlobalLearning Industry Challenges includedhigher education technology leaders fromuniversities in the UK, Canada, and theU.S. Comments were focused on currentprojects and prevailing concerns at theirinstitutions. Joel Greenberg, of the OpenUniversity UK, emphasized the importantrole that open source plays by givinginstitutions a common core to start withthat can be built upon, improved, cus-tomized, and then shared back again withthe community.

On a similar thread, John Norman, Uni-versity of Cambridge and Sakai BoardChair, identified innovation as an impor-tant factor in considering the adoption ofopen initiatives. It is not just about costand quality—products and models thatinstitutions adopt should allow forgreater innovation that truly impactslearning. Focusing further on the stu-dent, Ted Dodds, of the University of Brit-ish Columbia, described their vision forthe future of student systems as beingstudent-centric. This emphasis allows thesystem to function around what each stu-dent needs in order to receive his/herdesired education, rather than the oldparadigm of back office systems mostcommon today. Speaking to the need toimprove the development of learningmaterials, Joel Thierstein, of Rice Uni-versity and Connexions, identified shiftsof thinking required at the provost leveldown to instructors and researchers inthe way academic research is valued bycreating new processes for properly vet-


ting and dispersing materials back to thecommunity.

In summary, the overall feeling withinopen educational initiatives is positive.Progress is being made and open initiativesare working well in learning contexts, yetspecific challenges and opportunities lieahead as we continue forward.

The State-of-the-ArtIn recent years, open courseware andopen educational resources initiativeshave garnered worldwide attention andinspired many institutions to make theircourse materials and instructional con-tent open and freely available online.Despite initial resistance from educatorsand instructional designers, there is nowa growing acceptance of the idea of opencontent and reusable, community learn-ing resources. The Open University’sOpenLearn program, as presented byStephen J. Bradley, is pushing this con-cept to a higher level of innovation byoffering free access to online learningmaterials within an advanced learningmanagement environment that alsooffers added support and encourages theestablishment of collaborative learningcommunities amongst this new categoryof learners. Brandon Muramatsudescribed several projects sponsored bythe Center for Open Sustainable Learningat Utah State University. These initiativescontribute to the advancement of opencontent in this space by encouraging thedevelopment of tools that make it easierfor learners and instructors to reuse andshare online learning materials.

Considering which business models workbest for educational open source, con-tent, or service initiatives, the educa-tional technology community has largelyfollowed the lead of the open source soft-

ware industry. In many ways, open initia-tives in education find themselves in asimilar state—at times struggling to sub-sist—as those facing the open source soft-ware community of the late 1990s. Wecan learn from these earlier open sourcesoftware projects that went on to enjoystunning success by building sustainablecommunities and/or supportive founda-tional organizations that have proven crit-ical in establishing open initiatives andengaging willingparticipants. Sakaihas done just that,following a modelsimilar to Apache’sin the open sourcesoftware world,Sakai’s open com-munity model, aspresented byCharles Sever-ance, has seenmarked success ina short period oftime. This can beattributed, in largepart, to operatingunder the umbrellaof a foundationalorganization con-sisting of corporatesponsors and member/user institutionsthat share developer resources to helpsustain the community.

Service Oriented Architectures are beingcarefully scrutinized by the learning com-munity for the potential benefits of ser-vices-based infrastructures, such asextensibility, integration, and interopera-bility. Sheila MacNeill and Dr. Lyle Wintondiscussed the initiative, called the e-Framework, sponsored by their respec-tive organizations, JISC and DEST. Thisopen community initiative is focused onidentifying processes and models thathigher education and research institu-


tions can use to establish a framework forbetter integrated educational systemsand streamlined processes. Commercialvendors are also keying in on this space,such as the Microsoft Learning Gateway.The objective of the Learning Gateway,as described by Cliff Lloyd of Microsoft, isto provide a standards-based platformthat allows broad application support,data portability, and system interopera-bility from multiple vendors, includingopen and community source solutions.

A primary driver behind the quest formore services focused frameworks is thedesire for local, institutional configura-tion and customization. This allows insti-tutions or organizations to implementonly those specific elements that fit theirunique needs, which helps clear the pathtoward future technical trends that seeinstitutions moving away from big, mono-lithic systems to disaggregated, interde-pendent components.

