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1. Ten Commandments Prompted by Today’s iPad Tablets
by Bob Little
Fabrizio Cardinali is both well known and influential within the world of learning technologies. Not only is he CEO
of eXact learning solutions S.P.A., a leading online and mobile learning content management and digital repository
solutions provider, he is also Chair of the European Learning Industry Group (ELIG). In addition, he sits on the Board of
Directors of the IMS Global Learning Consortium. He is also a SCORM co-writer and reviewer for ADL, as well as being
a Global Advisor for MIT’s Open Knowledge Initiative.
Holding all of these jobs gives Cardinali a unique perspective from which to view the development of the industry and
to offer signposts to its likely future, in the light of continuing, rapid technology advances.
Speaking at ELIG’s annual general meeting, held in Cambridge in the UK, recently, Cardinali used the launch of the
iPad tablet to propose his ‘ten commandments’ of learning content management.
“Some people have likened the significance of the launch of the technologically revolutionary iPad tablet to the arrival
of the tablets containing the original Ten Commandments,” he said. “So, now we have the iPad, we should consider
how we should be building next generation digital learning content marketplaces.”
Cardinali’s ‘ten commandments of learning content management’ are grouped under four headings: discover and
focus (the first three ‘commandments’), design and implementation (the next three), train and transfer (the next two)
and envision and guide (the final two). They are:
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2. Ten Commandments Prompted by Today’s iPad Tablets
1. Learning content production methodology and workflow. You need to identify and define processes, stakeholders, roles,
steps and deliverables.
2. Learning content classification methodology. You need to define learning objects’ metadata, vocabularies and classification
standards
3. .Learning content templating. You need to define corporate learning contents, and produce XML templates, considering the
learning materials’ multi-layout, format, language and channel publishing needs.
4. Pre-existing content ingestion. You need to take account of legacy import and third party content management systems,
learning management systems/ virtual learning environment (VLE) integration and cross publishing strategies and protocols.
5. Pan-European 24/7 multi-language and multi-format production and indexing services are now a pre-requisite.
6. Learning content management system (LCMS) /learning management system (LMS) selection, set-up, integration and de-
ployment. You need to customize the ‘look and feel’ of the learning materials; the workflow, metadata, vocabularies, taxono-
mies and templates, as well as third party LMS/ VLE, skills and portfolio integration.
7. Training and up-skilling of internal managers and stakeholders.
8. Training and up-skilling of third party stakeholders’ content developers.
9. Future trends: media-based personalization (the definition of multi-channel production and location-based, context-aware
delivery of learning materials).
10. Future trends: skills and portfolio based personalization (the interoperability of skills maps, personal development plans,
skills gap analysis and competency management).
Cardinali believes that all of these issues are coming to the fore as the technologies that have brought us the iPhone and the
iPad continue to develop.
“The eXact learning solutions’ eXact LCMS obeys all these commandments,” he pointed out. “It provides authorization and
authentication in terms of SCORM content tracking for search, download and play. It provides SCORM content sequencing and
other SOA services for location based learning. It also allows streaming podcasting for collaboration and social networking.
“In terms of delivering learning materials via the iPad, it appears as an on deck SCORM application allowing users to hook up
to a dynamic repository, LCMS or LMS. There is a pluggable framework for those wanting to use social and viral tools and it can
provide content personalization by device and location. Moreover, it provides on deck SCORM sequencing and tracking and al-
lows tracking to third party LMSs,” he added.
“All of our eXact learning solutions aim to ensure our clients future-proof their learning materials and delivery,” Cardinali con-
tinued. “They help clients evolve their learning content production strategy to new effectiveness and productivity levels. They
help them improve their use of learning contents in today’s digital market economies and marketplaces. In addition, they help to
raise clients’ awareness of new generation content management standards, architectures and solutions and they deploy single
source, multi-delivery channel learning contents production, re-use and share methodologies, solutions and ecosystems.”
Cardinali believes that it is only now that technology has developed sufficiently to provide the personalized informal learning that
e-learning was said to have been able to do when it emerged in the last decade of the last century.
“To date, there has been some 15 years of publishing online learning content,” he said. “What we could call ‘e-learning 1.0’ -
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3. Ten Commandments Prompted by Today’s iPad Tablets
which was in vogue until around 2002 - was about providing formal learning materials electronically. Unfortunately, it tended to
produce users who were unsatisfied with the learning materials.
