A Flexible Infrastructure for the Support of Distributed Learning

This paper describes an infrastructure devoted to support distributed learning by Information and Communication Technologies. Our purpose is to provide a flexible solution that facilitates the execution of any kind of teaching/learning strategy, where faculty can apply their own methodology without worrying about technological issues. The IMS Learning Design specification offers the underlying semantic framework used to describe any pedagogical approach in a formal way. Our infrastructure supports the creation of final learning systems that can execute learning descriptions expressed according to this framework, providing the services and functionalities required to obtain the maximum learning support and control. Therefore, learning experiences are supported, automated, and executed distributely. We use workflow and groupware technologies in order to support coordination and cooperation in distributed environments, and an object-oriented approach to provide openness, scalability, and flexibility.