[ptsefton.com] | [CV & Bio]

What I said in April about interoperability standards in educational ICT

2007-08-03

View this page as PDF

Back in April, I was on a panel at an AICTEC forum on interoperability standards for IT in Education.

The Australian Information and Communications Technology in Education Committee (AICTEC) encourages the advancement of teaching and learning in Australia through the effective and efficient use of information and communication technologies (ICT) and online services to enable all sectors of education and training to contribute to the growth and vitality of Australias society and economy.

http://www.aictec.edu.au/aictec/go/pid/1

I'm always happy to contribute to the growth and vitality of Australia's society. (Not too sure about the economy though. I think it might cause global warming).

Anyway, at another meeting of a sub-group of AICTEC recently I was pleased to see that there's a summary of the discussion. (Warning! PDF)

On developing content:

Dr Sefton noted that universities work with their own courseware rather than collaborate and that portability in time and across campus is important, as is the cost of producing content. Research publications are usually in the form of PDFs, which are not re-useable. The building of better workflow processes is important.

On discovering content:

Mr Sefton noted that most people access content through a Google search. Stable, long term infrastructure is required to enable re-discoverability. He noted that the first university with all course material online will have a huge marketing advantage.

Looks like I got across a number of my main points effectively enough for someone to summarize them. And I didn't spill the beans about USQ's open courseware even though I would have loved to be able to talk about it in that context.