E-learning: Market Structure, Platform Functions, Standardisation (*)

Transcription

1 E-learning: Market Structure, Platform Functions, Standardisation (*) Tanguy LARHER ATICA (Agence pour les Technologies de l'information et de la Communication dans l'administration), Paris Introduction Of US origin, the term e-learning designates the move from computerbased training towards distance learning, thanks to network development and the arrival of the Internet. When talking of e-learning today, this embraces all distance training systems using networks and associated tools. Gallicising the term is a question that has frequently been raised but never resolved, for the term has no exact equivalent in French. Systematically applied to all systems falling within the field of application of the Internet network, the prefix "e" conveys the dual notion of on-line functions and digital resources. The word learning, in turn, refers to the notion of learner, while in French, we tend to focus on the notion of teaching and thus of teacher. E-learning, however, would be a concept destined for use by those who wish to learn in personalised and autonomous fashion. Conceptually, therefore, the use of the term e-learning is correct and its loan from Anglo-Saxon culture "inevitable". (*) This article has been published, among others, on the ATICA Web site: COMMUNICATIONS & STRATEGIES, no. 47, 3 rd quarter 2002, p. 167.

2 168 COMMUNICATIONS & STRATEGIES no. 47 The present article deals with the structure of the market for on-line training tools and content and offers a typology of the functions of an e-learning platform. We shall first address the problem of standardisation in the sphere of e-learning, while presenting some of the standardisation measures adopted by manufacturers, publishers or users of on-line teaching platforms. Mention will also be made of the ongoing standardisation process at ISO, which will take account of results of some of the studies carried out on the subject. To conclude, the article touches briefly on the necessary relationship between management of knowledge and e-learning activity. The e-learning market E-learning is a new technology sector still only recently opened by small structures employing a business model that has not yet made it possible to attain profitability. New players coming from the computing, publishing and media worlds are now displaying interest in e-learning and in building up strategies with a view to becoming indispensable in the years to come. We are talking here of the big names in the computer sphere such as Microsoft, IBM and Oracle and majors in the media and communications world such as Vivendi Universal and Pearson. While waiting for the sector to mature, these corporations may well lose money in seeking to impose a brand name and a business model. Articles describing the flourishing prospects of e-learning appear regularly in the press making mention of numerous studies that predict a market worth several billion EUR. IDC points to a figure of 23 billion USD in the corporate sector in 2004, compared with 1.7 billion in 1999, i.e. an annual growth of 70% over 5 years, and it highlights the increasing presence of Europe in this context. In a BNP- Paribas survey, the US market is expected to be worth 6 billion EUR in As in the case of surveys on ICTs (e-business, marketplaces, etc.), these figures seem to be excessive or just fanciful. Nevertheless, e-learning does

3 T. LARHER 169 have a market and should establish a place for itself among teaching systems, whether beginning or advanced. The e-learning market currently comprises three player segments: - technology suppliers, - content providers, - service providers. As the market is still in its structural phase, it is not uncommon to find a player with a simultaneous presence in all three segments. However, it will not be long before each individual player starts to focus on the segment that generates the highest value in relation to his core activity. In this article, we shall concentrate more on the technological aspect, i.e. on the world of e-learning platforms. At present, there is a plethora of e-learning solutions and there is nothing in common between a content site on the web claiming the use of the e-learning label and the integrated platform offering a complete range of functions at a cost of over EUR. In this area, too, the market is still assuming structural form and the dividing line is more to be found between heavy proprietary systems and the lighter open source solutions. E-learning system An e-learning system consists of two major components: the pedagogic engineering and the technical solution employed for implementation. The pedagogic engineering concerns the entire activity of design and dissemination of teaching content, plus strategies for learning and for learner evaluation. This represents the core activity of players in the learning field. Current issues at stake in pedagogic engineering for e-learning bear on the possibility of re-using learning modules elaborated on other platforms or in other contexts. Thus the entire problem is to create a common framework defining the overall structure and component parts of pedagogic content. Several proposals in this direction already exist but none has the status of standard, de jure or de facto.

