Nancy J. Hoebelheinrich
Metadata Coordinator
Stanford University
Mladen Maljkovic
Product Manager
WebCT
The IMS Resource List Interoperability Specification details how structured metadata can be exchanged between content repositories that store and expose content that scholars wish to use for the purposes of creating a specific kind of digital learning object – a Resource List – and those systems that gather and organize such lists for educational or training purposes, such as course or learning management systems. Because course or learning related Resource Lists may be created and maintained in different systems, such as library e-reserve modules managed within an integrated library system or course management systems, each having their own metadata, processing and managing requirements, it has been very difficult to exchange and consolidate the Resource Lists between systems. The RLI specification begins to address these integration issues by enabling the easy exchange of structured metadata between e-learning tools and various related applications including Library Online Public Access Catalogs, reserves modules or other third party tools. The public draft of the RLI specification will be released within the month of April for public comment and prototype implementations. This briefing will provide details about the specification and plans for implementations.