Support for Learning Standards Annotations

Hi All,

As part of the IMS work on Common Cartridge work we have been developing a new metadata specification on learning standards. This specification allows learning content to be annotated with the corresponding learning standards identifiers assigned to it by any number of organizations e.g. school district, states, etc. An LMS, assessment tool, etc. an then use these identifiers to inform an author, etc. of the learning standards coverage for the learning content (assuming the tool either has online access to, or a local copy of the learning standards and the identifiers).

This work makes use of the IMS Content Packaging specification and uses the Curriculum Standards Metadata (CSM) to annotate each and every resource as required. A resource can have annotations of learning standards for several sources i.e. to denote the content achieve the learning outcomes for different districts, states, etc.

For APIP this means that we can apply CSM to Items, Section and Tests. So, the question we need to ask is how important is this as a use-case for the K-12, Community College and HE sectors.

Finally, if the CSM uses an identifier that points to an RDF-based learning standards description then we may not need to annotate Sections or Tests as this coverage can be derived by analysing the coverage of the annotated Items.

So, please let us know your opinions on how important it is for APIP to supported leaning standards annotation.

Colin S.