Educational resources as learning Web services, an alternative point of view to learning objects

The availability of educational resources on the Web is an efficient way of acquiring and sharing the knowledge through e-Learning. Nowadays there are hundreds of learning objects on the Internet; these objects are developed under e-Learning specifications and standards, such as SCORM and IMS Content Package. These standards allow the use of learning objects in learning management systems. However, learning environments and learning objects must have been built to the same standards. In this sense, there are several initiatives for e-Learning supported by services oriented architectures and Web services technologies. These initiatives pursue the integration of features that promote interoperability and thereby reusability of educational resources. The goal of this paper is to describe how educational resources can be dealt with as Web services in a learning management system, representing an alternative to learning objects. In this sense, learning Web services are software components that allow the use of educational resources. The employment of learning Web services allows the use and reuse of educational content in different learning environments, and other client applications. These learning Web services can be described, published, discovered and invoked using open standards over an Internet protocol backbone, such as SOAP, XML, WSDL, and HTTP. This can be achieved by extending a Learning Management Systems like Moodle, where integration, presentation, and management of learning Web services may be performed, as described in this paper.