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Framework to Apply Standards in the

Development of e-learning Modules
1
Amer Nizar AbuAli and 2Osman Abou-Rabia

Abstract: Technical standardization has been widely acknowledged as a new and growing area of interest for social-
theoretical and historical research. The field of education, and particularly educational technology and distance
education (or “e-learning”), has shown the need to develop e–learning courses. In this paper, we present the
standards that should be taken into accounts when developing such courses as well as the advantages of applying
such standards.

Index Terms: standards, e-learning, educational design, learning resource development

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1 INTRODUCTION However, unlike the social sciences, the interest

Technical standardization has been widely
acknowledged as a new and growing area of
interest for social-theoretical and historical
research. The development of standards for
the Internet, the World Wide Web and other
technologies, has recently been subject to
significant scholarly investigation and scrutiny.
The field of education, and particularly
educational technology and e-learning, has
also shown signs of a new interest in technical
standards. One standard for the classification
of learning resources or “objects” known as
“metadata;” [7], Draft Standard for Learning
Object Metadata [8], and another for the
interoperation of e-learning systems, known as
“architecture;”[8] ,the Computer Managed
Instruction Standard. Retrieved July 13, 2005]
have been recently developed and widely
promoted.
-------------------------------
1Amer Nizar AbuAli Department of Computer Information Systems,
Philadelphia University, Amman, Jordan,
2 Osman Abou-Rabia Department of Mathematics and Computer
Science, Laurentian University, Sudbury ON Canada (Philadelphia
Visitor)
in standardization in e-learning has not been
historical and theoretical in character, but
thoroughly economic and instrumental.
Standards in e-learning contexts, unlike social
science disciplines, appear to be generally
understood as “neutral artifacts.” In many
cases, they are explicitly described as being
pedagogically, and otherwise, “agnostic” or
“neutral” [16]. Pedagogy-Agnostic Standards
and a Much Needed Rant. Iterating Toward
Openness. Retrieved July 13, 2005]. It is the
intent of this paper to adopt the perspectives of
socio-theoretical research in order to explore the
“non-neutrality” of standards as social artifacts
,and to show that that they are constructions
that embody specific interests and agendas. In
doing so, this paper will give special emphasis
to what is likely the most widely discussed and
implemented e-learning standard, the
aforementioned Learning Object Metadata
standard ,also known as [I6] or simply, the
“LOM”. This paper will undertake this
exploration by considering a range of research
on standardization, emphasizing their non-
neutrality and their eminently political nature.