4 170 COMMUNICATIONS & STRATEGIES no. 47 Technical e-learning solutions are based on teaching platforms with extreme variations in the types of function they offer. In studying the list we have prepared, it should be borne in mind that their number is not the only yardstick by which their performance and efficiency can be measured. Platform functions can be split into four major categories: Content management: production and storage of pedagogic material Teaching library: this refers to the course database and all related functions such as the automatic creation of modules to suit the specified programme. In this context, the adoption of standards is of fundamental importance as the course library constitutes a dynamic element: some courses will be designed internally and others purchased from specialist publishers. It is indispensable to give thought to ensuring that the content displays fine granularity so that it can be re-used. Course creation: this involves tools for designing courses in an ergonomic and user-friendly environment. Training management Administrative management: this embraces functions of an administrative nature enabling management of all aspects of training and teaching such as the enrolment of course participants, access management, management of teachers and tutors. Access to courses: functions for providing access to on-line courses, i.e. all connection, identification and downloading functions. Interactivity management Accompanying the learner asynchronously: this field embraces the various types of tutor and the tools available to them for monitoring the learner's progress (messaging, newsgroups, groupware, etc.). Synchronous virtual classes: this covers tools for organising a virtual class of several learners together with one or more teachers. The range of technological solutions is extremely wide: high-speed lines, videoconferencing, videophone conferencing, application sharing, whiteboard, etc.

5 T. LARHER 171 Skills management. Included here are functions for managing the individual skills of a group of people, matching them with needs and designing well-suited training programmes. E-learning standardisation measures Strictly speaking, there are no e-learning norms or standards for the present. But there are a number of groups and committees working on the question and defining specifications to apply either to a particular sphere of activity or to the entire e-learning community. The whole problem of standardisation the field of e-learning rests on the interoperability of platforms, i.e. their ability to exchange information in transparent fashion. For example, in the case of a company with its own platform, it is a question of being able to re-use training modules designed on other platforms or in other contexts and to exchange management information applying to the learners. However, current studies are not confined to strictly defining common formats and procedures for ensuring information re-use possibilities; attempts are being made to draw up specifications that go further insofar as the structuring of information is concerned, namely by defining standard pedagogic models or by making available a detailed learner identification framework. For the time being, American initiatives lie behind virtually all the work being carried out on the standardisation of e-learning systems, and the entire purpose of this nascent standardisation is to create a common framework enabling the re-use of data without imposing a structure that would give rise to pedagogic practices too heavily marked by cultural preferences. Let us begin by presenting some of these different standardisation measures:

6 172 COMMUNICATIONS & STRATEGIES no. 47 AICC (Aviation Industry CBT (Computer Based Training) Committee) The AICC is an international association of training professionals focusing mainly on new technologies (aircraft manufacturers, military, civil and commercial aviation instructors, government agencies, computer equipment suppliers, publishers of on-line training content, etc.). The association draws up directives: these are transposed into the AICC standard which comprises nine items and is focused on the interoperability of pedagogic systems and learning platforms. The aim is to ensure compatibility among all certified systems. The actual certification procedures are standardised and carried out by independent agencies. AICC recommendations are currently the most widespread and the most closely followed. IMS global learning consortium (Instructional Management System global learning consortium) Born out of the National Learning Infrastructure Initiative of the US organisation Educause, the IMS is a worldwide consortium comprising training and teaching bodies, IT companies, administrations and educational institutions. The aim of the consortium is to draw up technical specifications and standards for application in the following areas: - description of pedagogic materials (cataloguing, metadata, granularity); - interoperability of materials and platforms; - learner management and monitoring. Standard techniques have been developed for each of these items. They offer DTD and XML schemes. IMS works in collaboration with AICC and has adopted AICC specifications applying to the interoperability of e-learning applications

7 T. LARHER 173 SCORM (Shareable Course Object Reference Model) SCORM was set up on the initiative of the US Department of Defense for the purpose of defining and standardising a content model for on-line learning. The objectives of SCORM are as follows: - to guarantee the transfer of content from one platform to another, especially in regard to everything that concerns the learner; - to promote the creation of re-usable granular materials; - to facilitate automatic search for pedagogic materials for training in databases and on the Web. ARIADNE (Alliance of Remote Instructional Authoring and Distribution Networks for Europe) Financed by the European Commission, this project belongs within the DG XIII 4 th Framework Programme for Research and Development. The aims of the project are to promote and unify the production of hypermedia pedagogic documents and to test pedagogic scenarios on students in autonomous learning situations. In the context of this project, five authoring tools and a set of management tools for a distributed pedagogic database have been developed by twelve universities or higher education establishments within the European Community. At the end of the first phase ( ), the prototypes of these tools provided the possibility of conducting initial tests among the various partners. The second phase ( ) comprised large-scale testing of creation and exchange of a large number of pedagogic documents with the help of appropriate indexing in the knowledge pool. PROMOTEUS (PROMOting multimedia access to education and Training in EUropean Society) PROMETEUS is an open initiative launched in March 1999 under the patronage of the European Commission with a view to building a common approach for the production and supply of learning technologies, content and services in Europe. PROMETEUS is a forum for the exchange of expert knowledge where professionals coming from different cultures and speaking different languages meet together to reach critical mass in the sphere of new learning technologies. The complementary skills of PROMETEUS Signatories are