The Challenges & OpportunitiesThe growth and reach of these and futureopen educational initiatives depend uponwhat steps are taken to address some ofthese important requirements identifiedby those who presented and participatedin the open initiatives discussions. Thesechallenges and opportunities include:

• Building Strong Communities aroundOpen Initiatives. It is impossible forone organization to support and driveall activities of an open initiative. Athriving community of willing volun-teers will do more to guarantee thesuccess of an open initiative thananything else.

• Making Activities Relevant and Com-pelling. In order for open initiativesto attract willing volunteers, theremust be compelling drivers. If the

project offers impactful solutions orcapabilities, the community will buildand maintain itself; however, thiscannot be artificially manufactured.

• Evaluating the Impact. Measuring thesuccess of the learner experience iscrucial to furthering open content ini-tiatives. The emphasis needs to be onthe learner and evaluating his/herneeds and learning experiences.

• Allowing Time to Succeed. In partic-ular with open content, funding is notthe most important factor of success.What’s needed is time and dedicated,contributing effort.

• Keeping it Easy. When discussing thedevelopment of or planning for sys-tem architectures, the focus needs tobe on keeping implementation pathsunencumbered by overly complexrequirements.

In recognition of the impact that theOpen University’s OpenLearn program hashad on learning, the OU was awarded theLIA Platinum 2007. OpenLearn educa-tional resources, made freely availablefor download and reuse within a CreativeCommons framework, attracted over370,000 learners from 159 countries inthe first six months of the project. Mate-rials are structured in an open source vir-tual learning environment that includeslearning support and collaboration tools.Learners and educators are connected inself-sustaining communities throughforums, learning journals, video confer-ences, and instant messaging.

Influence on IMS GLC InitiativesThe following activities within IMS GLCcorrespond to supporting and improvinginitiatives in the open source, open con-tent, and open services communities:


• IMS Common Cartridge (CC) is a stan-dard for delivering content to compli-ant systems or learning environments.During Learning Impact 2007, severalIMS contributing members, includingOpen University UK, demonstratedcontent prepared in the Common Car-tridge format. This specification iscurrently being adopted by many IMScontributing members and will beavailable to the public in late 2007.

• IMS Learning Tools Interoperability(LTI) specification is being developedto provide more advanced interac-tions and integration of third-party

learning applications with studentlearning systems. Sakai demon-strated portlet integration duringLearning Impact 2007 using this speci-fication.

• IMS Service Oriented Architectureproject group-under-formation isexploring what activities it canengage in the developing standards orbest practices around services basedsystems. IMS contributing memberrepresentatives from JISC and DESTare helping align these efforts withintheir e-Framework initiative as well.


Summary of Influence on IMS GLC InitiativesWhat’s Next in Learning Systems• Content management, document management, resource lists, repositories based on stan-

dards; including clarifying best practice for effective adoption. This is a potential topic forthe IMS GLC Learning Object Discovery and Exchange workgroup currently under formation.

• Incorporating interoperability of a broad set of collaborative learning tools into the newlychartered LTI workgroup.

• The importance of defining quality of the overall educational experience and how technol-ogy can support and enable higher quality. This is a potential topic for the Technology-Enabled Flexible Learning workgroup currently under formation.

• The importance of tying assessment into the learning interactions continues to grow and itis clear from this track and the academic enterprise that there needs to be greater integra-tion between gradable events and other evidence of learning from learning platforms andtools and the enterprise administrative systems. Therefore, taking the next steps to inte-grate QTI with the latest Academic Enterprise work in IMS GLC is key.

What’s Next for Digital Learning Content• IMS GLC has embraced SOA in its web services approach, but this work will need to be peri-

odically revisited to keep it abreast of new developments in the field.• Content Packaging and Common Cartridge should be examined for enhancements that will

enable personalized learning to be more readily constructed from available content.• Adaptive assessment suggests the need for a harmonized sequencing mechanism across

content and assessments (i.e., QTI).• The newly formed LTAC (Learning Technology Advisory Council) within IMS GLC is in an

excellent position to publish case studies of experiences with the technology and definebest practice on sourcing, implementing and operation of technology.

• Single access integration across a myriad of emerging tools.

