LearningBase™

Authoring Tools
Learning Agent™

Phase 2: Content Objects & Components

Topics, topic groups, and topic templates need to be created, stored, managed, and delivered. Since the RCO Strategy is an open standard, there can be many possible collections of tools to accomplish these goals. Here we will use terminology specific to Oracle's implementation.

The LearningBase™ will store and manage topics and topic groups, keep track of user records and test scores, and generate reports. The LearningBase™ will have an administration interface allowing topics to be added, modified, or collected into topic groups.

The authoring tool will transfer the content to the LearningBase™ and label it with the appropriate attributes.

Authoring tools may or may not handle the creation of topic groups. If an authoring tool creates only topics, then creators will assemble topic groups using the administration interface to the LearningBase™.

Oracle is not creating a new authoring tool as part of its implementation of the RCO Strategy. Oracle is working with vendors of existing authoring tools who plan to extend their tools to allow the use of topic templates and to export topics using the API for the LearningBase™.

The Learning Agent™ will be a browser-side Java applet to ensure cross-platform and cross-browser compatibility. It will handle login to the system, search and selection of topics and topic groups, and navigation between topics and topic groups.

For navigation within a topic, there are three possible strategies under consideration:

• Navigation is handled solely by the topic, with applets embedded on each page to communicate current status to the Learning Agent™.
• The entire structure of the topic is communicated from the LearningBase™ to the Learning Agent™, which controls all navigation.
• Navigation is shared by the topic and the Learning Agent™ using a combination of the above methods.