8 174 COMMUNICATIONS & STRATEGIES no. 47 assembled in the aim of bringing the world of research closer to the world in which concrete use is made of learning technologies, content and services. The ultimate goal of the project is to reach consensus on all the subjects addressed that concern: - the best strategies for ensuring multicultural and multilingual training and teaching; - a new approach within the teaching/learning field and new learning environments; - e-learning platforms based on open standards; - course libraries accessible to all by virtue of their interoperability. The PROMETEUS project itself aims to serve as a bridge between research and the practical use of New Educational Technologies. It will be possible for PROMOTEUS to submit recommendations to the political powers on all the best practices and directives derived by consensus. IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) The aforementioned groups, AICC, ADL, IMS, ARIADNE, PROMOTEUS, as well as DCMI, LRN 2.0, etc., are concerned with all domains involving e-learning and redundancy often occurs in their work Their overall objective is to reach agreement and create common standards, thus taking part in the process of standardisation. This is why the specifications bound up with all sectors of on-line learning (metadata, module sequencing, technologies, content, etc.) are subsequently presented to the IEEE. Through the LTSC (Learning technology Standards Committee), i.e. the Institute's specialised e-learning committee, IEEE belongs to the very closed circle of standardisation bodies. The IEEE recently established close contact with ISO (International Standardisation Organisation) in reporting on its work before Committee JTC1-SC 36 of the Institute, which is charged with the task of making its standards the international norm. ISO Standardisation is organised at international level by the ISO, International Standards Organisation, which comprises close on 130 countries. Europe is represented by the Comité Européen de Normalisation

9 T. LARHER 175 (CEN, established in Brussels in 1961). The relevant authority in France is the Association Française de NORmalisation (AFNOR). During a plenary meeting of the ISO in 1999, it was decided to create a "Learning-Technology" sub-domain, the Sub-Committee 36 (SC36) of which the exact title is: Information technology for learning, education and training, operating on the theme standardization in the field of information technologies for learning, education and training to support individuals, groups, or organisations, and to enable interoperability and reusability of resources and tools. The aim of SC36 is to work on the open standardisation of mediation methods and not on teaching resources. AFNOR has set up a committee for standardising "information technologies for education". E-learning knowledge management Initiating a knowledge management action means entering into a process of identification, collection, capitalisation, value enhancement and dissemination of knowledge in the aim of improving efficiency and productivity in the organisation and, in particular, its innovative capabilities. To this end, there is a series of tools available such as groupware, workflow, skills management tools, databases, search engines, data storage techniques, e-learning, etc. Thus any knowledge management system must aim at reflecting all the explicit, implicit and tacit knowledge of the company. In an integrated knowledge management system covering the entire range of theoretical possibilities, the e-learning tool will interact with several applicative components and especially with skills management applications. To be able to function and flourish, an organisation must have a clear idea of its current and future tasks and thus identify, improve and perpetuate the skills and profiles it needs. One of the possibilities offered by skills management solutions is to organise this information and extract relevant indicators such as a chart of skills, knowledge gaps, know-how and expertise to be acquired and passed on.

10 176 COMMUNICATIONS & STRATEGIES no. 47 "Data mining" operations of this nature then make it possible to inject the following information into the e-learning system: - nominative list of the company's skills and know-how; - list of skills and know-how to be acquired for the company and, more especially, by the employees; - location of skills and know-how which the company's knowledge base has available, etc. With a view to ensuring consistent management of skills and know-how, this makes it possible to fuel an e-learning tool with pedagogic content and human resources and to draw up personalised learning plans for future users of the platform. In broad terms, an e-learning application is a type of end result of a knowledge management action in that it makes concrete use of all resources identified. This is, of course, an ideal scenario, while the interaction described is generally achieved manually. Nevertheless, it makes it possible to come close to what would be the context, somewhat disembodied, of automatic skills management. This also reveals the importance of interoperability on which the development of the e-learning platform depends: it must on all accounts be capable of exchanging all manner of data with the rest of the information system, be it nominative data or pedagogic content.