2 THE NEED FOR E-LEARNING STANDARD

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Applying standards in developing e-courses
leads to the following advantages.
2.2 Standards support E-learning Innovation:
The widespread use of the internet and the
development of standards for web-based
design languages in the 90’s, such as html,
xml, and css, have stimulated the innovation in
the e-learning.
2.3 E-course copyrights and reusability:
We need to implement copyright policies
governing e-courses, so that the content can
be reused for many years. But without the e-
learning standards this will become unrealistic
because the rapid change in the requirements,
technology and the internet bandwidth. Also,
the cost of developing and maintaining such
courses can average down, as more students
take the course overtime.
2.4 Collaborative Development of E-courses:
We need standards to make it easier for
different authors to collaborate on e-course
development and for sharing the content
between institutions.
3 E-learning Standards
In general, any e-learning system consists of
three main parts: an online component which
contains the structure and behavior of the
courseware, offline instructional activities, and
a data analysis component.
A.Interoperabilty :
- Interoperability in online content:
This happens for example when a student
enrolling in an e-course, needs to interact with
the instructional elements of the course such
as to get his/her performance in a quiz, get
feedback from lessons, or asking for
assistance. This data could be useful for other
aspects of the e-learning process such as in
the assessment and evaluation and the
management of learning. Therefore, there is a
need to communicate these data with the other
components of e learning so we can store and
analyze them.
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- Interoperability in offline instructional activities:
When a student undergoes training, some
non-technical information is needed such as the
student personal information, and his /her
performance data. To obtain all these data, the
offline instructional activities have to
communicate with other e-learning components.
Suppose a student requests to register for a
course, the offline instructional will get the
course structure from the online content so that
the student can access the course material. The
student performance in the course will be sent
to the offline management system for storing.
- Interoperability for data analysis:
Data analysis tools need to access the offline
data for evaluation and analysis.
3.1 Reusability:
The rapid development in internet has made
significant changes in the dissemination of
information especially the online ones. Many
corporate and institutions try to be information
providers by building information repositories.
However, they face the problem of the data
exchange format, thus the need for standards to
build effective and collaborative e-courses.
3.2 Manageability
E-learning has multiple participants and
multiple resources. We needs manageability
standards that help the system to track student
behavior, information about the learners, and
the educational content.
3.3 Accessibility
Learners can access the appropriate course
content at their appropriate time on their
appropriate device. Content warehouses can be
developed and become available to these
learners in order to use any application based
on the common standards.
3.4 Scalability:
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Learning technologies can be expanded in
functionality in order to serve broader
populations and organizational purposes. An
organization’s return on investment in e-
Learning products can increase if they can be
leveraged beyond their original scope.
4 THE LIFECYCLE OF THE E-LEARNING
PROCESS
The lifecycle in the development of an e-course
involves the following phases:
The design phase: in which the required features
of the learners’ profile are defined, and the details
of the educational targets specified.
The production phase: integrates the production
of modules content, building the modules based
on the initial design, and the packing of the
contents to be delivered.
The deployment phase: in which users access the
content and collaborate during the learning
process.
The assessment phase: the assessment of
learners through tests and other activities.
At the end of every phase, useful information is
collected and fed back to every previous phase of
the process, which facilitates the improvement of
the whole process.
5 Standards as Uniformity, Objectivity and
Justice
There are many different ways of
understanding the social and political aspects
of technical standards and standardization
processes. An effective overview of a range of
such understandings provided in the literature
of science and technology studies is offered by
[4], in “Studying Standardization: A Review of
the Literature.” Feng’s overview proceeds from
the initial recognition that social and political
“meanings and motivations of standardization
are multiple and change over time” [4]. Among
others, Feng identifies three ways of
understanding standards, their promise and
peril: as “uniformity,” “objectivity” and as
“justice.” This paper will now briefly survey
these three ways of understanding
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standardization, relating them, whenever
possible, to specific developments in e-learning
standards.
The role of standards as instruments of
uniformity can perhaps be most easily explained
through reference to their origin in the industrial
age. Industrialization, as a shift from local
craftwork to mass production and trade, is
bound up with the emergence of standards
enabling the production and distribution of
uniform commodities. The standardization of
railway gauges, screw threads and scientific
instruments occurring at this time is not only an
expression of the uniformity imposed by their
mass production, but is also necessary for the
consolidation of regional and national trading
networks occurring simultaneously.
It is perhaps no coincidence that many have
similarly argued that e-learning and education
generally would also benefit from a related
transformation from a “cottage industry” ,with
teachers each creating lessons and activities
individually, to a “mature market” of goods and
services. E-learning standards are often
described as a significant catalyst in this
development [11]. As in the industrial
revolution, technical standards would allow e-
learning products and services to be offered as
“globally scalable solutions,” as uniform
products created through a rational division of
specialized labour, made available across
regional and national boundaries.
The association of technical standards with
specialized labor, and its rational
(re)organization is an important consequences
of their close association with uniformity. As [15]
explain, "the adoption of standards may simplify
some aspects of [a] system while creating a
demand for more skilled labor elsewhere" [15].
Information specialists who have worked, for
example, on the implementation of the [14].
Standard will likely have first-hand knowledge of
the labor-intensive requirements and challenges
that these standards can introduce. The ability
of standards to re-order labor relations is also
illustrated in the way that the standards-based
technology of the Web has enabled international
reorganization or outsourcing of service jobs,
