An Approach toward a Software Factory for the Development of Educational Materials under the Paradigm of WBE

The Software Factory described in this paper is an organizational structure specialized in the production of educational materials based on software components according to educational specifications and externally-defined by the end-users requirements (Learners, Tutors, University, Instructional Designers, etc.). The Software Factory applies manufacturing techniques and principles of Domain Engineering to software development, to mimic the benefits of traditional manufacturing. The software components obtained are called Intelligent Reusable Learning Components Object Oriented (IRLCOO), which are a special type of Sharable Content Object (SCO) according to the Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM). These software components consume Web Services (WS) to produce reusable and interoperable learning content.