The RDA of Standards for a Healthy e-Learning System

Abstract

Standards for learning technologies and their implementation have long been a topic of scholarly debate. The focus previously lay on research and development of common specifi cations and their usage in describing learning objects or learning designs. More recently, discussions arose around the socio-economic role of standards, whence business processes related to the creation and promotion of e-learning standards came under criticism. This is all the more important as especially at universities the big push towards standard-based e-learning is still missing. Despite the often declared benefits of e-learning standards, universities, unlike commercial learning and training providers or the military, have made little progress towards implementing standard-based editorial and production processes into their daily workfl ows. We would like to argue that standards are neither pedagogically nor economically neutral and that this is a barrier to full and cohesive implementation in daily workfl ows. With Casey et al. (2006a) we see the true challenge for e-learning not in the adoption of technology, but in managing structural and cultural change in institutions. The article will therefore take a holistic management approach of standards applied in universities with a view of their multi-faceted role as both producers and consumers of learning content as well as system developers.