A successful standards initiative must influence as well as open itself to be influenced. I've mentioned in recent posts how HR-XML 3.0 advances the maturity of HR standards by incorporating design best practices and content developed by other groups (Open Applications Group, Inc. and UN/CEFACT). While OAGi and UN/CEFACT have much to offer, there are gaps. These organizations have focused primarily on material supply chains as well as domains areas such as finance, insurance, transportation, etc. There is no "HR domain" working group, nor are domains such as learning represented within UN/CEFACT.
Liaison With Learning Groups
There has been long-standing liaison between and among HR-XML and learning and education standards groups, such as the IMS Global Learning Consortium, the IEEE Learning Standards Technical Committee, the Postsecondary Electronic Standards Council (PESC), Learning-Education-Training Systems Interoperability (LETSI.org), The MedBiquitous Consortium, and the short-lived Web Services in Learning (WSIL) initiative. Unfortunately, an honest evaluation of the many years of HR/learning standards liaison would reveal few if any concrete results or progress towards convergence. Why? The fundamental reason is that each group, while in theory not opposed to convergence, quite naturally puts the immediate interests of its respective constituency in front of convergence goals. If convergence means breaking backward compatibility, it simply doesn't happen.
So if existing liaison relationships don't work and if big-bang convergence simply doesn't happen, what is to be done? There is a third path that is beginning to be discussed. Rather than holding out for convergence or continuing non-productive liaison, the third path is for groups to focus on developing a small group of common components. While the HR and learning domains are not currently represented within UN/CEFACT, that organization does provide neutral turf for such a collaboration as well as a methodology to guide it (the core components technical specification).
This "third path" is not yet well defined or formalized. However, a first component I've put forward and on-which work has begun is "Score Type" (A numerical record associated with an individual in the measurement of abilities, capacity to learn, in the assessment of personality, or in measurement of other personal characteristics - e.g., credit worthiness). While this a small, single component, it is something that clearly has utility across the HR, learning, and education domains. The proposal I drafted was circulated among all the aforementioned .orgs and submitted to UN/CEFACT's Core Data Type Catalog working group. The final version will be in the UN/CEFACT CDT Catalog due out by year end.
Hopefully, work along the same lines will continue. Agreement on a small collection of useful components is a lot easier than brokering agreement among different groups on bigger, more complex things (e.g., a framework for competencies). This third approach doesn't require big-bang convergence nor immediate non-backwardly compatible changes. Each group can draw upon the resulting set of components as their release time lines and their priorities dictate.
