IMS Global Learning Consortium Common Cartridge

[Bleet and Shout]

Is there anybody out there up to date on the IMS Global Learning Consortium's Common CartridgeCommon Cartridge specifies six things.1. A format for exchange of content between systems so that there is a common way to interpret what the digital learning content is and how it is organized. The content is described in a manifest and the components that make up the manifest may be in the exchanged package or external to the package (referenced by URL).2. An authorization standard (access rules) for each component of the package. This allows "protected" content or applications (those requiring a license) to be contained in a cartridge in a flexible way along with unprotected content.3. A standard for the metadata describing the content in the cartridge - based on Dublin Core. Common Cartridge is extensible to allow other metadata schemas.4. A standard for test items, tests, and assessments. This standard allows learning systems to understand imported assessments as natively - so they can be manipulated (such as deciding what items are to be used and where in the flow of a course) as needed in the learning system.5. A standard for launching and exchanging data with external applications so that they can be part of a single learning experience orchestrated through the learning system. These can be literally any type of application in any location, such as social networking, wiki, external assessment systems, adaptive tutors, varieties of web-based content libraries, or other learning systems.6. A standard for populating online discussion forums for collaboration among students. This allows such forums to be pre-populated with potential exercises, discussion threads, and so forth.http://www.imsglobal.org/commoncartridge.htmlI would welcome all contrbutions to this discussion.