1EdTech Consortium’s Common Cartridge Adopted by Major Publishers Supporting Online Course Redesign Initiative at Tennessee Board of Regents
17 May 2010, Lake Mary, FL. - 1EdTech Consortium’s Common Cartridge, an international Digital Learning Standard, is a key component of the Tennessee Board of Regents’ (TBR) Online Campus Collaborative (ROCC) course redesign initiative, and part of the System’s strategic plans for creating scalable, quality digital course content. TBR has contracted with Pearson, Cengage Learning and McGraw-Hill to redesign ROCC core courses (general education), which include their high enrollment online courses and account for approximately 40% of ROCC annual enrollments. Cengage Learning, McGraw-Hill and Pearson are also providing instructional design strategies for other disciplines and workforce training courses. These courses will be delivered in Common Cartridge format, enabling their distribution throughout the System in support of the ROCC and independent institutions.
Common Cartridge enables the integration of digital learning resources (e.g. courses, e-books, tests, quizzes, simulations, online discussions, and forums) in an interoperable format, providing publishers with a solution for content creation in a single format, versus having to develop their content to proprietary (multiple) formats.
"We see the application of Common Cartridge as a key component to redesigning courses for TBR, providing a framework robust enough to integrate our course content, assessments, learning tools and eBook offerings in a single and scalable, interoperable format," said Don Kilburn, CEO, Pearson Learning Solutions. "These solutions support TBR/ROCC faculty teaching across Tennessee’s two-year and four-year institutions, as well as throughout the state’s technology centers that offer continuing education and workforce development courses. Our integrated learning solutions will provide the needed boost for Tennesseans to increase their college readiness, enhance their job skills and, in general, advance their knowledge through more engaging online courses."
The Common Cartridge standard streamlines the process of providing content across multiple LMS platforms and multiple instructor and classroom sites, while ensuring the quality objectives established by the curriculum designer are maintained.
"McGraw-Hill is committed to enhancing the teaching and learning experience wherever and whenever it takes place. Our philosophy is to make our content environmentally agnostic, enabling users to seamlessly access McGraw-Hill content anywhere/anytime,” said Nicholas Nieset, Executive Business Analyst, McGraw-Hill. “To accomplish this, McGraw-Hill leverages 1EdTech standards such as Common Cartridge and LTI to produce highly portable and interactive content in conjunction with the TBR team. This allows faculty and students in the TBR landscape to participate in a rich content experience within their Desire2Learn platform."
Of great importance to higher education and K-12 is Common Cartridge’s ability to reduce the risk associated with vendor lock-in due to proprietary data standards that inhibit efficient data migration from learning platforms, and its format for creating and integrating various sources of publisher, open educational and home-grown digital learning resources.
“Desire2Learn was an early adopter of support for 1EdTech Common Cartridge in hopes that it would provide a consolidation point for all of the legacy content formats and drive a standardized approach to content packaging for our clients,” said Jeremy Auger, Chief Operating Officer, Desire2Learn “TBR is a great partner and has taken an innovative and strategic approach towards creating real value for their institutions by driving quality and scalable digital content into their online programs through the use of systems and publishers supporting 1EdTech Common Cartridge. Desire2Learn is delighted to be providing a critical component of that solution.”
TBR has been an active member of 1EdTech Consortium since 2007, serving on various international workgroups and the Learning Technology Advisory Council - and a recipient of a Platinum Learning Impact Award in 2008. “It is no surprise that TBR is taking a leadership role in adopting Common Cartridge to support wide-scale digital content creation and reuse,” said John Falchi, Chief Program Strategist, 1EdTech Consortium. “TBR Administrators jumped-out in front of the e-learning market in the late 1990s and continue to lead by example today by participating in 1EdTech pilot implementations and research aimed at enhancing the quality of online learning, in addition to their activities associated with Common Cartridge.”
Both Cengage Learning and Pearson will demonstrate their Common Cartridge-enabled courses during the 1EdTech Learning Impact Conference on Thursday, May 20 as part of an Interoperability Challenge posed to educational technology providers and sponsored by 1EdTech Consortium and California State University System. Desire2Learn will also participate in this challenge.
“Cengage Learning is excited to participate in and support the 1EdTech Interoperability Challenge where we will demonstrate one of the hundreds of courses across a dozen subject areas that we are redesigning in the months ahead to include a rich array of digital content enabled through Common Cartridge,“ said William Rieders, Executive Vice President, Global New Media for Cengage Learning. “Working with Desire2Learn, we are taking a leadership role in adopting 1EdTech’ Common Cartridge to support the needs of customers - like the Tennessee Board of Regents - that have a strategic plan to enhance their digital learning assets and support a system-wide approach to creating and sharing courses for distance learning, online degree, and workforce training programs.”
If your institution is interested in learning more about how to apply Common Cartridge to achieve wide-scale digital learning content adoption, please contact 1EdTech Consortium
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 worldwide that are enabling the future of education by collaborating on interoperability standards and major adoption projects for the digital support of education and learning. 1EdTech GLC also sponsors Learning Impact: a global awards program and conference that recognizes the impact of innovative technology on educational access, affordability, and quality. For more information, visit www.imsglobal.org. For inquiries about Common Cartridge, including advice for end-user institutions and school districts, use the web form here: http://www.imsglobal.org/contactus.cfm