Open Standards Versus Open Source in E-Learning

The first decade of the twenty-first century is witnessing the convergence of three strands of development in e-learning, strands that had relatively independent origins during the 1990s. The first is the development of e-learning technology as a recognized industry. This is based on the rise of the Web and the widespread adoption of e-learning software and courses, especially learning management systems (LMSs) such as WebCT and Blackboard in the education sector and Saba, Click2Learn, and others in corporate training. This strand grew predominantly from software innovation around proprietary e-learning systems and has found its way into the wider market through venture-capital investment. The second strand arose from attempts to create open standards for elearning software and content, driven by specification organizations such as the IMS Global Learning Consortium, Aviation Industry CBT (Computer-Based Training) Committee (AICC), and Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) network sponsored by the U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense, and relevant committees of international standards bodies, such as the IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee. Despite the potential relevance of these open standards for the proprietary e-learning systems of the first strand, the consistent adoption of e-learning standards by LMS vendors was slow, particularly in the education sector. The third strand is the much wider open-source software movement, which has produced highly successful software such as the Linux operating system and the Apache Web server. While opensource software has both historical and philosophical roots within universities, e-learning was not one of the major focus areas of the open-source software movement during the 1990s. There have been exceptions that crossed the boundaries among the three strands. The major impact of each