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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