ComSIS Vol. 1, No. 1, February 2004 33
Learning Technology Standardization:
Making Sense of it All
1

Erik Duval
1

1
Dept. Computerwetenschappen, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Celestijnenlaan 200A, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium
Erik.Duval@cs.kuleuven.ac.be
Abstract. In this paper, we analyze the role of technical standards in the
domain of learning technology, focusing on the way they enable
interoperability. We briefly explain some of the alternatives to open and
accredited standards and how they impact on the community. The
standardization process is analyzed in some detail and the most relevant
organizations involved are briefly surveyed. We provide an overview and
taxonomy of the more widely adopted standards and specifications.
1. Introduction
Interest in “learning technology standards” has boomed over the past few
years. Most of the organizations involved have been active since (much) less
than 10 years, but the first commercial products referring to the standards are
already appearing on the market. In academic and corporate research and
development, the themes of interoperability, learning objects, metadata, etc.
have surfaced as important topics [1,2]. Indeed, the first symposium solely
devoted to these themes was organized in 2003 [3].
Nevertheless, there remains plenty of confusion and misunderstanding
about the role and origin of standards [4]. In this paper, we survey the field, in
an effort to try and increase understanding of the process and results of
standardization, so that expectations of future results can be more realistic and
so that future research and development can be directed at relevant questions
and issues.

1
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the ‘Onderzoeksfonds K.U.Leuven/
Research Fund K.U.Leuven’.

34 ComSIS Vol. 1, No. 1, February 2004
2. The Role of Standards
2.1. Looking Back: the Advent of the Web
The role of standards can easily be illustrated through the history of the World-
Wide Web. Since the early 1960’s, sometimes quite advanced hypermedia
systems had been developed, such as Augment [5], Intermedia and others.
The main problem was that these systems operated in isolation. As Andries
Van Dam remarked in 1987 (!) [6]:
“we are building docu-islands; none of our systems talk to each
other, they are wholly incompatible. So we are all working the same
agenda, more or less, but we can't exchange stuff; there is no
exchange format, there is no universality, and furthermore, our
systems are closed systems. […] So it's not enough to bundle the
HyperCard package with every Mac you buy. It really ought to be
migrated down, become part of the toolbox, so that application
programmers can take their applications and take advantage of a
standard linking protocol that works within and between applications.
So I'm going to raise a red-flag word: standards. I'm a firm believer
in standards. And everybody will say it is absolutely premature to
standardize when we don't even know what the hell we're talking
about. We are still in the experimental phase. I believe that. But if we
don't start thinking about standards, five years from now we are going
to have a wealth of these little docu-islands which are totally
incompatible, and that's crazy.”

In essence, three standards enabled the World-Wide Web to interconnect what
had remained “docu-islands” until the early 90’s (exactly as Van Dam
predicted):
ξ HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) enables software clients to download
documents from servers;
ξ A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) makes it possible to identify a
document– the difference between URL’s, Uniform Resource Names
(URN’s) and Universal Resource Identifiers (URI’s) is not relevant here;
ξ HTML (HyperText Markup Language) defines a structure for web documents
with a simple lay-out and supports hyperlinks that rely on HTTP to request
documents identified by their URL.
2.2. Interoperability
The result of standards such as HTTP, URL and HTML is freedom of choice
for developers and end users alike: in principle, a browser such as Opera or
Apple’s Safari can be used to read documents produced with Microsoft