National Standards For E-Learning

July 13th, 2006: Teachers and Trainers reach an agreement on e-learning resources which meet removes barriers between states and territories.

The National Senior Officials Committee (NSOC), which comprises the heads of vocational and technical education in Australia, has endorsed the adoption of standards for the technical design of electronic learning resources. The project, which was proposed by the Flexible Learning Advisory Group (FLAG), means development of standardised resources can begin. The resources will work across state and territory lines, giving e-learning a national base.

E-standards Expert Group Chair, Rodney Spark, said, “E-learning now plays an integral part in the delivery of vocational and technical education and these standards are part of developing Australia’s knowledge infrastructure for the 21st century. These standards are like railway gauge sizes. If each state and territory is using different sized gauges, it makes it extremely difficult to travel around Australia on the one train”.

The standards will focus on eight areas, including content formats, content packaging, metadata and vocabularies, digital repository interoperability, intellectual property web services, accessibility and client platforms. “We want a national training system where a teacher or trainer in Tasmania can recommend a fantastic e-learning resource which suits the needs of their students and be confident they will be able to access and use it despite the fact it is developed in Western Australia” said Spark.

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