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Published
November 2008
A forum on "Leading Integration of Enterprise Learning and Administrative Systems: The Next Generation" was held in Orlando, Florida, USA on 28 October 2008 prior to the EDUCAUSE Conference. Sponsored by Oracle, the two-hour discussion was facilitated by IMS Global Learning Consortium CEO Rob Abel.
Participating on the forum panel were: Linda Feng, Architect for the Oracle Academic Enterprise Suite; Charlie Leonhardt, Principal Technologist with Georgetown University; John Fontaine, Technical Evangelist with Blackboard; and Richard Moon, Product Manager for SunGard Higher Education.
Summary Points:
- There is strong interest in new technologies that can enhance the teaching and learning experience. But, there is great fear in upgrading to new technologies as prior integration points may prove brittle and there may be a general distrust between academic needs and IT support capabilities.
- A great potential exists for more detailed outcomes information to be exchanged from learning systems to administrative systems-beyond gradebook. This is one of the most exciting potential improvement areas.
- There is also excitement about the potential incorporation of consumer-driven web 2.0 technologies into learning. Integration is the key challenge as these are largely being used outside the enterprise IT environment today.
- In today's world, it is very difficult for one vendor to dominate all aspects of IT. Support for a multiplicity of suppliers and distributed services are essential.
- Industry and institutional support for the emerging IMS Learning Information Services (LIS) standard as an important step forward for improving integration among the wide variety of services and applications that must be supported.
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