This is going to be really important.
I believe that there's going to be funding at local authority/RBC level
for the provision of 'personal learning spaces' from 2006, working
towards implementation by 2008. I expect part of the deal will be that
any LP has to meet Becta's specification, ie be on the new learning
platform conformance regime list. I believe part of this specification
will be that the LP is 'interoperable' with the MIS, although I notice that this
is missing from the latest edition of the Institutional Infrastructure
technical specification:
Learning platforms that are accessible using web interfaces shall use SSL and/or S-HTTP to secure their web interface.
The IEEE Standard for Learning Object
Metadata should be used to describe learning materials.
The IMS Question and Test Interoperability Specification should be
used to write and describe assessment materials (questions or tests).
Becta's Packaging and Publishing Learning Objects: Best Practice
Guidelines should be followed for the description, structure, and
location of online learning materials.
The IMS Learner Information Packaging Specification should be used when developing Learner Information systems.
The AccessForAll Meta-data (AccMD) specification should be used to
identify resources that match a user's stated preferences or needs.
These preferences or needs should be declared using the IMS Learner
Information Package
Accessibility for LIP specification.
There's more about this over in
this thread.
The functional specification for learning platforms is due in Spring 06, so that will tell us where the goal posts are. Some of the funding though will be devolved down to school level, so one could imagine many an institution saying "
thanks for the money, no thanks for your commercial LP, we like Moodle". This will present a challenge to the LAs and RBCs, but with
Building Schools for the Future, which proposes a centralized, managed service, model for ICT infrastructure provision, the picture may change... anyone care to comment?
Now, MIS interoperability can mean many things - I think it may be as
simple as authentication and enrollment, as I'm not aware that anyone's
got direct read/write access working yet.
Becta have published
a report
criticizing the 'suboptimality' of present MIS provision, and are
calling for more standardization and interoperability here, with
possible a UK version of the
Schools Interoperability Framework.
However, in the meantime, I'm not clear how they'll be able to get any
VLE to interoperate with any one else's MIS, especially not if both
ends of the chain are closed source.
For an open source VLE (or indeed open source MIS) things are a bit
different, as there would be nothing to stop SIMS adding code to
provide read/write access directly into Moodle, for example. Of course,
SIMS will probably prefer to promote their own learning platform, but
word has it that at least one bit of Capita (SIMS' parent company) are
using Moodle themselves, so who knows?
I don't see why LEAs and RBCs shouldn't be able to take LP funding and
instead of paying for a commercial solution, put the funding towards
getting a SIMS/Moodle interface up and running, together with all the other hoops through which Moodle may need to jump to secure registration: this is, I believe,
just the sort of project which JISC (HE/FE rough equivalent of Becta)
would fund. I believe it is possible to get some sort of
3rd Party
developer licence which gives you access to the SIMS API, but this
doesn't come cheap. There was
talk in the UK open source group
school-forge of working in this area, but I don't know how much progress has been made.
