[best] The simple future for SCORM and LMS

I'm going to declare the past month's best read the proceedings on the Tin Can Project. That project formulates a successor for the current learning standard SCORM, and is still in the making. At the heart of their suggestion is a very simple 'actor', 'verb', 'object' mechanism. Have a look at the video below to grasp the concept:





State of the standards

As I'm about to start a new job, one less into the 'e' of  'elearning', allow me still to share my view on the standards in the learning world: it could be better. In fact, I had almost started a personal project on peer learning, but I missed the technological foundation to do it as the current standards just don't cut it. Maybe if this one matures, combined with a few other promising technologies...

Standards are important for interoperability, for making sure things just work, and for avoiding lock-in to any particular technology or vendor just to name a few advantages. More important even, standards should be open. In the learning field, the predominant standards are AICC, SCORM, QTI, 508, etc. In the past 5 years at my current job as content creator, we had one client asking for the AICC standard (in a very particular configuration, giving more trouble than it was worth), about one other that went for the SCORM 2004 standard, and all others still going for SCORM 1.2. The SCORM standards are 10 years old and heavily embedded in the mindset and technology of that time: javascript and content-centric. SCORM got updated in 2004 but never to newer technologies as web services for example. Most organisations still go for the 'previous' version number of learning standards, not the latest one. SCORM 2004 probably solved all kind of needs that noone asked for (advanced sequencing etc), or did it way too complex,.. But our clients still ask for 1.2. The same observation goes for the assessment standard QTI.

New technologies came along (ie web services), new insights in learning came along (ie it is not all about formal content locked away for safekeeping in an LMS), but the standards remained. Then there were all kind of confusions around who owns the standard and will make it future proof: ADL or LETSI or whoever. I never quite got the thing about the Common Cartridge either. It confuses me. I was craving for something SIMPLE, that would ADDRESS TODAY'S LEARNING needs.
And then I saw the video above and I got all warm inside.


The Tin Can Project says all the right things

I must admit the guys working at the Tin Can Project did a great job listening to the industry and saying all the right things. If you go over their capabilities and identified challenges, you have to admit they got most things right. Simplifying it in my own words: the aim of this project is to reduce the learning standards and the corresponding system (LMS) to only the specific learning stuff, and leave the rest to other web technologies. I've written before on how the LMS was always more about management than learning.  Indeed, for most things the LMS does, we have better alternatives. We don't need the LMS for giving access, or storing content. There are plenty of web technologies that do that. What we need is a simple (yes, simple!) mechanism to store and retrieve specific learning information. I find the 'actor', 'verb', 'object' mechanism a simple and powerful one. It reduces the LMS in their own words to a 'Learning Record Store'.
So what would you store in such a record store? Sure, information like scores and completion. But also the satisfaction ratings for the Kirkpatrick fans amongst you. Or how about storing the fact someone applied a particular 'thing'. Or how about storing and retrieving learning preferences and adapting the content accordingly? A whole new range of possibilities is at reach...  Now we only wait for the standards to become finalised, and worked out in APIs like this draft document suggests.

I have some additional suggestions:

• Could we make this a distributed system, where people can select their 'store' of preference? I hate one entity to store or even own all my learning data. I own that! I want to be able to select which one gets to store what, and I want to be able to export and import that information. For example, I would like to get my learning records out of my current employer and move it to my next one...
• Maybe we can combine it with the technology of microformats or other graph metadata that  allows whatever piece of web content out there to self-identify as learning.
• Let us focus on the value for the learner instead of those of the training or education entity: it will allow to bookmark learning, store learning preferences, get self-quantified metrics on your learning, see who liked or used some of your content, see what our friends learned and how (if they give us permission to see that), etc.

Other interesting reads this month include:

• He died. Here is an interesting post (via Yorick) on Steve Jobs : a great leader but why?
• Serious game classification and inventory (via Ralph). Search the serious games taxonomy.