TELCERT - Technology Enhanced Learning Certification - European Requirements & Testing
Standards compliance and conformance testing are key elements required to accelerate market take-up of innovative technologies. TELCERT has developed software tools and other resources to help authors, suppliers and standards organisations improve the interoperability of e-learning systems and materials.
- Project type: Specific targeted research project
- Start date: 1 January 2004
- Duration: 30 months
- EU funding: 1.800.000 €
- Number of partners: 10
- Project co-ordinator: The Open Group, London (UK)
- Contact: Mr. David Rose
In technology-enhanced learning standards compliance and testing are key elements for making learning system elements reusable in different ways so as to meet diverse learning needs, for widening the market opportunities of suppliers of novel technologies and for reducing time and cost of integration of content tools and services with differing adaptations of specifications and standards.
Standards bodies such as the IMS Global Learning Consortium have made progress in developing specifications to facilitate interoperability. Still, e-learning communities lack test backed conformance programmes to underpin interoperability and assure confidence.
One focus of the work of the TELCERT team was thus on producing state of the art reports, guides and tutorials to help understand the issues involved - the technology involved in the XML and UML environment, adopting standards and specifications, developing application profiles, testing content and services and developing conformance and certification programs providing assurance to buyers.
Further, TELCERT created a set of tools that allow learning communities to localise international specifications for e-learning content and services, and enable publishers to create interoperable products. SchemaProf, for example, is a powerful XML-based tool that allows users to create application profiles defining local cultural and pedagogical needs within an e-learning product. The Content Reengineering Tool (developed from the widely used RELOAD editor) helps publishers adapt content to a particular user profile.
Finally, the TELCERT project has designed a new test system which verifies that content conforms to the profiled specification and provides information for product certification programmes.
Consortium
- The Open Group, UK (project co-ordinator)
- eLoki Limited, UK
- Bolton Institute of Higher Education, UK
- Open University of the Netherlands, NL
- EIfEL, European Institute for E-Learning, FR
- Universität Koblenz-Landau, DE
- Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung eV - IGD, DE
- Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologie dell'Informazione, IT
- Apple Computer International, IRL
- UFI Ltd, UK