Latest Progression of Joint International Standardization Research Program


Erlend Øverby and Tore Hoel from ISO/IEC JTC1/SC36 was invited by Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Future Education (AICFE) for one week academic exchange from November 20-26. In order to share cutting edge international standardization works to students at Beijing Normal University (BNU), AICFE especially organized two lectures that was delivered by Erlend Øverby and Tore Hoel. Both lectures were broadcasting on Harmony Education Platform developed by China Mobile. Dr Øverby is Chair of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC36. Dr Hoel represents Norway at SC36 and he is also Head Advisor art Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied sciences.
 
On November 21, Erlend Øverby and Tore Hoel delivered their lectures in Room 454 at Faulty of Educaiton (Yingdong Building). Øverby’s lecture was Standardised Infrastructure for Learning Analytics. Hoel’s lecture was Standards for Smart Learning Environments – towards a development framework. Øverby explained that standards ensure interoperability, predictability, longevity, and innovation. They are tools for government as requirements when procuring technology used in education and influencing how technology is used and developed within education. They document best practices. We need standards for greater freedom for users of IT, cheaper products, competition on functionality and user friendliness than API, data format and proprietary information. In addition, we need standards to enable innovation that provides a common set of rules for all to follow. Øverby’s expectations as the chair of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC36 are smaller standards 10-15 pages that solve one problem really well, are easy to understand, are easily implementable, and connect well with other standards. Meanwhile, he aims to develop more technical standards, such as API’s and data models, and more active participation from Asia, African, America, and Europe.
 
Hoel’s lecture was Standards for Smart Learning Environments – towards a development framework presented what is Smart Learning Environment (SLE) from Zhi-Ting Zhu, Jonathan Michael Spector, Gwo-Jen Hwang, Rob Koper, and Shengquan Yu. Now working items in SC36 are Digital badges, SLE, Environments and resources for augmented reality and virtual reality, MOOCs, Study group on a higher level within SIO on blockchain (electronic distributed ledger) technologies, Collaborative learning communication with social media, Privacy and data protection in the context of learning analytics. Pros of SLE are that it is the most modern and most general framework being discussed; it is comprehensive and extensive, it could be robust, and it changes working process to include the whole committee. Cons of SLE are that the boundaries are unclear, existing projects must go further, and legacy works have been published.
 
Except lectures, Erlend Øverby and Tore Hoel also gave some valuable advices to AICFE’s ongoing works, which are: Learning Cell – an evolutionary learning resource description framework, Teacher online quality standard, and Teacher information model standard.

Picture 1: Tom Tang, Erlend Øverby, Tore Hoel, and Shengquan Yu (from left to right)


Picture 2: Academic exchange meeting on standardization


Picture 3: Erlend Øverby is delivering the lecture


Picture 4: Tore Hoel is delivering the lecture
 
Further Reading: What is ISO/IEC JTC1/SC36?

The ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee for Information Technology (JTC1) is one of the largest and most prolific technical committees in international standardization. ISO/IEC JTC1/SC36 is a subcommittees in ISO/IEC JTC1 for Information technology for learning, education and training, and SC36 consists eight working groups respectively for: 1) Vocabulary, 2) Collaborative and intelligent technology, 3) Learner information, 4) Management and delivery, 5) Quality assurance and descriptive framework, 6) Platform, services, and specification integration, 7) Culture, language and individual needs, 8) Learning analytics interoperability. Now have published 42 ISO standards, 25 participating countries, and 19 observing countries.