Hi Colin
I am in agreement with some of what you say here. I authored the
first MLE feature on FERL way back in the dawn of time (well,
98/99). Geoff and I then went on to do the revised feature, and of
course Geoff has done a great job keeping the feature up to date.
My point is that even back then we could see allot of this
happening. The MLE steering group was set up via JISC, and as
you no doubt know has been running pilots as well attempting to
establish agreed standards for interoperability. It seems to me that,
given the number of vendors involved, and the numbers of content
publishers, and the numbers of colleges (and not counting the
number of HEIs now grappling with the issue), a great deal of really
good work has been done. After all, it was years before PC
applications spoke to each other at all. I think we often have short
memories on this one - but I recall using "green screen" and then
early Windows applications that were all completely incompatible. I
don't come across that much now.
I think a kind of perfect solution where every commercial system
fully interoperates with every other, and we have only a few "one-
stop" portals or places where we can all go and get readily made
materials that will work in all our VLEs and be closely mapped to
the whole range of curriculum in FE is probably unrealistic. It might
happen one day - but I doubt it.
Seems to me most vendors are actually genuinely trying to make
stuff intoperable, because they know, like we do, that in the long
run it's the only way any of us are going to get all this stuff to work.
But, there will also always be differences between systems,
between applcations, and between content.
Maybe that's not a bad thing? Uniformity and centralisation are not
always good!
Peter Jackson
University of Warwick
(ex FERLie)
On 25 Nov 01, at 17:19, Colin Seabrook wrote:
> Well noted,
> However, is anyone really surprised at this? Every single supplier of MLE
> elements, and I mean everyone, always assures me that they are 'working
> towards/involved in/already meeting' IMS specifications. More often than
> not they were (claiming to be) involved in either LearnDirect/UfI/NLN
> materials as well as being involved in producing the IMS specifications at
> the start. With such a hodge podge of vendors being allowed to
> produce/write/influence the specifications is it any wonder there is great
> disparity amongst them?
> It is often claimed that some companies have too much power where OS and
> software are concerned but at least they have compatibility between products
> (OK, so not 100% of the time).
> Why oh why were so many commercial suppliers allowed into the discussions?
> would it not have been more worthwhile to have a few selected members
> together with the use of external consultants ( without vested interests! )
> to work with FE to produce the required standards.
> It is then simply a case of vendors meeting these requirements or not
> supplying.
> FE have bent over backwards to let everyone and their dog have a say in what
> is required and we quite rightly get what we deserve, sales pitch and waffle
> (from people out to make money, nothing else, just money, no real concern
> with the quality of education or the teaching/learning experience itself).
>
> There will never be compatibility across the systems, anyone who expects
> different is fooling themselves or selling me something. A golden
> opportunity has already been lost, it is too late to recover from this
> fiasco, I like most other colleges will be running with what I have, making
> the best of it, and (as I always expected) using the tools that came with my
> VLE to produce my own learning materials - with a small contribution from
> external suppliers where I can prove they actually work within my VLE. (no I
> will not take the salesman's word for it)
>
> Would we all be using the same software houses for our desktop products
> (regardless of which one you use) if we could not cut/copy/paste between
> applications? Think about not being able to edit a picture file and
> incorporate it into your word processor/presentation software...
>
>
> You can't please all of the vendors all of the time, but you could have
> tried to please the FE institutions once!
>
> Kind regards
>
> Colin Seabrook
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Virtual Learning Environments [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf
> Of George Wraith
> Sent: Friday, November 23, 2001 3:58 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Urgent need for setting specifications (Long Post)
>
>
> Dear all
>
> My concern is that there still appears to be no common agreement between all
> vendors to enable them to incorporate the IMS specifications into their
> differing
> software applications, so as to allow them to interoperate with other
> systems.
> The differing interpretation of the IMS specifications is now the major
> problem
> within our Interoperability pilot. Without these being jointly agreed by all
> parties
> involved we will more than likely just end up with separate systems that can
> exchange data, eventually but certainly not automatically. This being the
> case I
> could not see the interoperability of differing systems ever getting off the
> ground
> to the extent Colleges would want to buy them, and students would want to
> use
> them. It points most Institutions back down the path of "proprietary
> lock-in".
>
> To give the community some idea as to the practicalities here is a brief
> example
> of the problem we have come across and STILL have no solution for, despite
> over a year of discussion.
>
> The major problem lies in the differing interpretations of the IMS
> specifications. In
> brief, the XML file generated by our MIS suppliers export utility which
> takes the
> data from our MIS has a different interpretation of the IMS Enterprise
> specifications. It therefore produces data in a format that our VLE
> providers
> import Utility does not recognise because of their interpretation of the IMS
> Specifications. Therefore what is required in order to import this XML file
> into the
> VLE is raw editing of the XML file. We have managed to achieve the
> importing of
> this student data after editing, but it was a long and arduous process. It
> demonstrates the need for a speedy agreement on the IMS specifications.Both
> vendor parties are genuinely working as best they can given the moving
> platform on which they are developing their software.
>
> My point is there needs to be a solid platform for vendors to base there
> developments. It is over a year since the FERL/BECTA conference at which all
> vendors initially got together to achieve this objective, but there does not
> seem to
> be any strategic direction been given by any of the various organisations
> concerned, and hence very little appears to have been achieved.
>
> Do we throw away any chance of true interoperability now? Comments please.
>
>
>
> George Wraith
> Product Development Manager
> New College Durham
>
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