The emergence of pragmatic community practice and specifications - Results from the European LIFE project

Technical Interoperability is critical to facilitate the exchange of data, the sharing of learning resources & designs and to encourage cross cultural collaboration. However, this ideal can only be achieved when the agreed conventions involve all stakeholders in the process. The more global the agreed convention, the greater is the potential benefit. In this paper the authors present a summary of the key recommendations for a "way ahead" to improve interoperability at a pan European level, informed by extensive consultations with international e-learning specification, standards and domain experts as part of the European Union funded learning Interoperability framework for Europe (LIFE) project. The authors argue that broader community engagement is essential if we are to achieve these ambitious objectives and conclude that emergent Internet technologies and the associated emergent social practices should prompt a reconsideration of the established formal processes for the development of learning technology specifications and standards.