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Yin and Yang: Learning and Teaching, Interoperability and Independence, Customization and Standards, and Other Library Debates
Libraries today are learning centers, Jack Blount claims, which was not true of libraries only a few generations ago. Libraries are digital as well as physical. Blount, CEO of Dynix, a provider of information management systems to libraries, didn’t hear any nay-saying from the other panelists at the American Library Association’s midwinter conference in San Diego.
Blount and Ed Walker, CEO of IMS Global Learning Consortium; Vinod Chachra, CEO of VTLS; Roland Dietz, CEO of Endeavor Information Systems; Bob Walton, chairman of Ex Libris USA; Greg Ritter, business development manager for Blackboard; and Jeff Cobb, CEO of Isoph discussed the new role of libraries as learning centers in “Managing Content in Library and Learning Environments,” a session moderated by Rob McGee of RMG Consultants on January 9, 2004.
Drivers of Interoperability
In his opening comments, Walker said, “Working well together is more of a goal than a reality.” That goal, though, is near and dear to his heart. His group, IMS Global Learning Consortium, develops and promotes the adoption of open technical specifications for interoperable learning technology--and Walker noted that IMS increasingly focuses on supporting adoption of its specifications and building affiliations with other organizations.
Walker believes users are expected to do too much, particularly when dealing with multiple systems. Change to enable system integration is inevitable, and Walker sees four expectations as primary drivers of the change:
- Content is free; nobody expects to pay.
- Access to content is open and universal.
- People want information and content when they want it--unsupervised and on-demand. They use information how they want, not necessarily how it was intended to be used.
- People assume systems are interoperable, and, if they aren’t, they go elsewhere.
The Role of Standards
If Walker is right about the growing demand from users for integrated systems, how do libraries and other learning centers respond? Standards, as you might guess, play a large role in the answer.
From IMS’s specifications for learning technology to the Dublin Core (a metadata specification for the content of digital libraries) to the work of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), much work has already been done to develop open standards.
In an acronym-heavy list, the panel cited XML (extensible mark-up language), APIs (application program interfaces), SOAP (simple object access protocol), and modular software as keys to interoperability. Single sign-in to multiple systems and communication between systems without passing the user into a new environment are now possible and becoming easier as they are more widely used--and expected by users.
In the learning field, the drive for interoperability is coupled with the pursuit of reusability. The holy grail is the reusable learning object: Content is separated from presentation, and the content can used in multiple contexts. In the quest for reusability, standards have evolved, SCORM (shareable content object reference model) foremost among them.
Highlighting an innate tension, Cobb noted, “The goal is malleability--people expect relevance to their situation--but there’s a bit of a yin and yang between the consolidation and uniformity standards suggest and the flexibility needed to achieve customization and personalization.”
Learning and Teaching
Another tension is one created by the software that currently exists. Ritter noted that two primary types of systems exist today. Content management systems (CMS) grew out of academia, where the focus is on the instructor; learning management systems (LMS), which focus on the learners, grew out of corporations.
Describing the same dichotomy but with different terminology, Chachra divided systems into learning systems and teaching systems--some systems cater to those who use them to teach; others to those who use them to learn.
While two camps of software platforms exist, the distinction is artificial--what is a teacher without a students or a student without a teacher?--and more the result of unguided evolution than planned growth. Libraries may drive an integrated, holistic approach, whether of a system or many systems, that marries teaching and learning.
What’s Love Got to Do with It
When McGee asked, “What is content?” Chachra compared it to love. Just as love is in the eye of the beholder, content is in the eye of the seeker.
Chachra’s comparison reveals the touchstone libraries must consult when defining their new roles as learning centers: the seeker. The individuals, patrons and library staff, using these systems to find and learn what they need and want are the reason interoperability is needed, are the purpose behind the standards, are why systems that combine learning and teaching are necessary.
In the end, it is clear that tensions--learning versus teaching, interoperability versus independence, customization versus standards--exist as libraries assume their relatively new responsibility as learning centers. How are the tensions to be resolved?
It seems likely they aren’t. But, with the seekers’ needs in mind, the tensions can be viewed as a positive influence, a system of checks and balances, a productive force--like the yin and yang of Chinese cosmology that, together, produce all that comes to be.
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