The Academic Enterprise: Assessment, Analytics and Student/Institutional Performance• Improve and refine the QTI specification—the QTI specification has wide adoption, particu-

larly for formative assessment. The latest version, QTI v2.1 (available to IMS Members nowbut publicly in late 2007), addresses the issues of the design and delivery of summativeassessment, and incorporates the IMS Content Packaging to support a wide range of meta-data that be associated with the items and assessments for outcomes, learning objectivesand activities.

• Create a service to support the exchange of enterprise-wide outcomes information—thenew Enterprise Services v2.0 specification (available to IMS Members in late 2007 and pub-licly available in mid 2008) has a new Outcomes Service that supports the management ofresults. These results can be managed in terms of the relevant courses and programs aswell as the grouping of the students.

• Create the next version of the Tools Interoperability Guidelines—the new version 2, calledthe LTI specification (available to IMS Members in early 2008 and publicly available in late2008) will support a broader set of tool interactions including outcomes reporting and willbe integrated with the IMS Common Cartridge v1.0 specification.


• Establish a competencies framework to serve as the backbone for assessment offer-ing—the various building blocks have been established, including the IMS ReusableDefinitions for Competencies and Educational Objectives (RDCEO), and the nextstage is to establish the best practices that show how the various IMS GLC specifica-tions can be used to create such a framework.

Progress in Open Source, Open Content, and Open Services• IMS CC is a standard for delivering content to compliant systems or learning environ-

ments. During Learning Impact 2007, several IMS contributing members, includingOpen University UK, demonstrated content prepared in the Common Cartridge for-mat. This specification is currently being adopted by many IMS contributing mem-bers and will be available to the public in late 2007.

• IMS LTI specification is being developed to provide more advanced interactions andintegration of third-party learning applications with student learning systems. Sakaidemonstrated portlet integration during Learning Impact 2007 using this specifica-tion.

• IMS Service Oriented Architecture project group-under-formation is exploring whatactivities it can engage in the developing standards or best practices around ser-vices based systems. IMS contributing member representatives from JISC and DESTare helping align these efforts within their e-Framework initiative as well.


Learning Impact Awards 2007Each year the IMS Executive Strategic Council, in coordination with the IMS Board of Directors,looks to identify and award examples of high impact products and services. Submissions are col-lected based on an open call to industry participants from August to December of each year. Aselect group of finalists are selected the following January based on criteria agreed to by the IMSExecutive Strategic Council and Board of Directors. The finalists are invited to discuss and dem-onstrate their projects at the IMS Learning Impact conference and Summit on Global LearningIndustry Challenges.

Judging of the LIAs is done by a panel of distinguished experts. Participants attending the Learn-ing Impact event also vote on the finalists, and the awards are presented at the conference. TheLIAs are very exclusive. They signify those products, services, and implementations that havethe greatest impact or potential impact on global learning industry challenges and the greatestpotential return on investment.

Join us in congratulating the 2007 LIA winners.


About the Learning Impact Award (LIA) ProgramThe Learning Impact Awards (LIAs) are an annual global competition for the purpose of informing the worldwide community involved in learning technology innovation of progress that results in major advances in technology-enabled learning. This unique program evaluates established, new, and research efforts in context at an implementing learning institution or organization. Entries collected via the IMS GLC web site by December 31, are evaluated according to eight categories, including: Access, Affordability, Quality, Adoption, Accountability, Organizational Learning, Interoperability, and Innovation (see the section, Defining Learning Impact in this report for more discussion on the evaluation criteria).

From the large set of entries the top twenty-five are selected, based on the evaluation criteria, as finalists to showcase at the Learning Impact conference event held in Spring. The twenty-five finalists for 2007 included fourteen from outside the United States. Three of the finalists represented government-led initiatives. Five represented collaborations/use across a system or other group of institutions. Two represented community sharing of content. Fifteen represent individual institutional initiatives. Four winners were in the research category, six in the new category, and fifteen in the established category.

The winners profiled here represent the few best from around the world that succeeded through all the evaluations. Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Honorable Mention designations indicate the final rankings by a panel of global experts are asked to perform the final rankings at the conference in conjunction with voting by the attendees (the attendee votes are combined to weigh as one expert vote).

