Learning object metadata

Learning Object Metadata is a data model, usually encoded in XML, used to describe a learning object and similar digital resources used to support learning. The purpose of learning object metadata is to support the reusability of learning objects, to aid discoverability, and to facilitate their interoperability, usually in the context of online learning management systems (LMS).

The IEEE 1484.12.1 – 2002 Standard for Learning Object Metadata is an internationally recognised open standard (published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association, New York) for the description of “learning objects”. Relevant attributes of learning objects to be described include: type of object; author; owner; terms of distribution; format; and pedagogical attributes, such as teaching or interaction style.

The IEEE working group that developed the standard defined learning objects, for the purposes of the standard, as being “any entity, digital or non-digital, that may be used for learning, education or training." This definition has struck many commentators as being rather broad in its scope, but the definition was intended to provide a broad class of objects to which LOM metadata might usefully be associated rather than to give an instructional or pedagogic definition of a learning object. IEEE 1484.12.1 is the first part of a multipart standard, and describes the LOM data model. The LOM data model specifies which aspects of a learning object should be described and what vocabularies may be used for these descriptions; it also defines how this data model can be amended by additions or constraints. Other parts of the standard are being drafted to define bindings of the LOM data model, i.e. define how LOM records should be represented in XML and RDF (IEEE 1484.12.3 and IEEE 1484.12.4 respectively). This article focuses on the LOM data model rather than issues relating to XML or other bindings.

IMS Global Learning Consortium is an international consortium that contributed to the drafting of the IEEE Learning Object Metadata (together with the ARIADNE Foundation) and endorsed early drafts of the data model as part of the IMS Learning Resource Meta-data specification (IMS LRM, versions 1.0 – 1.2.2). Feedback and suggestions from the implementers of IMS LRM fed into the further development of the LOM, resulting in some drift between version 1.2 of the IMS LRM specification and what was finally published at the LOM standard. Version 1.3 of the IMS LRM specification realigns the IMS LRM data model with the IEEE LOM data model and specifies that the IEEE XML binding should be used. Thus, we can now use the term 'LOM' in referring to both the IEEE standard and version 1.3 of the IMS specification. The IMS LRM specification also provides an extensive Best Practice and Implementation Guide, and an XSL transform that can be used to migrate metadata instances from the older versions of the IMS LRM XML binding to the IEEE LOM XML binding.

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