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A New Data Standard for Enterprise Learner Records

July 27, 2021

The ADL Initiative is chairing the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Learning Technology Standards Committee (LTSC) study group for Enterprise Learner Records. The new data standard, numbered IEEE P2997, will harmonize the structure of learner record metadata generated and used by education and training activities. This will facilitate the creation of portable learner records that can be shared across DoD organizations to improve education/training efficiency and increase military readiness. The records will also benefit learners themselves as they navigate their career paths within and outside of DoD.

The need for this new standard has been informed by the ADL Initiative’s prototype Enterprise Learner Record Repository (ELRR), which is designed to modernize the way DoD captures, stores, and uses data about individuals’ education and training experiences. The ELRR prototype is informed by stakeholders from the Army University, Naval Education and Training Command (NETC), Air Education and Training Command (AETC), DAU, and Defense Civilian Personnel Advisory Service (DCPAS).

“Learner records are a strategic asset to any organization, with the Department of the Navy notwithstanding,” said Benjamin Ervin, NETC N517 Program Analyst who is collaborating on this work. “Through the ELRR capability and its enabling Enterprise Learner Record standard, the MyNavy Learning platform will be able to generate and leverage learner data that is discoverable across connected systems, allowing real-time analytics to enable a data-driven approach to delivering personalized and adaptive learning to individual Sailors and teams.”

Data standards like P2997 are essential for the development of DoD’s future learning ecosystem. They enable interoperability among education and training systems operating across different DoD domains. Such interoperability will, for example, allow a Navy training credential to be understood and used by a Space Force training program.

There are six components of the proposed standard—all of which will be used in the ELRR system:

  1. Person - Identifiers, contact info, biometrics, other traits
  2. Employment - Positions, military history, occupations, skills
  3. Credentials - Type, issuing org, accreditations, effective dates, jurisdictions
  4. Courses - Activity IDs, delivery modes, alignments, academic grades
  5. Competencies - Framework, levels, competency node ID, status
  6. Organizations - Identifiers, org type, institutional control, accredited by

The Enterprise Learner Record Repository

Development of the ELRR capability is one of three major lines of effort under the Enterprise Digital Learning Modernization reform initiative. With ELRR, the ADL Initiative and its partners are developing the technical infrastructure that will federate the different sources throughout DoD that store learner data. In other words, the ELRR capability is a data fabric solution (including a learner API, microservices, and tools) for making learner performance data searchable and available to any DoD component’s learning system or activity. These data can be used, for example, to reduce the variance in learning outcomes (i.e., support mastery learning), personalize individuals’ learning experiences, identify and eliminate less efficacious learning experiences, and maintain awareness of platform/system configuration changes and their impact on training or education materials.

The ELRR prototype is scheduled for developmental testing in the ADL Initiative sandbox environment in Fall 2021. This initial prototype testing will use simulated learner data generated from the Data and Training Analytics Simulated Input Modeler (DATASIM). This will allow evaluation of the data handling processes and system-of-systems functionality without involving potentially sensitive personally identifiable information.

With its enterprise architecture and standardization approach, the ELRR capability moves DoD toward a learning ecosystem that features Department-wide interoperability.

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