Ensuring Learning and Training Data Infrastructure and Interoperability Research Beyond ADL
Introducing I2IDL — an institute designed to meet a new set of challenges facing infrastructure and interoperability research.
Working today to support the learning outcomes of tomorrow.
The sudden closure of the Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative (ADL) has created a significant capability gap across the Department of Defense (DoD) as well as for commercial vendors and global government stakeholders. For more than two decades, ADL provided the authoritative data specification development, standards stewardship, open source infrastructure, and research investment needed to support the development of modern and interoperating learning and training systems – from the birth of SCORM-conformant Learning Management Systems to the rise of Synthetic and AI-enabled Training Environments supported by xAPI. Core to the work of ADL over the last decade has been the development of the Total Learning Architecture (TLA) – a standards-based and software-validated interoperable data architecture designed for enterprise learning and training ecosystems. With ADL's dissolution, critical components of the TLA ecosystem have disappeared, leaving no canonical non-commercial sources for the certified conformance testing of data models nor open hosted models of the required validation software.
The Institute for Infrastructure and Interoperable Data in Learning (I2IDL) is proposed as an independent, non-governmental, non-profit organization that will advance the science of open source data systems serving learning, training, and education organizations across the globe. The institute will assume stewardship and maintenance of essential TLA-related open source technologies and conformance systems. It will also reconstitute elements of the research capacity previously led by ADL. But I2IDL is not ADL 2.0. Whereas ADL’s priority function was to serve the DoD, the institute is designed to provide value for an intentionally much broader set of international stakeholders across industry, government, and academia – and the institute is able to support commercialization efforts in ways that ADL never could. As a non-governmental organization, the institute, both in-house and through university and industry partnerships, will support applied research and new TLA product development through incubation, acceleration, and commercialization. Whether or not the US government decides in whole or in part to reconstitute a new version of ADL, the institute protects against the political and economic volatility native to government programs while expanding capability and sustainability through equity-focused incubation and acceleration. This white paper outlines the necessity, opportunity, mission, and sustainability strategy for I2IDL.