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and the sale of courses or course components
between various educational institutions
However, as indicated at the outset of this
paper, the standardization of e-learning
technologies is generally not understood in
terms of industrialization, but as being
associated above all with post-industrial
transformation. It is in the context of the
postindustrial that Feng’s conception of
standards as objectivity is perhaps most readily
understood. Terms such as “post-industrial” or
the “knowledge” or “information age” are
commonly used to designate an economic and
social order in which knowledge and networks
are paramount, and for which customization
and flexibility, rather than mass uniformity, are
most characteristic. Those advocating the use
of e-learning standards also depict a flexible
and customizable combination of standardized
functions and content as the desired outcome
this standardization. However, many also
recognize that the final result of such a
standardization process remains uncertain,
with a possible outcome being a “neo-
industrial” uniformity, rather than post-industrial
flexibility [3].
The two scenarios of (neo) industrial uniformity
and post-industrial flexibility are not mutually
exclusive. In fact, it can be argued that the two
are closely and necessarily bound together:
the flexibility made possible by standards on
one level requires strict uniformity and
homogeneity on another. Ultimately, all
standards ,regardless of their individual
emphasis on industrial uniformity or
postindustrial flexibility, “aim at making actions
comparable over time and space” [1]. In the
case of the Internet, these actions become
interoperable ,and in some cases, identical
rather than simply “comparable:” The contents
of an email from Boston can be read by an
email client in Beijing; a digital resource from
Turin can be combined with or substituted by a
learning object from Toronto. Speaking
specifically of the standardized Internet
protocols mentioned above (TCP, IP, etc.), [5]
describes the mutual implication of flexibility
and homogeneity as follows: “in order for
protocol to enable radically distributed
94
communications between autonomous entities,
it must employ a strategy of universalization,
and of homogeneity. It must be anti-diversity”
[5]. This uniformity, homogeneity or even
identity is an important part of what is implied in
the term “objectivity.” As will be discussed
further below, this uniformity has a significant,
albeit indirect impact on the practices it so
“flexibly” supports. Simply put, it has the
ultimate effect of valuing forms of knowledge
that are universal, modular, and
interchangeable, at the price of knowledge and
practices local and contextually-dependent.
And education, as will be shown below, is in
many ways profoundly local and contextual in
character.
The notion of knowledge and comparability that
can be brought to bear across space and time
can, of course, present great positive potential
when understood in terms of justice. One simple
illustration of this potential goes back to a time
prior to the post-industrial and industrial eras, to
the age of feudalism and craft practices in
manufacture and agriculture. Describing the
pre-industrial, localized measure of rents and
feudal dues in the form of bushels, Porter
explains how during the early stages of the
French Revolution…measures were among the
most frequently mentioned [peasant]
grievances. The local bushel…had been
growing ever larger, to the profit of seigneurs. It
was time to declare a single, true bushel, valid
for the whole of France. [13]
The introduction of such a standardized
measure can be seen as presenting a powerful
instrument for economic justice on the part of
France’s disenfranchised peasants. A more
recent example of the function of standards as
an instrument of justice is provided by quality
assurance standards, specifically by the widely-
implemented and -certified ISO 9000 standard
series. As ISO (the International Organization
for Standardization) itself explains, the purpose
of this group of standards is to provide a set of
requirements that, if they are effectively
implemented, will [ensure] supplier[s] can
consistently provide goods and services that:
Meet [customer] needs and expectations and
comply with applicable regulations [9].
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By thus regulating the provision of goods and
services between suppliers and business
customers in different points in space and time,
these ISO standards can be seen as arbitrating
kind of economic justice, albeit narrowly-
defined. This scope and ambition is
broadened considerably in the more recently
developed ISO 14000-series standards for
“environmental management.” This series of
standards specifies requirements for
establishing [a corporate] environmental policy,
determining environmental aspects and
impacts of products/activities/services,
planning environmental objectives and
measurable targets, implementation and
operation of programs to meet objectives and
targets, checking and corrective action, and
management review. [10]
The potential of standards to address issues of
social, environmental, labour and other forms
of equity and responsibility has just begun to
be explored in the standardization world in
general. This same potential has not yet been
the focus of any e-learning standards in
particular. One important exception to this
comes in the form of a number of incipient
“accessibility” standards in e-learning. These
identify the assistive and adaptive capabilities
of e-learning resources and systems, and
systematically enumerate user interface
preferences (e.g. for visible enhancements or
audio translation). This suite of standards, or
rather, specifications, holds out the promise of
enabling equitable access to e-learning and
other systems ,regardless of the physical
circumstances under which this access may
occur.
6 CONCLUSION
As indicated earlier, the domains of education
and learning can be understood as being
especially local, heterogeneous and contextual
in ways that few other organized activities are.
Evidence of this situated and heterogeneous
character is provided perhaps most powerfully
by the persistence of pre-industrial craft
95
practices in education. These practices, to be
found in many areas of educational activity,
have survived successive waves of industrial
and post-industrial transformation, which have
otherwise been so important for standards
related to measures, materials, quality and
communication itself. The local and contextual
networks in education also appear to be
continuing in their resistance to rationalization
and re-engineering introduced in the form of
standardized content and processes. Local,
situated knowledge of how, for example, to
teach a universal scientific principal such as
a=πr2 (i.e. the area of a circle) in a class or to a
particular student is not likely to be trumped
even by the most well designed learning object
or standardized practice for such a teaching
process. This is despite the fact that arguments
for institutional efficiency and cost-savings in
such cases appear, as [2] put it, “relentless.”
The resistance of educational practices to this
relentless logic it is not simply a function of
institutional inertia or worse yet, of teachers’ or
curriculum designers’ entrenched interests [12].
Instead, an important part of it arises from local
and situated nature of education itself.
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