Standards to Support National Cooperation in Applying Technology to VET
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The task of this paper is recommending telecommunications and information technology standards. This task falls within a range of policy issues which have been and continue to be intensively considered by Government and the industry. Concerns about `standards' and `interoperability' are surfacing in a number of national debates about the development of information and communication services. Any-to-any connectivity, in the sense of being able to link any one telecommunications system user to any other, is a goal of the `post-1997' telecommunications legislation.
A broader concept of `any-to-any connectivity', linking any user to any other user or content source, was considered at a CIRCIT Policy Forum in June 1996, in which there was a focus on the barriers to this connectivity. Potential barriers were seen at the user interface, between carriage components, and in relation to the access of content providers to infrastructure. Standards, as a means of achieving interoperability between system components, were identified as one key factor in reducing these barriers.
Consideration of the adoption of standards to support national cooperation in applying technology to VET takes this general examination to a different level of practical application.
Flexible Delivery is recognised as an important strategy in training market development. In most 1997 Training Profiles, flexible delivery is specifically identified as a State or industry priority. Strategies identified in the 1997 Profiles include on-site delivery, territory communication networks, open learning centres and introduction of multi-media technologies.
Other initiatives included (at national, state/territory or provider level) are:
The Final Report of the ANTA National Flexible Delivery Taskforce was produced in May 1996, and implementation of its recommendations through co-operation between Commonwealth, State and Territory governments will promote more flexible and client centred approaches to training in 1997.
These initiatives will result in training being offered in a range of modes and at times that meet client needs. In addition regional and remote locations will gain improved access to vocational education and training (ANTA National Strategic Directions Ch 3 ).
The National Flexible Delivery Taskforce identified nine national principles for flexible delivery:
Flexible delivery develops a client-focused approach to the delivery of vocational education and training. It focuses on the pursuit of quality outcomes which give clients greater choice over what is offered, how it is delivered, where it is delivered and when it is delivered.
To achieve this flexible delivery focuses on:
- improving access for all clients
- producing informed clients capable of exercising effective choices about learning
- developing effective client/provider relationships
- quality assurance to maintain currency
- facilitating an effective training market
- supporting competency based education and training
- employing appropriate and effective uses of technology
- developing and adopting efficient and equitable resource allocation models, and
- developing staff with new competencies.
(National Flexible Taskforce 1996, Final Report, Brisbane: Australian National Training Authority)
Technologies of various kinds support the concept of flexible delivery and the principles identified above, in the following ways:
Technology also needs to be applied to the removal of the barriers, identified by the National Delivery Task Force, which at present stand in the way of flexibility and responsiveness:
ANTA is at present in the process of developing the National Strategy for VET 1998 - 2003. To meet the goals of the National Strategy, more flexible delivery, including technology-based approaches. A review of the capital program will also soon be underway, which will include how technology needs can be met.
It is not, therefore, the purpose of this report to justify the use of online technology for flexible delivery. Rather, given the national directions that are in place, it is to determine and recommend the appropriate standards to maximise the effectiveness of this technology.
At this stage in the evolution of vocational education and training, some technologies are well used, but in a variety of standards and configurations, while others are yet to be widely adopted. It is therefore timely to consider the issues of standards while there is a window of opportunity to beneficially influence technology directions and associated capital expenditure commitments.
The nature and composition of the VET sector has changed markedly over recent years. Historically, it consisted of VET agencies, TAFE Institutes, adult and community education providers, and their students; more recently, ITABs and registered private providers were added.
The opening up of the training market has blurred the boundaries of the sector. Additional players have been added to reflect the move towards a more industry driven sector. (Quality assurance is ensured by registration of training organisations)
As a result of this change, and of the trend towards greater autonomy of organisations within the sector, it is difficult to impose prescriptive standards.
Questions about standards only arise for VET when:
When the need is simply to communicate within and between sites of the one VET institute, then decisions can be made without concern about interoperability with other organisations and individuals. For instance, using the Internet for WAN links between campuses of the one organisation does not raise an issue of interoperability. Nonetheless, interoperability with sites outside the current organisation would become an issue if, for instance, institutes formed a consortium, if they amalgamated, or if there was a desire to extend the WAN link to staff or even learners working at home.
The emphasis of this report is to make apparent the benefits which will accrue to the sector as a whole, and to the players within it, from the adoption of shared standards. We consider that VET participants will thus be encouraged to adopt the recommended standards. If this approach is not strong enough, further incentive could be given by the linking of some component of funding to the adoption of the recommended standards.
The question arises as to how we choose the optimum standards, and indeed what `optimum' means in the context of the VET sector. Different standards will provide varying levels of functionality and users will choose between them in accordance with the needs they perceive. But there is also a trade-off between functionality and cost. A model, or framework, is therefore needed to make explicit the components of this trade-off as they relate to each of the participants in flexible delivery.
