Introduction

The LIFE project has identified the possibility to share, collaborate, twin, and move people and resources across Europe as a critical success factor for e-learning. The crucial enabler for this is interoperability. E-learning interoperability process is a work in progress, moving along different routes: semantical, organisational, technical and other as described in the first chapter of this book on our interoperability framework.

What is the way ahead? In eLearning interoperability we should not think of a group of eLearning strategists poring over a map, considering the relative merits of the Boulevard Peripherique or taking a wide detour around Paris. Rather we should imagine a trackless wilderness with the travellers doing their best to work out their route by exploring the terrain. They plan a series of coordinated expeditions, hoping to find some high ground from which to get some perspective on the territory. They gather together the results, try to achieve agreement on where they are, and postulate barriers to progress and the best ways to circumvent them.

Standardisation is about coordinating technology, and e-learning interoperability initiatives are more or less coordinated explorations of various ways of achieving more effective applications of Information Technology in education. Both education and technology are explicitly or implicitly informed by theories, ideas and assumptions. These may be different for the various specifications, and should be reviewed in the light of the results of use. Moreover, specifications are developed within a particular technological context, and as this context changes so do the consequences of using any given specification.

The LIFE project has examined the relatively small number of interoperability specifications available for the learning, education and training (LET) domain, many of them produced or adopted by IMS Global Learning Consortium. They are the product of a great deal of effort and reflection, and a substantial amount of implementation has been carried out to support their use. This is a very valuable resource for e-learning. On the other hand, in order to plan the way ahead reliably we should remember that their development has been an exploratory process. This means that in order to establish where we are now, we should reflect on the context and use of specifications. In particular we should consider:

• Do established specifications lock e-learning into the technology which was prevalent when they were created?

• Are there conflicting underlying assumptions in the minds of various specification developers and user groups? If so, does this have implications at the level of use of the specifications in education?

• Are new needs emerging from education which are putting new requirements on e-learning specifications? Indeed are e-learning specifications and other IT applications themselves changing the way that e-learning works, and so shifting the ground under our feet?

When we have answered these questions, we can then address the best way to move forward.

In this chapter we will start our exploration by discussing interoperability standards from e-learning practitioners' point of view. We will then re-examine the standardisation adoption life cycle to see where we can strengthen the necessary dialogue between the pedagogical and technical communities. Recommendations on ways ahead will be given after having discussed future trends in e-learning and learning technologies.