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1EdTech GLC: 1EdTech Consortium Announces Sponsors for Development of the Digital Learning Connection

1EdTech Consortium Announces Sponsors for Development of the Digital Learning Connection


Digital Learning Web Catalogue Will Enable Easier Access to Publisher Content and Learning Applications Based on Open Standards

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Barcelona, Spain – 11 May 2009
– The 1EdTech Learning Consortium (1EdTech GLC) today announced, at its annual Learning Impact conference, that several of its member organizations have committed to funding the development of a shared Web Catalogue of learning resources. The Catalogue Web Tool will enable education institutions and school districts to easily find and connect to standards-based content and learning applications through their enterprise course management system or portal. The freely available, web-accessible catalogue will enable faculty, teachers, and students to easily find a wide variety of standards-based digital learning materials and applications, such as ancillary textbook assets, e-Books, study aids, and homework applications. 

The Digital Learning Connection is a new collaboration, announced last November, in which digital learning application and content providers are working together to enable access and installation of a wide variety of products and services using a common set of standards-based protocols and formats. This new program is designed to make it easier for faculty, professors, teachers, and IT staff to incorporate digital learning applications and content into course web sites. Institutions and school districts in the U.S. could begin piloting the approach as early as this coming Fall.

The committed sponsors of the project, providing financial and technical resources are Pearson Education, Cengage Learning, ANGEL Learning, Desire2Learn, and Follett Corporation. The catalogue web tool will be developed and supported as a web service by Giunti Labs based on the HarvestRoad Digital Repository. The approach encompasses a variety of open standards for digital learning content and applications – including 1EdTech Common Cartridge and Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI), and open application programming interfaces that allow any compliant learning system or portal to interact with the catalogue.

“Follett has long served a critical role in the course materials distribution chain,” said Gary Shapiro, SVP, Intellectual Property, Follett Higher Education Group. “The DLC is an innovative effort to streamline that process.  We believe we will add value to the initial design of the catalogue tool and that Follett’s own digital strategy will benefit from our active participation.”

“We are pleased to be working with the 1EdTech Learning Consortium and industry colleagues on the Digital Learning Connection Catalogue initiative,” said Bill Rieders, Executive Vice President of Global New Media, Cengage Learning. “Cengage Learning is committed to offering educational materials in a variety of formats and the DLC will help to make our digital learning applications and content more readily accessible to instructors, students and institutions.”

“Penn State is pleased to be working with the 1EdTech Learning Consortium to pilot the Digital Learning Connection Program,” said John Harwood, Senior Director, Teaching and Learning with Technology, Penn State. “The program will increase the incorporation of digital learning into our high enrollment courses by providing ease of use benefits to faculty, while simultaneously improving the technical support of digital content and applications from a variety of providers.” 

About 1EdTech Consortium (1EdTech GLC)

1EdTech Learning is a nonprofit member organization that strives to enable the growth and impact of learning technology in higher education, K-12, and corporate education worldwide. 1EdTech GLC members are leading corporations, higher education institutions, school districts and government organizations who are enabling the future of education by developing interoperability and adoption practice standards for educational and learning technology.  1EdTech GLC sponsors Learning Impact: a global program and conference that recognizes the impact of learning and educational technology on access, affordability, and quality – the world’s most significant educational challenges. For more information, visitwww.imsglobal.organd for a list of our Contributing Member organizations worldwide see/members.html