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E-learning lessons learned
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“It’s your tax dollars,” the IRM College’s Mike Miller said. “It made sense to say ‘When we’re done, let’s just give it away.’ ”
At first, there were two standards for videotape technology: VHS and Beta. In the end, there was VHS.
“When VHS became a de facto standard, the videotape industry took off like a shot,” said David Grebow, a marketing manager for IBM Lotus Mindspan Solutions of Armonk, N.Y. Now the Defense Department-inspired SCORM e-learning specification seems to be taking off in the same way, Grebow said.
Federal requests for proposals increasingly ask whether electronic-learning products and services comply with the Sharable Content Object Reference Model, which lets content be shared and reused on multiple learning management systems, Grebow said.
“With SCORM you can input content once and publish it in print, digitally, to a handheld device, to audio,” he said. “Content becomes usable by many people in many ways and places. That’s when e-learning really takes off.”
SCORM’s specifications were adapted from many sources. The first version of SCORM came out in 2000, and Version 1.3 is in development by the DOD-funded Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative. Version 1.3 will permit reordering of material based on factors such as student performance.
DOD established the ADL Initiative in 1997 to standardize government, industry and academic e-learning specs. There are now three ADL Co-Laboratories for cooperative research, development and assessment of new learning technology. The labs are funded for fiscal 2003 with $14 million from DOD, said Bob Wisher, director of the initiative.
Compatibility concerns
Most proprietary e-learning systems can’t talk to each other. But SCORM buyers needn’t worry that their investments in courseware and learning management systems will be incompatible, said Wisher, who works at the ADL Co-Lab in Alexandria, Va. Also, vendors that conform to the spec can reach a larger market, he said.
SCORM has increased government business for VCampus Corp. of Reston, Va., company officials said.
“SCORM lets us find other standardized content and grow our library. We’ve gone from a couple hundred courses to thousands,” said Tamer Ali, director of product management for the e-learning application service provider.
The company has contracts with the General Services and Social Security administrations and the Veterans Affairs Department. About 25 percent of VCampus’ business now is federal, compared with less than 3 percent two years ago, said Ron Freedman, vice president of government and security solutions.
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