“The next stage in e-learning’s development – what we could call ‘e-learning 2.0’ – which lasted from around 2005 to 2010
saw the development of self-generated grass roots content production and exchange. However, it still resulted in low average
satisfaction per user. Nonetheless, it opened the door to talent development, performance support and personal development
plans for learners and HR professionals; while, on the technology side, it made possible new generation educational content
repositories.
“What we’re beginning to see now – ‘e-learning 3.0’ – is providing informal learning via distributed open and interoperable
cloud services and content repositories. It’s mobile and location-based content distribution is extending the personalized leering
that e-learning 2.0 began to make available.
“We’re seeing this technology being applied to game based learning, social learning, viral learning, location-based learning and
personal ambient learning,” he observed.
Cardinali said that the great teacher, Socrates, championed the mantra of ‘motivate, engage and remediate each student’. He
believes that it is only now that this mantra can be applied to those who access their learning materials electronically. Further-
more, he argues that this is about to change the educational publishing world dramatically.
“We are moving towards ‘Socratic publishing’, delivering personalized learning materials to users where and when these users
need them,” he said. “This makes Socrates-style ‘meaningful learning’ accessible and, thus, increases learners’ satisfaction
levels.
“This is true not only of the constructive personalized learning that gives learners complete freedom over where, what and when
they learn but also of associative exploratory learning, such as social learning or peer review, and even behavioral, prescriptive
learning – compliance and regulatory – materials where these are delivered via the latest personalized, contextualized learning
delivery technologies.”
This approach to distributing and delivering learning via technology is making possible ‘narrowcasting’ and ‘individual massifica-
tion’ – the dissemination of a highly specific and relevant message to a large number of widely dispersed people.
Cardinali explained: “There has always been a tradeoff between the number of people to whom you can give a message and the
time taken to disseminate that message. In addition, as you attempt to give the message to more people more quickly, the op-
portunity for interaction with those people diminishes.
“So, for example, you can address a gathering of people or, perhaps, telephone them one at a time. The communication is
instantaneous but the number of people with whom you can communicate in this way is limited – if only by the strength of your
voice,” he said.
“You can send someone who is far away from you a letter, but that takes time to reach its destination. Similarly, you can send
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4. Ten Commandments Prompted by Today’s iPad Tablets
out newsletters, journals, newspapers and even films. These can reach a wide audience but each of these forms of communica-
tion takes time to compile and distribute – and even then, there is no way of ensuring that these things reach exactly the ‘right’
people who need this information.
“Radio and television also reach a large potential audience, but that audience is hard to target – and there is no opportunity for
‘real-time’ feedback for those who receive the message to ask for further details.
“Today’s web-based technologies provide the opportunity to exchange the inefficiencies of broadcasting for the benefits of
‘narrowcasting’,” explained Cardinali. “Narrowcasting involves identifying an appropriate audience and then making relevant
messages – including learning materials – available to them electronically via a number of delivery technologies.
“This reinvention of the learning content publishing marketplace might not only help to improve the effectiveness of learning and
learner satisfaction but it could also help to protect the environment,” he said.
“In the USA in 2005 over 1.5bn paper textbooks were posted out from educational publishers. The next year, some 1bn of these
were returned – at a cost to the environment of some $465m, according to a report called ‘Environmental Trends and Climate
Impacts’.
“In the US, each student spends between $700 and $1,000 a year on books – and these sums represent a high commitment for
low and middle income students and/or their families. Yet second hand textbooks comprise only 25 to 30 per cent of all the text-
books on the market and faculties in educational institutions seek to prohibit the issuing of a textbook if teachers do not intend
to use at least 50 per cent of its contents in their course.
“Apparently, over the last three years, 34 US states have proposed a total of over 100 bills related to textbook costs,” Cardinali
revealed.
“All of these issues can now be dealt with by making relevant learning materials available to each student electronically – on a
personalized, contextualized basis. Not only should this make their learning a more motivating, engaging and ultimately satisfy-
ing experience but it will be helping to save damaging the environment further by eliminating a large degree of waste,” he said.
About the Author
For over 20 years, Bob Little has specialised in writing about, and commentating on, corporate learning – especially eLearning – and technology-related
subjects. His work has been published in the UK, Continental Europe, the USA and Australia
eXact learning solutions
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