Learning Object Pioneers
By Tom Barron
The fundamental particle of next-generation e-learning--the learning object--is in various stages of
design, construction, and use by pioneering organizations.
A new model for digital learning--one in which learning content is free from proprietary
"containers," can flow among different systems and be mixed, reused, and updated
continuously--is inching closer to reality. At the center of this new model is the learning object,
the modular building block that allows such a dynamic approach to managing e-learning content.
(See A Primer on Learning Objects for an introduction to the concept.)
The framework for an e-learning universe that would support the use of learning objects is
steadily becoming more defined--particularly with last month's Microsoft announcement of tools
for developing content in line with new standards from the IMS Global Learning Consortium.
While those tools and the growing momentum behind interoperability standards will pave the
way for development of next-generation products based on learning objects, some pioneers are
already designing, developing, and even using learning objects within limited confines.
These first-generation learning objects wouldn't work if you ported them out of their respective
systems; nor would you be able to combine objects from these developers to concoct
courseware. As such, these initial efforts only begin to harness the power of an object-based
learning approach. But as a way of storing content in a "granular" format and purposing it for
various e-learning tasks, each initiative is putting learning object theory into practice. Following
is a look at three different efforts underway that demonstrate strengths--and some weaknesses-in the learning object approach.
Cisco goes to RIO
Cisco Systems, the Fortune 200 networking hardware giant whose revenues last year swelled to
more than $12 billion, garners attention when it weighs in on where the Internet is going. So,
when CEO John Chambers told attendees of Comdex last fall that online learning would become
a huge market--and that Cisco would become a leader in e-learning technology--the message
reverberated from Silicon Valley to Wall Street.
As it happens, Cisco was already charting a path toward a learning object methodology when
Chambers pledged his support for e-learning. The company's Worldwide Training department is
now midway through an initiative to develop object-based e-learning courses to support its
employees and customers.
"The strategy that [Chambers] described has trickled down to the more than two dozen training
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Barritt, RIO implementation program manager in Worldwide Training. The department serves as
a technical and service bureau for the rest of Cisco's training function, and Barritt is head
cheerleader of the learning object approach. RIO, which stands for Reusable Information Object,
is Cisco's version of the concept, which he says is firmly grounded in the learning object thinking
of M. David Merrill and Ruth Clark dating back to the late '80s.
"About a year ago, we formed a standards team to see how we could improve the way we
produce our customer courses," says Barritt, who's logged 12 years in the training field and is
president-elect of the Silicon Valley chapter of ISPI. "We drew from the work of Merrill and Clark
in developing a standard on how to chunk our learning rather than try and create a strategy from
scratch."
Barritt has consulted with Clark and Richard Horn, leaders in the field of information mapping, to
design a building-block strategy based on instructional design principles. At its core is the RIO, a
learning nugget that contains content, practice, and assessment components. Each RIO is
defined as a concept, fact, process, principle, or procedure--and tagged appropriately. Several
RIOs--as few as five and as many as nine--are combined together to create a Reusable
Learning Object (RLO). If a RIO can be equated with an individual component of a learning
objective, an RLO is the sum of RIOs needed to fulfill that objective. Each RLO, which also
includes introduction, summary, and assessment items, is designed to meet a learning objective
derived from a specific job task.
A RIO can function as an independent performance support aid that can be called up by a
learner who needs a specific piece of information. Or a learner can summon an RLO for a more
in-depth learning experience. RLOs can be sequenced to create a full-blown course on a
particular subject. And RIOs can be combined together to build custom RLOs that meet the
needs of individual learners.
Like all learning object approaches, the RIO strategy uses an object database to store RIOs,
which are formed into RLOs through the use of templates. The objects are stored in an XML
format and ultimately will be delivered and viewed in XML. But Cisco will have to wait for the
availability of XML-based browsers, and for now must translate the objects into HTML or other
formats. The objects are flowed into templates that convert them into the needed format-everything from Web-based courseware to printed materials used in instructor-led classes-using cascading style sheets. They will be replaced by Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL)
when that format matures as a broader industry standard.
Cisco's larger strategy calls for creation of personalized "road maps" that show each learner
which RIOs they've experienced and which are recommended to get them to a skills
"destination."
Barritt's department has trained some 50 learning "authors" in a carefully constructed
methodology for chunking learning into its core components and building RIOs, and has begun
rolling out sample RIOs and RLOs. It's also working with outside content developers to develop
courses using its RIO methodology. The company is using a newly released XML tool to author
its RIOs.
"The technology is one thing, but the real challenge is getting people to change the way they
design information," says Barritt. His team's strategy is to first train developers on the RIO
methodology, then focus on the software tools needed to carry it out. "That way we're not hitting
them with change management and software training at the same time," he explains.
The system is being designed in accordance with IMS and other industry standards under
development with the goal of being a purely open architecture, says Barritt. "These objects will
be able to function in any e-learning environment that is also compliant with industry standards,"
he assures.
"Once we get this working on the IT side," he says, "we'll start working on using the same
approach with our soft skills training." In the meantime, Barritt is spreading the word about the
RIO strategy and building a constituency of developers inside Cisco and among the vendor
community.
Honeywell's use of NLOs
IT e-learning provider NETg was among the first to use the phrase "learning object"--and
trademarked the term NETg Learning Object (NLO) in 1994--to describe its object-based
strategy for developing and delivering learning content. Several refinements later, its NLO-based
Skill Builder system is in use by NETg clients, who are among the first to sample the benefits of
a learning object approach. One of its star clients is Honeywell International, whose Project
Operations department began working with NETg two years ago in pursuit of a learning object
framework. Honeywell recently served as a beta test site for NETg's newest product, NLO+, an
editing tool that companies can use to customize NLOs to better meet their needs.
