Specs & Standards Update: December 2003 IMS; IEEE; Odds & ends CETIS EC SIG 9th Meeting Manchester Computing, Manchester University 12 December 2003 Sarah Currier CETIS EC SIG Coordinator sarah.currier@strath.ac.uk

IMS Update December 2003: IMS IMS Content Packaging update IMS InterActive Content SIG update Group A: Spec harmonisation Group B: API/Runtime improvement IMS Shared State Persistence (Simulations) Odds and ends

IMS Update December 2003: IMS Content Packaging Three main issues with IMS Content Packaging specification: Bug fixing of current version 1.1.3 Standardisation by IEEE? Next version: “Alternative Resources”; “isVisible”

IMS Update December 2003: 1. CP Maintenance Not changing or adding things to specification. CETIS’s Wilbert Kraan is coordinating bug-fix, or “definitive version” of v1.1.3; likely to become v1.1.4. Will incorporate fixing problems identified by implementers to date, including those reported by the CETIS Code Bash events, and by ADL. Wilbert will post full list of bugs on CETIS website. If any implementers here have any further issues they wish to be looked at, please contact Wilbert Kraan: w.g.kraan@bangor.ac.uk or post to EC SIG list.

IMS Update December 2003: 2. CP Standardisation IEEE LTSC has been investigating standardising a specification for content packaging/transportation. Looked at METS and MPEG21 as well as IMS CP. Main push is to standardise IMS CP but there are problems: versioning of specification across IMS and IEEE is one; also, IMS have a different approach to making specs available. If these can be resolved- new bug-free version will be “the one”.

IMS Update December 2003: 3. New features for IMS CP On the backburner for now: “isVisible” is a problem which has been around for a while- still needs resolving. “Alternative/Variant Resources” (e.g. for accessibility) was considered a new feature so not included in maintenance version 1.1.3 of spec- but still on the agenda.

IMS Update December 2003: Second generation developments InterActive Content (v2.0 IMS QTI) Simulations (see earlier presentation by Steve Jeyes, 8th EC SIG meeting) ePortfolios (covered by CETIS LIPSIG) Resource List Interoperability (covered by CETIS Metadata SIG)

IMS Update December 2003: InterActive Content SIG “Big Bucket” SIG; split off to form: Simulation SIG & Mobile Learning SIG. Group A: Spec harmonisation and integration for LD, QTI, SS and CP. Group B: Improve runtime model and API functionality.

IMS Update December 2003: InterActive Content SIG Group A Charter approved, work under way: Located in a Working Group for QTI v.2.0 5 Key objectives: New version of QTI <item> spec to address previously deferred issues (current focus) Best practice for putting QTI into Content Packages Binding for QTI outcomes in the CMI datamodel Binding for QTI outcomes to Learning Design properties Binding for QTI outcomes to Simple Sequencing objectives

IMS Update December 2003: InterActive Content SIG Group A Charter for IMS QTI v2.0 Out of Scope: QTI v.1 “Selection and Ordering” and “Outcomes Processing” – therefore support for adaptive testing Assessment security issues

IMS Update December 2003: InterActive Content SIG Group A Charter for IMS QTI v2.0 CETIS Assessment SIG is current focus of CETIS involvement as QTI v2.0 is dealt with. Their next meeting is in the Netherlands, 13.01.04- still spaces. Will include discussion on EML/IMS Learning Design & IMS QTI. EC SIG will get involved in remaining developments as appropriate.

IMS Update December 2003: InterActive Content SIG Group B Charter: Improve runtime model and API functionality CETIS EC SIG to take part in call for requirements, current solutions, use cases from community. This work has been postponed by IMS- watch this space.

IMS Update December 2003: ePortfolio & RLI Current work within IMS on ePortfolios and Resource List Interoperability both investigating use of IMS CP as a packaging/transport mechanism. See CETIS LIPSIG and CETIS Metadata SIG respectively.

IEEE LTSC Update December 2003: CP & CMI Datamodel/API See previous slide on standardisation of CP SCORM JavaScript API formally approved as standard Working on standardising CMI/SCORM datamodel & its XML binding See Wilbert’s report on the CETIS site Or go straight to IEEE LTSC WG11 CMI pages: http://ltsc.ieee.org/wg11/index.html

ADL held first “DesignFest”: http://itinstitute.usu.edu/designfest.cfm SCORM Update December 2003 Report on the future directions for SCORM by Carnegie Mellon: http://www.lsal.cmu.edu ADL held first “DesignFest”: http://itinstitute.usu.edu/designfest.cfm ADL Academic Co-Lab held Learning Repository Summit (Allison Littlejohn attended): http://www.academiccolab.org/resources/FinalSummitReport.pdf Next IMS Meeting co-located in Switzerland with 1st International PlugFest, Feb. 16-19 2004: http://www.isn.ethz.ch/plugfest/

Valkenburg Group Update December 2003 See OUNL “Learning Networks” site for information on IMS LD; EML; EduBox & Valkenburg Group: http://learningnetworks.org/ Meeting in January to work on proposed book on IMS Learning Design.

Word to the Wise, December 2003 NB: The information given in these slides is up-to-the-minute, on-the-fly reportage; it is subject to change at any time so please contact the CETIS EC SIG or join the SIG mailing list to stay up-to-date!