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As a result, IMS is doing a bunch of things under the name of “application profiling” to narrow down spec parameters for various communities – either by region or segment. We are also providing value to our members in bringing them together in various ways to support testing. But, while this is helpful, is there anything more efficient then the ability to build to an authoritative reference design?

Postulate number two: standards organizations are pretty much the only way to get a level playing field when it comes to new open source applications for learning – however, that won’t happen unless the open source projects/communities are active participants.

Some very successful open source initiatives leveraged existing investment in operating systems, web servers, etc. making the decision of what interfaces to implement pretty straightforward. Unfortunately, in end-user applications, and especially in education and learning, that prior investment doesn’t usually exist.

One of my very repeatable conversations with new open source project X begins with: “OK, Rob, just tell us what standards you have and then we can adopt them.” To which I reply, “well, if you want them to exist you need to help create them.” Let’s take course management systems as an example. Who defines the interoperability interface points between a course management system and other complementary components in what we like to call the “learning enterprise?” There is no obvious answer to that question.

If an open source initiative for learning wants to be on the cutting edge of defining that “enterprise architecture,” well, then it needs to be involved in the standards creation and evolution. Another very repeatable conversation with open source initiative X goes like this, “well, Rob, we are implementing open source interfaces and therefore we are creating open standards – therefore, we don’t need to participate in standards activities.” To which my reply is, “best of luck to you!”

The reality is that unless you are Google, or of a similar size and market share, you will have an extremely difficult time getting critical mass around your homegrown standard. And, typically a small open source project (they all start out small usually) has the exact problem of competing against larger competitors, like Google, who are much more likely to pull off that strategy than they are.

Postulate number three: whether open source or proprietary, it’s all about the boundaries of customization.

That may seem like an odd statement but it became apparent to me when discussing open source and student systems with an audience at a presentation of mine at the JA-SIG conference in 2006. What I mean is that at the end of the day, both open source and proprietary solutions are challenged to come up with the right designs in the education segment with respect to what is customizable and what is not.

Those that want open source solutions include in the key factors control and customization. However, if control and customization comes at the price of “ forking ” in the open source world, there is a big problem. You then lose the key benefit of the shared investment in upgrades, evolution, etc. that is so important. So, customization must be done judiciously and most importantly, designed into the core platform for forward and backward compatibility. This is exactly what seems to be the key challenge of many proprietary solutions in the education space. That is, is there enough customization afforded in the right ways so that the institution can differentiate itself, innovate, and so forth?

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Source:  OpenStax, The impact of open source software on education. OpenStax CNX. Mar 30, 2009 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col10431/1.7
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