Project Operations is an engineering group of some 1,000 employees that charted its own path
toward IT training with the go-ahead from Honeywell's main training arm, explains group
manager Bruce Mills. The department was looking for computer-based IT training, and it wasn't
the learning object concept that initially attracted him to NETg, Mills says. But as it began
providing IT courses to engineers, Mills and team started to see the value of the concept.
"We began to develop pockets of people who were ahead of others as we moved away from
instructor-led to self-paced learning," he recalls. "Some of our engineers would complain that
they'd have to wade through the first two-thirds of a course to find the information they were
looking for."
Mills began learning about the NLO approach at NETg's customer conferences and saw an
opportunity to incorporate the approach in his department's plans to create a "virtual warehouse"
for courseware. The warehouse would serve as a central repository for the growing body of elearning--both NETg's courseware and Honeywell's in-house courseware--"and get the
department out of the CD-printing business," he explains.
"One of our internal developers argued that if we had NLOs, best practices information, FAQs,
and the like in the same database, we could provide that information on the fly to people who
need it," says Mills. Working with NETg, Mills offered the department as a beta site for its NLO+
tool. NETg also provided the metatags it uses to tag NLOs to allow the Honeywell group to
develop its own learning objects.
Now, when a Honeywell engineer needs a piece of information, he or she can navigate to the
learning repository, type in a request, and get the relevant NLOs--and only the NLOs needed. If
he or she needs a full course on a subject, the system will build a course based on the NLOs
needed.
"It's on the cusp of performance support," says Mills, who has a degree in education and whose
career at Honeywell has evolved to the point where he now spearheads use of learning
technologies for technical staff.
American Express eyes learning objects
The financial services division of American Express is laying the groundwork for migration to a
learning object methodology at its Minneapolis headquarters.
Bruce Layman, senior training consultant in the Advanced Training Technologies department of
American Express Financial Advisors, says the migration is still in the early stages, but the goal
is implementation of a learning object database and construction of its first LO-based courses by
year end. The department is relying on consulting services and tools from MindLever.com,
headed by learning object proponent Harvi Singh.
"Singh is an evangelist for the concept, and he made a believer out of me," says Layman, who
discovered MindLever while analyzing LMS options for the department. He ultimately selected
MindLever's Kaleidoscope LMS, in part to pursue a learning object approach with MindLever's
help.
Layman's department is using Kaleidoscope as the platform for a Web-based corporate learning
center it recently launched, which will serve as a learning portal for an audience of roughly
10,000 geographically dispersed financial advisors. Once content developers are trained on
developing content in a learning object format, the department will begin developing a database
of learning objects and the templates needed to format them for varying delivery media.
"We have some cool ideas on how we're going to use learning objects," says Layman. "For
example, say there's an [e-learning] course on life insurance, and one of the things we might
train advisors is how to fill out an application. With learning objects, we could create one course
on filling out various applications--making each a learning object, then reuse those objects in
other courses that deal with various financial vehicles."
"I think there's a real opportunity to cut down on development time with this approach--which is
critical since product life cycles are getting shorter and shorter," Layman adds.
The system being developed will allow external developers to create content in learning object
formats, using the same industry-standard metatags that American Express plans to use.
"The LMS capabilities we now have are an immediate benefit, but we're positioning our system
to be able to migrate smoothly to a learning object environment," says Layman.
Learning object lessons
These initial forays into learning object environments are helping map out a road--bumps and
all--that many more organizations will ultimately follow. But learning technology experts note that
while the approach is theoretically sound, the proof in the pudding will be successful
establishment of industry interoperability standards. Otherwise, they say, a learning object will
be orphaned as soon as it strays from the database from which it came.
"The learning object is in many ways the crowning achievement of the standards initiative," says
Bryan Chapman, vice president of product management for Payback Training Systems. "You
can't have interoperable learning objects without industry-wide standards."
The sentiment is echoed by Cisco's Barritt, who says cross-platform interoperability is a key
selling point in his presentations on the RIO strategy to Cisco training departments and external
developers (see illustration below).
In NETg's case, the company is a member of the IMS Global Learning Consortium and has
assembled its own group of Learning Management System (LMS) developers whose systems
are being designed to work with the NLO architecture. "It's an issue that comes up every time I
meet with clients," says Jim L'Allier, NETg's vice president of research and development, of the
interoperability issue. "Anyone who pursues this approach with a closed architecture isn't going
to survive."
The standards initiative is moving forward, though much more needs to be hammered out before
objects can be created that are platform-independent. In the meantime, the learning object
concept is gaining in popularity. L'Allier sees something of a bandwagon effect of late among
companies claiming learning object methodologies.
"Not all learning objects are created equal," L'Allier notes. The methods involved in defining
objects, the size of the chunks, and the interoperability of learning objects over various systems
will become key issues in weighing object-based systems from different vendors, he says.
But another, perhaps knottier question looms in the migration to platform-independent learning
objects: its impact on the way e-learning is priced. Will vendors like NETg allow customers to
purchase learning objects? Or will they rent them on a pay-per-use basis? L'Allier admits NETg
is as perplexed as other courseware vendors over how the learning object approach will change
industry pricing models. "The whole issue of pay-per-use is something we're all puzzling over-it's like diffusing a bomb where all the wires are the same color."
"If you disconnect your existing business model, you run the danger of tanking your whole
business," he says. Vendors will have to feel their way to the new paradigm. "It's the old law of
wing-walking," quips L'Allier. "You don't let go of one thing until you've got a grip on something
else."
Published: March 2000