At the 2009 Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC), held in Orlando, Florida from November 30 through December 3, members of the ADL Network presented a peer-reviewed paper they authored collaboratively and demonstrated the capabilities of the prototype described in the paper. The paper, Multinational Federated ADL Search and Retrieval – II: Sharing Across NATO, describes a joint project between ADL, the U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM), the Norwegian Defence Education Command (NoDEC), and the Canadian Defence Academy (CDA). The effort developed an infrastructure to allow multiple NATO nations to search, discover, view, and share technical and instructional content.
This capability, also known as “MFASR”, provides near real-time delivery of training and performance support for common interest information that is tailored to the specific requirements of a given instance. The paper describes how MFASR revolutionizes access to multiple heterogeneous repositories containing learning objects distributed across different countries. The MFASR prototype also incorporates an instance of the Content Object Repository Discovery and Registration/Resolution Architecture (CORDRA), the ADL-Registry.
MFASR participants uniquely identified learning objects across all registered repositories to enable their discovery globally without the limitation of requiring a specific content repository system. This allowed local repositories to retain total control of their learning objects. After items are discovered in MFASR, learning objects, regardless of their physical locations and countries of origin, can be easily viewed, retrieved, and constructed into training materials according to learning and training objectives and uploaded into SCORM and non-SCORM-compliant learning management systems (LMSs) from any participating nation. The main benefits of the project are to share learning assets and knowledge, provide instant access to learning objects, reduce or eliminate the cost of developing redundant content, and increase collaboration and cooperation among participating nations. The paper also recommends basic requirements for additional participation in the infrastructure. The paper’s authors include:
- James Xu, Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative, Alexandria, Virginia
- Geir Isaksen, Norwegian Defence ADL Centre National, Oslo, Norway
- Bill Railer, Canadian Defence Academy, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
- Giridhar Manepalli, Corporation for National Research Initiatives, Reston, Virginia
To learn more about MFASR: (links to these)