TRIO, the web-based learning system in use in Italy’s Tuscany Region, is helping individuals enhance their skills; companies maintain their competitive advantage, and other organizations operate more efficiently and provide greater value for money to their stakeholders.

Some people have likened the significance of the launch of the technologically revolutionary iPad tablet to the arrival of the tablets containing the original Ten Commandments. So, now we have the iPad, we should consider how we should be building next generation digital learning content marketplaces believes Fabrizio Cardinali, CEO of eXact learning solutions North America, the leading learning content management and digital repository solution provider.

Cardinali expressed these views at the annual general meeting of the European Learning Industry Group (ELIG), held in Cambridge in the UK, recently. He went on to propose his ‘ten commandments’ of learning content management.

Cardinali’s "ten commandments of learning content management" are grouped under four headings: discover and focus (the first three ‘commandments’), design and implementation (the next three), train and transfer (the next two) and envision and guide (the final two). They are:

1. Learning content production methodology and workflow. You need to identify and define processes, stakeholders, roles, steps and deliverables.
2. Learning content classification methodology. You need to define learning objects’ metadata, vocabularies and classification standards.
3. Learning content templating. You need to define corporate learning contents, and produce XML templates, considering the learning materials’ multi-layout, format, language and channel publishing needs.
4. Pre-existing content ingestion. You need to take account of legacy import and third party content management systems, learning management systems/ virtual learning environment (VLE) integration and cross publishing strategies and protocols.
5. Pan-European 24/7 multi-language and multi-format production and indexing servicesare now a pre-requisite.
6. Learning content management system (LCMS) /learning management system (LMS) selection, set-up, integration and deployment. You need to customize the ‘look and feel’ of the learning materials; the workflow, metadata, vocabularies, taxonomies and templates, as well as third party LMS/ VLE, skills and portfolio integration.
7. Training and up-skilling of internal managers and stakeholders.
8. Training and up-skillingof third party stakeholders’ content developers.
9. Future trends: media-based personalization (the definition of multi-channel production and location-based, context-aware delivery of learning materials).
10. Future trends: skills and portfolio based personalization (the interoperability of skills maps, personal development plans, skills gap analysis and competency management).

Cardinali’s views carry extra weight within the learning technologies community because, in addition to his positions in eXact learning solutions and ELIG, he sits on the Board of Directors of the IMS Global Learning Consortium. He is also a SCORM co-writer and reviewer for ADL, as well as being a Global Adviser for MIT’s Open Knowledge Initiative. Holding all of these jobs gives him a unique perspective from which to view the development of the industry and to offer signposts to its likely future, in the light of continuing, rapid technology advances.

“All of our eXact learning solutions aim to ensure our clients future-proof their learning materials and delivery,” Cardinali continued.

Cardinali said that the great teacher, Socrates, championed the mantra of ‘motivate, engage and remediate each student’. He believes that it is only now that this mantra can be applied to those who access their learning materials electronically.

“We are moving towards ‘Socratic publishing’, delivering personalized learning materials to users where and when these users need them,” he said. “This makes Socrates-style ‘meaningful learning’ accessible and, thus, increases learners’ satisfaction levels.”