October 2006 Volume 9 Number 4

TEL Standards, Specifications and Projects: Part of the Instantiation of RM-ODP
Recent works and projects on TEL engineering, conducted by several standardization committees, consortiums
and scientific and industrial communities, want to define formalisms, engineering methods and/or platforms
which focus on a specific aspect of a TEL system, whilst remaining neutral from a pedagogical point of view.
These approaches are close to the concept of viewpoint as defined by the RM-ODP standard, which allows the
specification of different aspects of a system within a same framework.
The information viewpoint. The LOM (Learning Object Metadata) standard of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical
and Electronics Engineers) (IEEE 1484.12.1, 2002) is a meta-descriptor for a learning object which allows
indexation in a distributed databank for reuse. The EMLs (Educational Modeling Languages) (Rawlings et al.,
2002), and especially the informational models proposed by the IMS Consortium, like Learning Design (IMS-
LD/IM, 2003), are languages which allow the definition of an instructional scenario by the association between
informational concepts such as roles or activities. The related constraints are defined by informational models in
several technical documents. These two main proposals could be considered as the instantiation of the
information viewpoint of RM-ODP on the TEL engineering: they allow a coherent description of both the
learning objects and the scenarios of a TEL system. The proposed formalisms bring designers to use a formal
syntax for their descriptions.
The computational viewpoint. One of the three documents provided by IMS for its Learning Design
Specification, named "Best Practice Implementation Guide" (IMS-LD/BP, 2003), describes the functional
decomposition of a TEL system through the specification of links, interfaces and interactions between objects.
Earlier, the LTSA (Learning Technology Systems Architecture) proposal (IEEE- P1484.1/D9, 2001) of IEEE
aimed to define an architectural model to highlight the functional components and the different flows existing in
a learning process. These two proposals could be considered as the instantiation of the computational viewpoint
of RM-ODP on the TEL engineering.
The engineering viewpoint. SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) (ADL, 2004) proposed by
ADL (Advanced Distributed Learning) and "Abstract Framework" (IMS-AF/WP, 2003) provided by IMS, could
be considered as the instantiation of the engineering viewpoint of RM-ODP on the TEL engineering. These two
proposals synthesize the specification of the technical framework of a TEL system. Freeware community
projects such as OpenUSS (2005) or industrial specifications such as E-Learning Framework (SUN, 2003) are
relevant of the consensus adopted in the IMS document. These proposals stress the need for the designers to
know and take into account the characteristics of the interfaces and behaviors of the different components of a
TEL system.
The technology viewpoint. We don't aim to elaborate here on the necessity for the TEL community to adopt
software approaches as Model Driven Architecture proposed by OMG (2001), but we think that the different
TEL projects which are relevant to this approach, like OpenUSS (Grob et al., 2004), FreeStyle Learning (Brocke,
2001), or Future Learning Environment (Leinonen et al., 2002) are good examples of the instantiation of the
technology viewpoint of RM-ODP in a TEL project.
This short panorama of the TEL community results allows us to focus on the shortcomings of these works. The
initial and main objective of these projects, especially the standards proposals, is to enhance the interoperability
between TEL systems and the reusability of their productions. As a consequence, all of these propositions lead to
the instrumentation the specification task, neglecting the iterative dimension of the development of an
educational system. The instantiation of RM-ODP on TEL engineering highlights the weakness of the enterprise
viewpoint in our TEL community. In particular, we want to underpin a meta reflection on the life cycle of a TEL
system, on languages used in each viewpoint, and on interrelations existing between all actors of the iterative
process of a TEL development. This is the reason we propose below an enterprise viewpoint for the
reengineering of a TEL system.
The Enterprise viewpoint for reengineering of a TEL System
The quality approach of RM-ODP concerns the organization of the actors, the documents and the phases of the
system life cycle. Quality could be defined here by the quantity of observed uses which have been taken into
account in a reengineering purpose, but also by the research of qualitative missing indicators (ISO/IEC 10746-1,
1998, Chapter 9.1). The enterprise viewpoint of RM-ODP allows the explicitation of the organizational
dimensions related to such an iterative process in a unique framework.
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