Industry Standards
As an early industry participant in the development of the eLearning space, Mr. Gilfus participated in several standards organizations and industry working groups from 1997 – 2003. In this capacity, he was a member of the content packaging and common cartridge working groups assisting in the development of the common cartridge format. In 2001, he built a centralized distribution model for some of the world’s leading publishers to deploy learning content into leading learning management systems using IMS specifications. He has also participated in and fostered projects that facilitated MathML, QTI (Question Test Interoperability) and LTI (Learning Tool Interoperability).
In 2002 he led a project that developed and launched a SCORM 1.2 player, in collaboration with the National Defense University the ADL-Co-labs and the Department of Defense, as an add on to the leading course management platform facilitating content relationships with several self-paced content providers and in support of training deployments.
As part of his professional services experience and leading a team that assisted 100′s of universities he worked with industry standards groups and leading ERP vendors including, Microsoft, PeopleSoft, Datatel and SunGard, SAP and others to develop technologies that allowed for the seamless transference of data, common authentication and identity management mechanisms for secure enterprise deployments.
IMS Global Consortium
In service to the community of organizations and individuals enhancing learning worldwide through the use of technology, IMS GLC is a global, nonprofit, member association that provides leadership in shaping and growing the learning and educational technology industries through collaborative support of standards, innovation, best practice and recognition of superior learning impact.
IMS GLC represents more than 140 Member organizations and Common Cartridge Alliance participants. These participant organizations come from every sector of the global learning community. They include hardware and software vendors, educational institutions, publishers, government agencies, systems integrators, multimedia content providers, and other consortia. IMS provides a neutral forum in which members work together to advocate the use of technology to support and transform education and learning.
ADL Initiative
The ADL Initiative develops and implements learning technologies across the U.S. Department of Defense and federal government. We collaborate with government, industry, and academia to promote international specifications and standards for designing and delivering learning content.
DoD directed the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (OUSD P&R) to create the Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative in November 1998. Executive Order 13111, signed on January 12, 1999 by President William J. Clinton, tasked the DoD with leading Federal participation with business and university groups and activities and charged them with developing consensus standards for training software and associated services.
In 1999, DoD established an ADL Co-Laboratory in Alexandria, Virginia to provide an open forum for collaborative development and assessment of technical standards, prototypes, and associated tools in support of DoD needs. Since that time, it has fostered the development, dissemination, and maintenance of guidelines, tools, methodologies, and policies for the cost-effective use of advanced distributed learning resource sharing across DoD, other Federal agencies, and the private sector.