For more information on the Learning Impact program, including this year’s global experts, demos/presentations, and how to enter a nomination, visit: http://www.imsglobal.org/learningimpact/index.html


Platinum Award Winners

ETS Criterion Online Writing Evaluation service at Farragut High School, Knox County Public Schools

CriterionSM Online Writing Evaluation is a web-based instructional tool that helps students plan, write, and revise essays. It uses ETS proprietary technology to provide a holistic score and annotated diagnostic feedback. Three quarters of a million students, worldwide from 4th grade through graduate school, have used the Criterion service to practice their writing. Educators say the feedback and revision cycle helps students become better writers. High school English teacher Aleeta Johnson says the Criterion service was a major factor in her district’s jump from 69% of students passing the state writing assessment to 86% passing four years later.Visit: http://www.ets.org

Cyber Home Learning System of KoreaThe Cyber Home Learning System in Korea is a nationwide e-learning service utilized by 8,218 cyber teachers, 2.2 million students, and 2,786 parent tutors. This system provides students with one-on-one study management services. The four major services are: customized learning using content for self-motivated study; a cyber teacher Q & A service; assessment of academic performance through an items pool; and career counseling service for school applications. The cost-saving effect in private tutoring expenses and content development has amounted to approximately 40 billion USD per year and 197 million USD for the past three years.

OpenLearn at the Open University, United Kingdom (supported by Moodle)The Open University is first UK university to launch an open educational resources website. OpenLearn provides free access to thousands of hours of content from across the curriculum – attracting over 370,000 learners from 159 countries in the first six months. Materials are structured in an open source virtual learning environment incorporating state-of-the-art learning support and collaboration tools. Learners and educators are connected in self sustaining communities through forums, learning journals, video conferences and instant messaging.All OpenLearn materials are available for free use, download and adaptation across the global learning community and within a Creative Commons framework. This increases the reach of educational materials - widening participation in higher education - and reduces the cost barrier to access, course creation and dissemination for other organizations.Visit: http://www.open.ac.uk/openlearn


Gold Award Winners

The California State University (CSU) Math and English Success Websites and the CSU Fresno Fast Forward ProgramThe CSU Math Success (www.csumathsuccess.org) and English Success (www.csuenglishsuccess.org) websites have been designed to help high school students prepare for college level work. Each year over 100,000 students visit the sites to make use of the customized advising and interactive math and English prep tools.The CSU Fresno Fast Forward to Academic Success program leverages the website tools to reach underserved high school seniors in California’s rural Central Valley. This innovative program integrates the website resources into a rigorous college prep curriculum that ensures that students take the right steps to prepare for the CSU. Once students arrive on campus, the program continues to provide support ensuring high retention rates.

European eTwinning Action by European SchoolnetThe eTwinning Action promotes school collaboration in Europe through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) by providing support, tools and services to make it easy for schools to form short or long term partnerships in any subject area.The eTwinning Portal (www.etwinning.net) is the main meeting point and workspace for the Action. Available in twenty-one languages, the eTwinning Portal now has the involvement of nearly 30,000 schools and over 4,000 project partnerships between two or more schools across Europe. The Portal provides online tools for teachers to find partners, set up projects and start working together immediately using the various eTwinning tools available on the “TwinSpace”.Launched in 2005 as the main action of the European Commission’s eLearning Programme, eTwinning is now part of the Lifelong Learning Programme. Its Central Support Service is operated by European Schoolnet, an international partnership of 26 European Ministries of Education developing learning for schools, teachers and pupils across Europe.


Silver Award Winners

Using Giunti Labs learn eXact LCMS at the UK NHS and Royal College of Radiologists R-ITI Project The Radiology Integrated Training Initiative consists of three integrated components - Physical Academies, a Validated Case Archive and an electronic Learning Database which address the specialist training needs of doctors moving to specialize in radiology. The electronic learning database is a repository of around 650 hours of radiology based knowledge and skills, developed with the involvement of over 350 practising consultant radiologists and a central team of 16 e-learning experts, to cover the first three years of a five year radiology training programme. The toolset, Giunti Labs’ learn eXact package, has enabled the development, in rapid time, of a large amount of content and the management of a workflow that involves nationally distributed developers and SMEs. Reviews have been enabled through the toolset so that the time of the day-to-day work of the consultant radiologists in developing the content has reduced significantly. By now over 600 hours of highly interactive e-learning materials had been developed. This solution is now being rolled out to 4,000 radiologists across the UK, with significant interest from the USA, Europe, and the Far East in procuring access to the solution.

