Why service-orientation could make e-learning standards obsolete
Gottfried Vossen, PETER WESTERKAMP · International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning · 2008
Standardisation in e-learning is characterised by the development of numerous specifications. Main efforts address the annotation of metadata, content aggregation, educational modelling languages, or the definition of interfaces for platforms and runtime systems to execute learning objects. Each of these fields comprises several competing activities that are generally not compatible to each other. In this paper, we discuss typical problems of common e-learning standards and contrast this with a service-oriented approach to deliver major functionalities of e-learning platforms and content. The approach is based on web services, which can be plugged together to build platforms that solve many of the compatibility problems inherent in present-day standards. It turns out that the consistent implementation of e-learning functionalities based on web services can make several e-learning standards obsolete.