RE: [seul-edu] Student Information Standard

["Jason Mellen" <jmellen@intellikey.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-seul-edu@seul.org [mailto:owner-seul-edu@seul.org]On Behalf
> Of Douglas Loss
> Sent: Monday, October 16, 2000 5:57 PM
> To: seul-edu@seul.org
> Subject: Re: [seul-edu] Student Information Standard
>
>
> On Mon, 16 Oct 2000, Jason Mellen wrote:
>
> > Right now there are many different types of student management
> > systems out
> > there. Some are complex (AUC and K-12 Admin) while other are
> > simpler
> > (Ggrader.) But all of these share the same basic type of
> > information. What
> > if we could develop a standard format for exchanging all this
> > between
> > programs.
> >
> 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.

>  Perhaps unfortunately,
> a bunch of commercial entities (with Microsoft the biggest
> player) came out with SIF, a similar concept about a year after
> Bruno started work on EduML.  The realities of the situation are
> that EduML will probably have to become compatible with SIF.  We
> tried to see if we could get on the SIF committee to help define
> the format, but they had no way for non-commercial organizations
> to participate.
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.

>Bruno, could you weigh in with some info on the
> current and projected state of EduML?

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

jmellen