Standard for Information Technology --Education and Training Systems -- Architecture and Reference Model

Dr. John G. Tyler
MITRE Corporation

To subscribe to an e-mail discussion list for this working group, send the message:

subscribe LTSC-ARCH

to the address: listserv@listserv.ieee.org

This Standard specifies a high level architecture for information technology-supported learning, education, and training systems that describes the high-level system design and the components of these systems. This Standard covers a wide range of systems, commonly known as learning technology, education and training technology, computer-based training, computer assisted instruction, intelligent tutoring, metadata, etc.. This Standard is pedagogically neutral, content-neutral, culturally neutral, and platform-neutral. This Standard (1) provides a framework for understanding existing and future systems, (2) promotes interoperability and portability by identifying critical system interfaces, and (3) incorporates a technical horizon (applicability) of at least 5-10 years while remaining adaptable to new technologies and learning technology systems. This Standard is neither prescriptive nor exclusive.  

In general, the purpose of developing system architectures is to discover high-level frameworks for understanding certain kinds of systems, their subsystems, and their interactions with related systems, i.e., more than one architecture is possible.

An architecture isn't a blue print for designing a single system, but a framework for designing a range of systems over time, and for the analysis and comparison of these systems, i.e., an architecture is used for analysis and communication.

By revealing the shared components of different systems at the right level of generality, an architecture promotes the design and implementation of components and subsystems that are reusable, cost-effective and adaptable, i.e., critical interoperability interfaces and services are identified.

The architectural framework developed in this standard should not address the specific details of implementation technologies (e.g., programming languages, authoring tools, or operating systems) necessary to create the system components, or the management systems (e.g., learning material lifecycle, quality assurance, access control, or user administration) necessary to manage a learning technology system, i.e., the standard should facilitate the development of configuration guidelines for general learning technology systems.

The standard shall identify the objectives of human activities and computer processes and their involved categories of knowledge, i.e., it is possible to identify protocols and methods of cooperation and collaboration.