One framework which is useful in the task of identifying the optimum standards is a business model of the flexible delivery process. This locates the players involved in the Communications Flow diagrams (see Appendix 1) as participants in the value adding learning process, represented by a value chain, as in Figure 1. Value is defined as the difference between perceived benefits and cost, including, as a benefit or cost reduction, the results of improvements in efficiency - realistically evaluated. This report uses the concept of value in a qualitative way. The use of online technology should be assessed against the objective of maximising value.
In this value chain model, which is used in the analysis of business processes, a process is represented as a sequence of steps. Each step in the process takes the outputs of the preceding steps, adds value to them, and inputs them to the next step. In addition, feedback improves the quality of the inputs to each stage.
Figure 1: The Online Learning Value Chain
The diagram also shows how the various participants in flexible delivery perform one or more steps of the value chain. Between each step there is an interface. A downstream step requires access to the preceding step in order to obtain the inputs it requires. The issue of standards is highly relevant in facilitating access across these interfaces.
Because the VET sector is becoming increasingly client focused, value for the learner and employer will be of primary importance. But other players will also benefit from increases in value. Their perceived benefits and costs will be different, but increases in value will tend to diffuse throughout the value chain (see Appendix 2). That is, additional value created in one part will tend to flow on to other players. The elements of value relevant to the players in the value chain are detailed in Table 1.
The optimum standards are those which enable the technology to maximise value. This is usually achieved by maximising benefits and/or minimising costs. But sometimes it is necessary to incur increased costs to obtain a more than commensurate increase in value.
Standards increase value by the following mechanisms:
Components of value for each player can be identified as shown in the following table.
| Player | Benefits | Costs |
| Employer |
|
|
| Institute or Industry Training Body |
|
|
| Content Providers |
|
|
| Teachers |
|
|
| Learners |
|
|
Information and communication technology can be represented by a layered model as shown in Figure 2. The lower layers correspond to the physical telecommunications carriage hardware; the higher layers comprise the software which supports the needs of the VET Sector.
Figure 2: Technology Layers
The telecommunications and information services industries are changing rapidly, particularly the environment at the applications and computing platforms levels (Appendix 3).
While there have been important technology developments (Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) switching and optical fibre being examples), interoperability at the lower levels is less important in the context of this report. At these levels, standards are set by telecommunications carriers, often in accordance with obligatory international agreements. Technology trends at these levels impact on the VET sector via the products and services offered by the carriers.
The aspects of Information Technology which are most relevant to VET flexible delivery are therefore the higher layers, Access Technology and Applications (Figure 2): Internet communications, personal computers, operating systems for networked applications and the move from proprietary file formats - such as those of word processing programs - towards rich formats based on open standards.
In the short term growth in Internet communications is sure to dominate, analogous to the adoption of mobile telephony. Internet access methods will tend to become faster, cheaper and perhaps most importantly, offer permanent connection in many home and work situations. The variety of communicative modes supported by the Internet will continue to grow, but the most important modes for flexible delivery in the foreseeable future will be email and the World Wide Web.
Incompatibilities between operating systems - for instance between Macintosh and Windows, but also now with Unix systems and the differences between Windows 3.11, 95 and NT - will be of less concern than in the past.
Fortunately, the importance of a particular type of computer operating system is greatly reduced since email, Web access and other Internet protocols are becoming the standard 'platform' for an increasing range of communicative modes which are important for flexible delivery. An extension of this is the expected adoption of the Java programming language as part of the growing definition of the `World Wide Web'. Java programs can be loaded from Web sites, local disc or CD-ROM and will run in a Web browser or a special Java interpreter. The browser or interpreter provides a standardised environment for Java programs, so the one program runs on any machine irrespective of its underlying hardware and operating system. Java programs typically offer excellent graphic user interfaces and direct Internet connectivity. This means that Java is an ideal basis for creating sophisticated computer programs which might be needed for some aspects of flexible delivery.
Another welcome development which reduces dependence on a variety of incompatible proprietary file formats is the likely adoption of version 4.0 of HTML in 1998. The current version of HTML does not offer the layout flexibility, adaptability to differing display formats and the control over printed output which are often required for carefully designed documents. HTML 4.0 should offer much richer `language' for online and printed documents. This means that it will increasingly become a portable format for exchanging the potentially complex information needed in education.
A major requirement of business and personal use of Internet communications is the ability for people to work effectively in groups. This is the key reason why Internet communications and personal computers are important for VET flexible delivery. Educators will find that the advances in what might loosely be termed `groupware' are ideal for distance education and for group working within more traditional classroom settings. The costs of the hardware, software and communications links for these groupware functions are likely to decline, and the skills required to use them will become more common.
The dynamic industry developments at the Applications and Access Technology layers have led to increased rapidity in standards development, closer linkage between standards promulgation and the marketing strategies of firms in the industry, and bold pricing approaches to encourage the adoption of particular standards.
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Last modified on December 21, 1998.