Microsoft Research ConferenceXP at Australian School of the Air and Classroom Presenter at University of WashingtonConferenceXP enables the delivery of interactive experiences over the Internet and in wireless-enabled classrooms. ConferenceXP has had an impact on reaching new populations of learners through an implementation of ConferenceXP in support of the “School of the Air” in the Northern Territory of Australia. Classroom Presenter is a ConferenceXP application developed at the University of Washington that is in wide use across academia and the basis of a number of research projects into the effectiveness of technology in the classroom. Visit: http://research.microsoft.com/conferencexp/

Respondus 3.5 and University of AlbertaRespondus 3.5 is a Windows application that makes it easy to create and manage assessments for ANGEL, Blackboard, eCollege and other LMSs. The offline editor is similar to a word processor and will additionally import questions from MS Word. Respondus can print assessments or publish them directly to an online course, thus bridging the gap between print and online exams. The QTI 1.2 standard is supported and Respondus can also convert assessments from most major LMSs.Test banks for over 1,500 of the leading higher education textbooks are available in Respondus format. Nearly 3,000 universities worldwide use Respondus 3.5 to enhance their learning systems. Visit: http://www.respondus.com


Bronze Award Winners

Articulate at Jefferson County Public SchoolsJefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) in Jefferson County, Kentucky is among the largest school districts in the U.S. Using Articulate Rapid E-Learning Studio Pro, JCPS has implemented a very successful e-learning program. Articulate Rapid E-Learning Studio Pro provides a comprehensive, yet easy-to-use set of desktop authoring tools, that empowers non-programmers to quickly create Flash-based courses, quizzes, and interactions.Articulate Rapid E-Learning Studio Pro was selected as the standardized authoring platform because it is simple to use, affordable, and provides output that is supported by browser-based Macs and PCs. Additionally, teachers are able to create stimulating courses that hold the interest of the students. Student progress is tracked in the district’s LMS via Articulate’s integrated SCORM-support. The e-learning program is credited with improving the county’s scores in statewide achievement tests and increasing student retention of at risk students. The Articulate created courses have also proven so successful that several other states throughout the U.S. have purchased them. Visit: http://www.articulate.com

Wimba’s Course Genie: An Authoring Tool for Common Cartridge at Langside CollegeWimba, the education technology company that helps people teach people, has created a prototype for Common Cartridge authoring utilizing its popular Course Genie product. Course Genie will be one of the first WYSIWYG authoring tools for Common Cartridges. Using Course Genie, any faculty member or staff administrator who uses Microsoft Word® even minimally will be able to easily create a Common Cartridge containing text, images, audio and/or video files, flashcards, animations, and assessment questions that can be imported into any CMS that supports Common Cartridges. We believe that the power of Common Cartridge, combined with the ease of use of Course Genie, will greatly lower the barrier of entry for any instructor or designer who wishes to author truly interoperable course content.Wimba’s Common Cartridge implementation will be useful for the academic community because it will provide a platform-agnostic format for sharing course materials and assessments. In other words, when creating content for their courses, faculty end-users will not have to create it for a specific CMS. The implementation will be most useful for institutions with multiple CMSs as well as for those changing their CMS. It will also be useful for publishers who will only need to create the content once. Visit: http://www.wimba.com


Honorable MentioneCollege Program Intelligence Manager at Iowa Community College Online ConsortiumAs online programs evolve, it is increasingly more important for institutions to have data at their fingertips to identify ways to grow their program. Program Intelligence Manager (PIM) is an interactive data analysis toolset that helps institutions easily identify and act on key drivers affecting student satisfaction, course and program quality, and completion and retention rates. eCollege has one of the largest online learning databases in the world, and because of the detailed current and historical data it stores for its customers, institutions can analyze and leverage data in a way that is not possible through any other eLearning solution. Program Intelligence Manager uniquely positions institutions to better understand the key components and trends within their programs, giving them the strategic insight to know exactly where improvements are needed to strengthen programs, drive profitable growth and facilitate regulatory compliance. Visit: http://www.ecollege.com

