LTSC Public

LTSC - Assuring Compatibility Across Ed Tech Product Categories

The LTSC follows an open and transparent formal standards development process and fully supports the IEEE’s sponsorship of the OpenStand Initiative. We coordinate with other organizations, both formally and informally, that produce specifications and standards for learning technologies.We welcome new members who can volunteer their time and expertise to understanding and solving product interoperability issues caused by the rapid advance of new educational technologies. Membership in the LTSC is by the individual. An elected Sponsor Executive Committee (SEC) consisting of working group chairs and elected officers governs the LTSC. Members gain access to Working Group (WG), Study Group (SG), and Technical Advisory Group (TAG) documents and email reflectors; vote on draft standards; and participate in ballot resolutions.Individuals interested in participating are encouraged to contact the LTSC Chair or the relevant WG, SG, and TAG chairs. The LTSC currently has three active work groups ADB, ARLEM and TMPL and their activities are described below. https://ieee-sa.imeetcentral.com/ltsc/  

ADB - Connecting Tablet-Based Learners to People, Resources, and Data

Actionable Data Book. Our vision is quite simple: enable content portability, as SCORM did, in an e-learning ecosystem that is increasingly more complex. ADB is a transformative blend of interactive eBook, mobile technology, and experiential analytics. Fully grounded by learning theory, it is intended to serve as the next-generation, ubiquitous learning platform.

• Traditional eLearning product categories: Learning Management Systems; SCORM based authoring tools.
• New categories: Learning Record Stores (LRS); analytics engines; data analysis applications; lesson planning apps and dashboards; student’s portfolios or “learning lockers”
• New pedagogical contexts: flipped classrooms; experiential or activity-based learning; collaborative learning; just-in-time learning; ….
• New kinds of e-learning content and technologies: mobile; personalized; adaptive over time; immersive games and simulations; augmented reality for job support.
• Published content that uses the functionality of the tablet (GPS, camera, mic, motion, orientation, touch, gesture, wifi, Bluetooth) in a web-connected environment possibly surrounded by IoT devices. Also, the tools for creating such content.https://standards.ieee.org/develop/indconn/adb/index.html

ARLEM -Using Augmented Reality to Create Learning Environments

The ARLEM Working Group (p1589) content model specifies a description of workplaces where people learn and/or work, and real-time delivery of (and interactions with) instructional content pertaining to activities and tools within intelligent spaces. The ARLEM activity model will support other LTSC specifications, such as xAPI learning record stores, permitting personalized instruction adaptation.In addition, the specification will provide a model for live data from connected objects in the spaces to ARLEM-compliant software running on devices designed for visualization using Augmented Reality. http://arlem.kmi.open.ac.uk 

TMPL - Matching Learners with Project-Based Learning Opportunities

 Task Model for Project-Based Learning standard allows multiple applications to develop and share consistent data about project-based learning opportunities.The Task Model for Project-based Learning (TMPL) standard specifies the metadata required to describe a small real-world work project that is a suitable learning opportunity, e.g., for a student intern or lifelong learner. https://standards.ieee.org/develop/project/1484.21.html

Governments and educational institutions around the world are rapidly escalating their use of a wide range of educational technologies. In recent years, educators and enterprise trainers have embraced dozens of technologies from tablets to MOOCs, and have created local solutions using a variety of configurations, depending on jurisdiction, local infrastructure, learner population, learning objectives, policy, and budget. Furthermore, thousands of new products and whole new product categories are likely to be introduced by software companies, educational publishers, and venture-funded entrepreneurs over the next decade. Governments, educational institutions, and companies, who must take lifecycle costs into consideration, depend on vendors to incorporate standards that minimize integration costs and assure that future procurements, from any vendor, will work with the products already in use.

For 25 years, the IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee (LTSC) has brought technical expertise and international perspectives to bear on market issues caused by systems that fail to interoperate. In the past, the LTSC played an important part in creating the internationally adopted SCORM standard for elearning content. In the ongoing RAMLET project, the LTSC has explored the use of ontologies to establish semantic consistency across independent content packaging frameworks. We are currently investigating and working on several known problems:

• How does a mobile app or web-based learning activity -- one that is not launched by a traditional learning management systems (LMS) -- securely access and store data about the learner’s progress and performance in other systems (LMS, teachers’ dashboards, learning analytics engines, etc.)?
• How can authors and e-textbook publishers use the power of the learner’s tablet computer to create more effective publications?
• How can we build consistent competency frameworks to describe a learner’s knowledge, learning objectives, course/content relevance, prerequisites, and job requirements?
• How can carefully constructed learning environments created in virtual and augmented reality systems be shared across different vendors’ products?
• How can project-based learning opportunities be described in a consistent manner, so that online marketplaces, e.g. for internships, can be created?
• What might intelligent tutoring systems have to say to teachers and to each other to assist the learner?

The LTSC follows an open and transparent formal standards development process, and fully supports the IEEE’s sponsorship of the OpenStand Initiative. We coordinate with other organizations, both formally and informally, that produce specifications and standards for learning technologies.

Membership in the LTSC is by individual. An elected Sponsor Executive Committee (SEC) consisting of working group chairs and elected officers governs the LTSC. Members gain access to Working Group (WG), Study Group (SG), and Technical Advisory Group (TAG) documents and email reflectors; vote on draft standards; and participate in ballot resolutions. The IEEE LTSC Policies and Procedures are available here: C_LT.pdf

Accredited Learning Technology Standards

The IEEE LTSC has developed a number of internationally accredited standards. Published standards include:

• 1484.1-2003 IEEE Standard for Learning Technology-Learning Technology Systems Architecture (LTSA)
• 1484.11.1-2004 IEEE Standard for Learning Technology-Data Model for Content to Learning Management System Communication
• 1484.11.2-2003 IEEE Standard for Learning Technology-ECMAScript Application Programming Interface for Content to Runtime Services Communication
• 1484.11.3-2005 IEEE Standard for Learning Technology-Extensible Markup Language (XML) Schema Binding for Data Model for Content Object Communication
• 1484.12.1-2002 IEEE Standard for Learning Object Metadata
• 1484.12.3-2005 IEEE Standard for Learning Technology-Extensible Markup Language (XML) Schema Definition Language Binding for Learning Object Metadata
• 1484.13.1-20012 IEEE Standard for Conceptual Model for Resource Aggregation for Learning, Education, and Training
• 1484.20.1-2007 IEEE Standard for Learning Technology - Data Model for Reusable Competency Definitions