Improving Interoperability Through Better Re-usability

Interoperability among heterogeneous systems can be reached by adopting and combining at least two strategies: one interface-oriented and the other model-oriented. The first one refers to the idea of defining well-known interfaces that systems should expose. The second one refers to the idea of having standard, semantically-rich data model shared by various systems. The SCORM standard supports the modeloriented integration strategy by offering, among the other features, a rich data model that can be used to define and share Learning Objects. We argue that, despite the fact that it is the most emerging and promising standard, SCORM does not address properly some key issues, such as specification of metadata and LO composition. As we discuss in this paper, such issues affect directly the possibility of re-using instructional materials both within the same e-learning system and, even more, across different systems. Within the Virtual Campus approach we have proposed some extensions to the SCORM object model that aim to address the above issues.