ANGEL at Penn StatePenn State’s Course Management System (ANGEL) is used throughout resident instruction and the World Campus. The goal was to implement a web-based system that is easy for faculty to use for teaching and create a common learning environment available to faculty and students at all 24 campus locations.The rapid adoption of ANGEL at Penn State has provided the University with new ways to share course materials and effective pedagogical strategies. It has also provided a framework for meeting other institutional needs for faculty, staff and students. In fall 2006 our usage peaked at 75,000 users with 8,925 active course sections in ANGEL; 56% of total PSU courses offerings.Penn State integrated shibboleth in ANGEL to support the Geographical Information Systems (GIS) Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) initiative. This now allows the exchange of courses and students in Penn State’s online Master of GIS degree program and the program offered jointly by the University of Leeds and Southampton (United Kingdom).Our ANGEL implementation also supports important non-instructional uses to include a pilot of the online Student Rating of Teaching Effectiveness and a Faculty Senate’s Curriculum Consultation and Submission System project. We also worked with our Office of Student Affairs to help manage the large number of official student clubs available at every campus. The framework for this initiative is ANGEL groups. More information about this effort is provided under Expanded Access: Impact on reaching new populations of learners.

A study on how to enhance support for the Cyber Home Learning System by Korea Education & Research Information ServiceThis study suggests a means of expanding “Auxiliary Resources” for greater flexibility in producing e-learning content based on the learning object. For instance, for K-12 education, a number of auxiliary functions are greatly needed in the study of foreign languages, such as dictionary, syllabus, and pronunciation improvement tools. The study also suggests how to expand SCORM 2004 and standardize support activities, commonly called collaborative learning activities. To provide effective e-learning services, a cyber environment similar to an actual classroom setting is needed. This study anticipates that by meeting consumer demands, the effects of the system on academic performance of learners will be further improved.


LIA 2007 Awards SummaryPlatinum Winners:* ETS Criterion Online Writing Evaluation service at Farragut High School, Knox County

Public Schools* Cyber Home Learning System of Korea* OpenLearn at the Open University, United Kingdom (supported by Moodle)

Gold Winners:* HarvestRoad Hive & the Resource List Management System at the University of

Western Australia* The California State University (CSU) Math and English Success Websites and the CSU

Fresno Fast Forward Program* European eTwinning Action by European Schoolnet

Silver Winners:* Using Giunti Labs learn eXact LCMS at the UK NHS and Royal College of Radiologists R-

ITI Project* Microsoft Research ConferenceXP at Australian School of the Air and Classroom

Presenter at University of Washington* Respondus 3.5 and University of Alberta

Bronze Winners:* Tegrity Campus 2.0 at Saint Mary’s University* Articulate at Jefferson County Public Schools* Wimba’s Course Genie: An Authoring Tool for Common Cartridge at Langside College

Honorable Mentions:* eCollege Program Intelligence Manager at Iowa Community College Online Consortium* Desire2Learn at Office of Open Learning, University of Guelph* Microsoft Learning Gateway at Shireland Language College* BlueStream Digital Asset Management System At The University Of Michigan

(supported by Ancept and IBM)* ANGEL at Penn State* UGO Online Academic Resource Management system at the University of Montreal

(supported by Logiweb)* A study on how to enhance support for the Cyber Home Learning System by Korea

Education & Research Information Service* Meeting the Needs of a Global Student Body with Jenzabar at Park University* Microsoft Partners in Learning at Ministry of Education, Thailand


Appendix A - Acronyms

CC Common Cartridge

CMS Course Management System

ERP Enterprise Resource Planning

ESC Executive Strategic Council

GPS Global Positioning System

HE Higher Education

IAF Institution Assessment Framework

ICT Information and Communication Technology

IMS GLC IMS Global Learning Consortium

LI Learning Impact

LIA Learning Impact Award

LMS Learning Management System

LSAT Learning Technology Trends and Satisfaction Survey

LTAC Learning Technology Advisory Council

LTI IMS Learning Tools Interoperability

QTI IMS Question and Test Interoperability

RDCEO IMS Reusable Definitions for Competencies and Educational Objectives

SOA Service Oriented Architecture


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