The demand for Open learning analytics (OLA) has grown in recent years due to the increasing interest in the usage of self-organized, networked, and lifelong learning environments. However, platforms that can deliver an effective and efficient OLA are still lacking. Most OLA platforms currently available do not continuously involve end-users in…

The DoD's [Department of Defense's] Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative is designing a framework of commercial standards, technical specifications, and business rules to enable plug and play interoperability of learning technologies. The Total Learning Architecture (TLA) framework will allow education and training products to…

Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) have a long history, almost as long as the Structural Learning Theory (initially in Scandura, 1971). Although well-funded for many years, neither ITS nor contemporary successors based on BIG DATA (e.g., Knewton) come close to modeling the processes used by good human tutors. AuthorIT & TutorIT rest on a…

The Total Learning Architecture (TLA) program sponsored by the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative seeks to develop a set of policy and standards defining the process for developing a "learning ecology," where multiple services and learning opportunities (of various modalities and points of delivery) can be managed in an…

This article begins with a summary of two dominant approaches to adaptive learning systems: Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS), which have been around since the late 1970s and relatively new learning systems based on Learning Analytics, deriving largely from technical advances in BIG DATA pioneered by Google. The article then describes a third…