A distributed object computing approach to e-learning

We present a preliminary proposal towards a CORBA domain facility for e-learning. This proposal may be seen as an initial contribution to the definition of an object-oriented distributed architecture for this domain. E-learning is one of the killer applications in the new information society. Many e-learning systems have been developed, targeted to specific learning scenarios and execution environments. In most cases, properties like interoperability or scalability were not taken into consideration when developing these applications, and as a consequence, systems with similar functionalities were developed again and again. To address this problem, two actions are possible: the standardization of this domain, and the definition of reference models and architectures that facilitate software reuse and the development of scalable and interoperable systems. These two actions complement each other, and our proposal is based on available results from the e-learning standardization process.