Re: [seul-edu] Student Information Standard

[Bruno Vernier <vernier@vc.bc.ca>]

On Mon, Oct 16, 2000 at 06:37:50PM -0400, Jason Mellen wrote:

> > It's a good idea, Jason.  It's also pretty much EduML, which
> > Bruno Vernier and some other folks were (are still?) working on.
> >  You can see a link to it on our projects page
> > <http://www.seul.org/edu/projects.html>.
> Thanks for the link. This is exactly what I was thinking about.

Hello, I am the principal author of EduML

> How much is SIF or EduML used? If not open-source programs support SIF
> because it is proprietary then EduML still might have a place. We might want
> to be compatable with the SIF but I beleive the community needs an open
> solution to compete with it. I don't think the software giants should be
> able to define standards that will effect free software.

I share your enthusiasm and brave defiance :-)

But if our goal is intercompatibility at the data level with all educational
programs (not just SOME open source ones), then we simply cannot ignore the
emerging (open) standards coming from the educational vendors associations
such as SIF and more importantly, I think, IMS  www.imsproject.org

Given that their process of creating open standards is not iself open, we
can only read their occasional output and wonder if and when we should start
becoming compatible.  It is not a particularly glorious activity.   

They are producing XML data definitions which means that as opensource
programmers become more XML aware, it should be relatively easy to integrate
of simply use as-is the resulting open source XML formats.

Personally, I am waiting to see the vapour evaporate ... I have yet to work
with a single commercial program that uses SIF or IMS but most have promised
they will.

We could continue proposing a standard for open source programs only and
later write conversion programs (XML to XML, shouldn't be too hard) with
SIF/IMS.  If so, that is what EDUml is all about, at this point.

> I am interested to see what is happening with this. In any case, would
> software developers support it if we advocated it more?

this is a critical question... before many of us will invest another huge
chunk of time into improving/implementing EduML.

Bruno