Digital learning web catalogue will enable easier access to publisher content and learning applications based on open standards.
The IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS GLC) has announced, at its annual Learning Impact conference, that several of its member organisations have committed to funding the development of a shared web catalogue of learning resources.
The catalogue web tool will enable education institutions and school districts to find and connect to standards-based content and learning applications through their enterprise course management system or portal. The freely available, web-accessible catalogue will enable faculty, teachers and students to find a wide variety of standards-based digital learning materials and applications, such as ancillary textbook assets, e-Books, study aids, and homework applications.
The Digital Learning Connection (DLC) is a new collaboration, announced last November, in which digital learning application and content providers are working together to enable access and installation of a wide variety of products and services using a common set of standards-based protocols and formats.
This new program is designed to make it easier for faculty, professors, teachers and IT staff to incorporate digital learning applications and content into course websites. Institutions and school districts in the US could begin piloting the approach as early as this coming autumn.
The committed sponsors of the project, providing financial and technical resources are Pearson Education, Cengage Learning, ANGEL Learning, Desire2Learn and Follett Corporation.
The catalogue web tool will be developed and supported as a web service by Giunti Labs based on the HarvestRoad Hive Digital Repository. The approach encompasses a variety of open standards for digital learning content and applications – including IMS Common Cartridge and Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI), and open application programming interfaces that allow any compliant learning system or portal to interact with the catalogue.
“Follett has long served a critical role in the course materials distribution chain,” said Gary Shapiro, SVP, Intellectual Property, Follett Higher Education Group.
“The DLC is an innovative effort to streamline that process. We believe we will add value to the initial design of the catalogue tool and that Follett’s own digital strategy will benefit from our active participation.”
“We are pleased to be working with the IMS Global Learning Consortium and industry colleagues on the DLC catalogue initiative,” said Bill Rieders, Executive Vice President of Global New Media, Cengage Learning. “Cengage Learning is committed to offering educational materials in a variety of formats and the DLC will help to make our digital learning applications and content more readily accessible to instructors, students and institutions.”
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