Interoperability in Europe does depend a lot on what European standardisation, pre-standardisation, and post-standardisation organisations and bodies are capable of doing.

Assessment

• European standards bodies and consortia are not working in an isolated Europe. Researchers involved are (or want to be) global players. Also European industry prefer to have global standards.
• The European pre-standardisation research happens mostly in European projects. It has a risk as this makes it often segregated from practice.
• There is a lack of the flow from pre-standardisation research into standardisation work.
• There is a lack of influence of standardisation people into research.
• Industrial partners in Europe are interested in standards as long as they don't change too much. There is a high cost of implementation and of certification.
• Industrial partners in Europe don't care whether the standards come from Europe, USA, or Timbuktu as long as there is sufficient acceptance and that they are workable in the local market.

The current players

There are indeed a few bodies that support standardisation, pre-standardisation, and post-standardisation work such as EUN, ARIADNE, and perhaps a few others but they have this not at the centre of their activities. Other organisations like CETIS, although influential on a European level, have the European level not in their scope. Only two are European and have standards and interoperability as their concern: European IMS Network (EIN) and CEN/ISSS. While the intention of EIN is excellent, up till now it had not too much effect while it is looking for a workable business model. The disadvantage of its current set-up is that it promotes or is perceived to promote only IMS specifications. The other organisation CEN/ISSS especially the WSLT has produced quite an impressive number of CWAs but this is not enough. In addition, the last years, it takes far too long between the submission for funding of a work item and when a work item can actually start. Two years is not workable. The whole way of working makes CEN/ISSS WSLT more or less a lame duck. Here are some examples:

• Most of the work in WSLT is on a free contribution basis (with the exception for the secretariat):
• So it only works if people can line WSLT work up with their own funded work and objectives.

A new body 

In order to create a Learning Interoperability Framework for Europe I would recommend the establishment of a body that deals with the following issues:

• Sustained Registries
  • Vocabulary registry
  • AP registry
  • CORDRA registry (or a European registry?)
• SIGs such as
  • Accessibility
  • Assessment
  • Learner Information
  • Learning Activity 
  • Content repositories
  • Enterprise
• Plugfests in these areas driven by SIGs Chairs
  • No matter where standards and specs come from, the competitive advantage is in how good and fast you're implementing the good ones
  • Two forms
• Explanation and demonstration
• Technical code bashes
• An standards observatory
  • Updated information in these six areas driven by the six chairs
  • News/Events RSS items by SIGs
  • RSS aggregator
  • Guidelines: e.g. when to use which standard
• Specific actions to stimulate uptake of research into standardisation stream
• SIG chairs should compile/consolidate research needs
• Contributing to a vision for the future
  • Developing and promoting a European policy and long-term strategy about the future of standards
  • Designing and disseminating the European view on standards and quality in e-Learning
  • More exchange, co-operation and collaboration between standardisation bodies and users of the standards
  • More marketing on the benefits of standards
  • Collecting and providing of good practices of the application of standards
  • Developing of tools for facilitating the implementation and adaptation of standards

Modalities

Such a new body would need to be able to work on a longer perspective with clearly agreed goals and appropriate funding. As an example for comparison, CETIS has a 5 year funding of 1.6 Meuro a year. Budgets like this are peanuts in comparison with what they can achieve. Effects of good interoperability are

• Much cheaper learning content production
• Greater availability of quality learning content
• Easier access to learning content
• Inclusion of people with accessibility problems
• Harmonised assessment
• More effective assessment
• Greater physical and virtual mobility during Life Long Learning
• Avoiding duplicate and erroneous information in admin systems for education
• etc