OASIS has announced the formation of an Education XML Technical Committee to support eLearning standards for the international PK12 community, pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. "The primary deliverables of the Education XML TC are the documentation of a coordinated set of PK12 requirements, which will enable the development of XML vocabularies, schema, and web services interfaces for implementation of eLearning infrastructure. These implementations will enable the PK12 community of practice to: (1) deliver eLearning applications and content to end users through a diversity of deployment channels; directly to a browser or mobile or handheld device, indirectly through a portal, or by embedding into web applications and devices; (2) create eLearning applications that can be easily modified, adapted, aggregated, integrated, coordinated, or synchronized by simple means to leverage worldwide eLearning application components." The TC Chair is Thomas Vreeland of OpenVES.

Details from the announcement

The international PK12 (pre-Kindergarten through 12th grade) community of practice is underrepresented in traditional eLearning standards organizations and its unique technical and functional requirements have not been well articulated. The rationale and motivation for the formation of an OASIS Technical Committee to better represent PK12 interests is to provide a new and more open collaborative environment for urgent standards conversations within the PK12 community of practice. Because of enlightened OASIS membership policies for non-profits and educational organizations, and the OASIS open, public, process of collaboration, many more PK12 organizations from around the world will be able to participate than has been possible in other eLearning standards communities.

The United Nations Education for All (EFA) initiative makes it imperative that eLearning technology standards be advanced in order to support the worldwide EFA activities during the next decade. The Education XML TC will prioritize its activities to support UN activities and other international initiatives and to provide leadership in development of PK12 specific XML Specifications, Implementation Guidelines and Best Practices. Recognizing the important role played by other eLearning standards communities from around the world, it will be our goal to coordinate and collaborate with them whenever possible.

The aims and purposes of the Education XML TC shall be as follows:

1. XML requirements documentation for shared extensible user profiles, controlled vocabularies, taxonomies, and thesauri, and other needed specifications, not currently underway in OASIS or other standards communities will be undertaken by sub-groups of the Education XML Technical Committee.

2. Translation and publication of a set of XML schema and specifications based on the authoritative Data Handbooks published by the US Education Department National Center for Educational Statistics for use in and by public education in the United States, as a service to the international PK12 community of practice.

3. Coordinate closely with, and establish liaison with, other OASIS Technical Committees whose work is directly related to PK12 requirements.

4. Publish a series of Implementation Handbooks and Best Practice Guidelines for the PK12 community of practice, which document and illustrate the utilization and integration of OASIS XML specifications and other XML specifications and standards in the PK12 context. These Handbooks and Guidelines will be for the use of implementers, vendors, and early adopters.

The following OASIS members support the creation of the Education XML Technical Committee:

• James Simon, jjs@sun.com, Sun Microsystems
• Donald Leclair, Donald.Leclair@ca.com, Computer Associates
• Ronald Alepin, Ralepin@msn.com, Fujitsu Software
• Philip Rossomando, Philip.Rossomando@unisys.com, Unisys
• George Ward, gward@cisco.com, Cisco Systems
• David Alexander, daalexan@cisco.com, Cisco Learning Institute
• Thomas Vreeland, tsv@openves.org, OpenVES
• John Cona, johncona@optonline.net, Individual member
• Amber Diehl, adiehl@ross.org, The Ross School