Autonomous Learning Objects in a Peer to Peer Cross Institutional Educational Framework

Current practice in developing courseware for online learning, differs little from traditional means. When implementing online learning, institutes look for practitioners who can create content. However, the lack of adaptable, computer parseable information exchanges leads to a duplication of effort. The solution is twofold, properly describe the ontology of learning objects, expose metadata and content in a service-oriented approach. Learning management can take many leaves from web standards bodies that aid in machine readable content structures. This is more an investigation of relevant ISO, RFC, W3C, Oasis and IEEE standards that could offer an integrated solution. Then we look at tools that could engage those standards in an educational framework. The paper starts at the end, by describing the ultimate goal, and finishes by intimating how far away we are from it.