NETg Creates Software Laboratories To Certify Compatibility

Another entry into the standards compliance certification game as Netg - part of the Thomson Corporation - announces the creation of two labs to test compliance of their courseware with certain "preferred" learning management systems. More...

Toward a Distributed Learning Object Repository Network
PowerPoint slides (1.47 megabytes) of my keynote address today at LearnTec - http://www.learntec.ca - in Miramichi. What this presentation includes that some of my previous postings don't are diagrams illustrating how I think a distributed learning object repository network should be structured. More...

Defend your WLAN

One of the knocks against wireless local area networks (WLANs) is that network security is a bit loose. As a result, a number of companies have developed tools to close your network data against intruders. More...

Ask Jeeves Takes Aim at Google
It's hard to imagine that any search engine could replace Google, but the designers of Teoma think that users will prefer their new layered approach. The company - purchased by Ask Jeeves last year - will have a lot of marketing clout behind it, but my own searches have yielded less than satisfactory results. More...

New Standards
Good post on a Yahoo Group list (you will have to register and sign into elearningleaders (something I think the list owner really should change)) on why the author thinks that the IMS and SCORM standards are bound to fail. In a nutshell, the IMS and SCORM standards violate some fundamental principles of useful standards, specifically:

• Standards must be completely platform neutral.
• Standards must be international in scope.
• Standards are all about consensus - not cool ideas.
• Standards require the active participation of people from all vertical markets and all related professions.
• Standards must be durable.
• Standards must accommodate people with special needs.
• Standards must remain pedagogy neutral.
• Standards must harmonize with existing standards.
• Standards must be embraced by a wide range providers.
• Standards efforts must be governed in a neutral manner. More...

The XML Version of the TEI Guidelines
This is not an item for a leisurely afternoon read. Peter Suber summarizes it nicely, "The Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) has approved and released version 4 of its Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange Version 3 has been in use since 1994. More...

The CBDTPA is Immune to (Conventional) Criticism
This article presents itself as a satire of the proposed Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA, which began life as a draft bill intended to be presented to the U.S. Congress called the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA)). It is intended to protect the copyrights owned by television, film and other content publishers. More...

Screen Presentation Tools: Tools for Creating Screen or Online Presentations
The title is a little redundant, but this comprehensive guide to prsentation tols is not. Covering everything from LaTeX to WML, this guide provides sample code and screenshots. The author offers his own opinions of the pros and cons of each format and links to the format home page. More...

Online Technical Writing: Examples, Cases, & Models

Teaching people different types of technical writing? You would be hard pressed to find a better online resource than this nice guide. More...

Standards Follow Practice, They Don't Lead
The point of this article is to argue that standards follow practice. The author makes a useful distinction between three major effects of standards: "primary effects of standards are the changes brought about in the things being standardized; secondary effects of standards are changes made to things closely related to but not directly dictated by the standards; and tertiary effects are changes that come about in things not directly affected by the standards but rather as an unanticipated change because of the existence of the standard." But the main conclusion is just wrong. More...