Standards to Support National Cooperation in Applying Technology to VET
[Previous section] [Next section]
The following policy statements for interoperability and connectivity have been agreed for technology development in training:
The application of technology in training development in the vocational educational and training sector will provide services to clients as, where and when required. This will be done by maximising national connectivity and associated interoperability between all participants in the VET sector.
Rationale
The central objective of the VET sector is to provide services to
clients which will meet their needs in the ways they want.
Today's technologies mean that neither clients nor providers are
constrained by state/territory borders. As working across
borders, and working in partnerships, become more common, it is
correspondingly more necessary to have a national focus on the
structures, including technology standards, that will support
such interworking.
National technology standards to support any-to-any connectivity and associated interoperability will be selected from existing mainstream standards. Standards peculiar to learning technologies will be developed cooperatively with major vocational education and training stakeholders in cases where no satisfactory standard already exists. In both cases the emphasis will be on interface standards rather than particular products.
Rationale
The autonomy of state/territory systems and providers, and the
differing needs of individual programs and projects, make it
inappropriate to take a prescriptive approach to the adoption of
standards. A more useful approach identifies preferred standards
which provide the greatest value consistent with the maximum
interoperability.
The selection of national technology standards to support any-to-any connectivity and associated interoperability will include consideration of :
Rationale
If a national technology standards policy is to achieve its
purpose, it must be fully supported by all states and
territories. It will therefore be necessary to devise a robust
and credible process for the identification of preferred
standards. The process will need to take heed not only of the
technical aspects of standards, but also of the reasons why
technology is important to the VET sector, its current and future
policy context, and the present scenario with regard to
technologies in use in the sector and those currently being
acquired.
Adherence to the Policy Statements above will result in a
widely endorsed requirement for the standard relevant to a
particular technology.
The process for determining the preferred standard is as follows.
Starting at the top of the following standards classification:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mandatory - required by
law
Carrier - technically necessary for
connection
-------------------------------------------------------
Formal - developed by standards body
Quasi-formal - developed by
industry forum
Informal - developed by
Non-published propietary
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
and, moving down, test the standards at each level for the existence of a suitable standard, i.e. one which will meet the sector's requirements. This process is repeated until a suitable standard is found. This standard then becomes the preferred standard for the VET sector.
The preferred standard will therefore be the most open standard which meets the requirements of the sector.
In some cases there will be more than one standard, which meets the requirements, in a particular layer. A more detailed analysis is then required to identify the optimum standard.
The relative advantages of competing standards are summarised by plotting them on an interoperability matrix, as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Interoperability Matrix for Detailed Standards Analysis
The process proceeds in two steps using the left and right hand sides of Figure 4. Firstly, the relative benefits of a particular standard (eg. Standard A) are plotted as the distance parallel to the benefits axis, from the costs axis. The costs of implementation are plotted in a similar way as the distance parallel to the inclined cost axis. The value (benefits - cost) is then proportional to the vertical distance above the dotted line which corresponds to equal benefits and costs. This line corresponds to zero value and is thus located in the middle of the matrix on the right. The point for the chosen standard is then transferred across to the right hand side of the diagram, defining the vertical coordinate in the matrix. Interoperability is then assessed on the basis of the openness of the standard and the degree to which compatible infrastructure is deployed throughout the sector.
The preferred standard is then that which lies nearest to the top right hand corner of the matrix.
[Top of page] [Next section] [Contents page]
[Home page] [Copyright statement] [Feedback]
Last modified on December 21, 1998.