Live and let learn

One of the learning goals that I want to set for my own Professional Development is to develop a greater awareness and understanding of the learning standards.

The two that seem to be most frequently mentioned are SCORM (from ADL) and IMS Learning Design. But these beasts seem bigger than Ben Hur to the uninitiated (me!)… so I’m going to explain what I understand so far, with the knowledge that there might be lots of misunderstandings and gaps at present!

Firstly, from what I understand, SCORM is not actually a standard, it is itself a reference model that encompasses a bunch of standards from different organisations such as ADL, IEEE and IMS. Phillip Dodds, one of the founders of SCORM, says:

In early 1999, I drafted the first version of the Sharable Content Object Reference Model as a way to integrate and “connect” work from other organizations.

SCORM seems to be most focussed on the packaging of learning content into discrete learning objects that can be shared and re-used in different environments. Furthermore, SCORM allows complex directed learning experiences to be designed through the complex sequencing of the content, depending on learner progress.

IMS Learning design, on the other hand, seems to combine the roles of participants and facilitators, together with the available resources, to focus on learning activities. Or perhaps the difference is better expressed by the focus on the process of learning, as opposed to the learning content. In a discussion on a Moodle forum, Michael Klieb says:

But, organizing activities rather than content is the main difference to “content aggregation models” for learning objects like SCORM and IMS-Content-Packaging. Organizing activities of teachers and learners in group (= class) is the “unique selling point” of IMS-LD.
IMS-LD: Stop thinking about putting together resources for learning, start thinking of the learning process.

So, my question is, are they mutually exclusive? Can Learning Design be integrated into a reference model similar to SCORM, or is SCORM inherently based on a single-user e-learning experience, as opposed to Learning Design’s multiple user interactive blended-learning focus? Guess I’ll need to do more research to find out :-)