Intercambio por la ATU-C

Despite the fact that e-learning is still an emerging field, tendency exists towards establishing acceptable common ―Standards‖. Having complete and good e-learning standards will have several benefits for diverse stakeholders like users, learning content producers, tool vendors, and application and platform designers (Varlamis & Apostolakis, 2006). Two main reasons are behind the need of Standardization in learning technology for web-based education according to Anido-Rifón et al (2001). These are: ―educational resources are defined, structured, and presented using various formats; and, functional modules embedded in a particular learning system cannot be reused by another system in a straightforward way‖ (Anido-Rifón et al, 2001). Many organizations/consortia have been working on building e-learning standards. Examples include: IEEE/LTSC (Learning Technology Standards Committee), CEN/ISSS/WS-LT (European Committee for Standardization/Information Society Standardization System/Learning Technologies Workshop), the aviation Industry‘s AICC, GESTALT project, and DCMI (Dublin Core Metadata Initiative) (Shon, 2002, and Anido-Rifón et al, 2001). These efforts came out of the concern for satisfying different communities‘

needs, including learners, developers, educators, education and training firms, and policy makers. As a result of such efforts, some standards have been emerging, though they did not reach a stable condition. Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) has SCORM – Sharable Content Oriented Reference Model – as a standard. According to Shackelford (2002) as quoted in Shon (2002), ADL considers a set of requirements for

e-learning standards which include ―accessibility, interoperability, durability, reusability, adaptability, and affordability‖. There are several merits of standardized technologies, which protect an e-learning investment according to Varlamis & Apostolakis (2006). These are ―interoperability, re-usability, manageability, accessibility, durability, and scalability‖. Anido and Llamas (2001) quoted by Shon (2002) list some areas of concern in the standardization process, which include, among others, ―architectures and reference model, educational metadata, course structure, student assessment, content packaging and encapsulation‖ (Shon, 2002). ―The SCORM‘s metadata model provides means for describing learning content from its most basic form … However it is not practical for SCORM to specifically model essential course materials such as bibliography, evaluation rules, or the course programme‖ (Simões, Luis & Horta, 2004). This is a proposed enhancement to SCORM metadata model, as the authors claim.

Having stable standards, would lead to better quality of available e-learning systems and products. As Cabezuelo & Beardo (2004) state, ―quality is important in software industry because it has direct relation with competitiveness, cost reduction, and profit increase.‖ They define quality as ―degree in which the characteristics of a product or service can cover the felt or pre-felt needs of users in a period of time‖ (Cabezuelo & Beardo, 2004). Different e-learning quality approaches exist, some of them are generic approaches, some are designed specifically for Quality Assurance in education, and some cover specific parts of the educational process or domain specific aspect (Pawlowski, 2003). According to Almala (2005), Phipps and Merisotis (2000), define ―Quality e-learning is a Web-based learning environment designed, developed, and delivered based on several dynamic principles, such as institutional support, course development, teaching/learning, course structure, student support, faculty support and evaluation, and assessment‖ (Almala 2005). A practice tendency is ―creating learning

resources from minimal, re-usable information units or learning objects‖ (Cabezuelo & Beardo, 2004). This is so because ―emphasis could be put on maintaining systems and on independence of technology‖ (Cabezuelo & Beardo, 2004). The educational module is not the only thing to be considered for an quality issue when providing e-learning. ―The quality of an educational module, when offered through a platform, suffers of quality of the tools provided by the platform itself‖ (Ardito et al, 2004). In addition, Almala (2006) has stated several issues for the quality e-learning:

“The availability of shared vision, technology, culture of the learning environment, instructional design, delivery options and strategies, maintaining quality and equity, cost factors, and the compatibility, aptitude, and self-discipline of participants are among the several issues that affect the success of a high-quality e-learning course and program” (Almala 2006).

From another perspective, institutions must make sure that the online (e-learning) objectives are achieved while maintaining the standards and professionalism of the institution (Tham & Werner, 2005). When offering distance education, institutions can use the guidance published by the Institute for Higher Learning Policy, which consists of seven categories of quality measures for benchmarking (Tham & Werner, 2005). These categories are institutional support; course development; teaching/learning; course structure; student support; faculty support; and evaluation and assessment. In

addition Global Alliance for Transnational Education (GATE) developed principles applicable to online courses to ensure credibility and professionalism, which include: goals and objectives; standards; legal and ethical matters; student enrollment and admissions, human resources, physical and financial resources; teaching and learning; student support; evaluation; and third parties (Tham & Werner, 2005). Ardito, et al (2004) identified four dimensions for usability evaluation of e-learning platform. These are: Presentation, Hypermediality, Application Proactivity, and Users‟s Activity. For each dimension, Ardito et al (2004) considered two general principles; effectiveness and

efficiency. For effectiveness, they identified two criteria; Supportiveness for Learning/Authoring, and Supportiveness for communication, personalization and

access, while for efficiency they identified Structure adequacy, and Facilities and

technology adequacy as the two criteria. Guidelines are provided for each of the

aforementioned criteria of each general principle, according to each of the four dimensions. In evaluating an e-learning module, they follow similar approach. The difference here is that general principles are not there, and guidelines are linked to criteria, which are in turn directly associated with each of the four dimensions. The two main criteria here are Effectiveness of teaching/authoring, and Efficiency of supports and teaching modalities (Ardito et al, 2004).