Clustering Projects for eLearning Interoperability

Marc Alier (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - Barcelona Tech, Spain)

Enric Mayol (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - Barcelona Tech, Spain)

Maria Jose Casañ (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - Barcelona Tech, Spain)

Jordi Piguillem (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - Barcelona Tech, Spain)

Jeffrey W. Merriman (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)

Miguel Ángel Conde (University of Salamanca, Spain)

Francisco J. García-Peñalvo (University of Salamanca, Spain)

Wouter Tebben (Free Knowledge Institute, The Netherlands)

Charles Severance (University of Michigan, USA)

Abstract: Since the beginning of the discipline, eLearning has been about innovation. New software, systems, contents and tools are being created and experimented with and in constant evolution. But when systems, contents and tools become successful and part of the regular infrastructure of educational institutions, interoperability becomes an issue. Systems that are consolidated and regularly used need to be able to interoperate with new ones. And the new tendencies need to fit within the current infrastructure. This paper states how several research and development projects with heterogeneous funding sources and locations worldwide, gathered together to find a solution to this common problem, providing open specifications and standards, plus Free/Libre, Open Source reference implementations.

Keywords: E-Learning, IMS LTI, LMS, Moodle, OKI, SOA, Sakai, free software, interoperability, open source, open standards, software as a service

Categories: L.3.6, D.0, D.2.12, K.3.1, L.2.0, L.2.3, L.3.0, L.3.5