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.