Compendium

Education / Learning-Content / e-Learning Interchange DSLs Family Index

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Education / Learning-Content DSLs Family Index

type: language-family-index family: learning-content languages_catalogued: 27 tags: [language-reference, family-index, learning-content, scorm, xapi, cmi5, lti, qti, caliper, oneroster, open-badges, edfi, ceds, pesc, h5p]

Education / Learning-Content / e-Learning Interchange — Family Index

Family overview

The e-learning interchange family is unusually consortium-driven: nearly every format here was produced by a multi-stakeholder body (ADL, IMS Global / 1EdTech, IDPF/W3C, Ed-Fi Alliance, NCES, PESC, A4L, AICC) trying to negotiate portability among LMS vendors, content authors, assessment publishers, and ministries of education. The defining anchor of the field for two decades has been SCORM — the Sharable Content Object Reference Model, originally an ADL umbrella over IMS Content Packaging + AICC CMI runtime APIs. SCORM 1.2 (2001) and SCORM 2004 4th Edition (released 2009 — still the current SCORM) define an XML manifest (imsmanifest.xml) plus a JavaScript runtime API (window.API / window.API_1484_11) for the LMS-to-content channel, capturing simple completion + score + bookmark state. SCORM is widely acknowledged as outdated in 2026 — its tracking model is essentially complete/incomplete and a single score — yet it remains the de facto export target for nearly every authoring tool (Articulate Storyline, Lectora, iSpring, Adapt) because the installed base of LMSs that accept it is unbeatable.

The xAPI / Tin Can wave (ADL, 1.0 in 2013) was the first serious break from SCORM’s LMS-centric model. xAPI replaced the JS runtime with HTTP+JSON statements in an “actor / verb / object” pattern, sent to a Learning Record Store (LRS), enabling tracking across mobile apps, simulations, and offline activity. xAPI 2.0 was published in October 2023 as IEEE 9274.1.1-2023, the first formal IEEE-standardised version, adding contextAgents, contextGroups, and document concurrency semantics. Adjacent to xAPI sits cmi5 — an xAPI profile (current major release “Quartz” on the AICC-ADL repo, building on the original “Sandstone” 2016 release) that adds the launch + session + course-structure rules SCORM had and xAPI alone does not, making xAPI usable as an LMS-launchable package format. IMS Caliper Analytics (current 1.2) is a parallel learning-analytics format from 1EdTech, using JSON-LD with explicit @context vocabularies and a sensor/envelope model, more strongly typed than xAPI but with a smaller installed base.

The IMS Global / 1EdTech consortium (renamed 1EdTech in 2022, the spec sites still mirror at imsglobal.org) covers the rest of the LMS interoperability surface: LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability) for embedding 3rd-party tools, with LTI 1.3 + LTI Advantage as the current OAuth 2 + JWT-secured generation and LTI 1.1’s shared-secret HMAC variant slated for deprecation; Common Cartridge 1.4 (Candidate Final since 2020, K-12-profiled, embedding LTI 1.3 + QTI 3.0) for content packaging; QTI 3.0 (Final Release May 11, 2022) for assessment items and tests, merging the older QTI 2.x tree with the APIP accessibility profile; OneRoster 1.2 (September 2022) for class-roster + gradebook data exchange between SISs and LMSs; and CASE 1.1 (April 2025) for academic standards / competencies frameworks. H5P sits outside the consortium track — it is an open-source content-type ecosystem (.h5p zip with h5p.json metadata, library.json per content-type, content/content.json for instance data) widely deployed in Moodle, WordPress, and Drupal, and supports xAPI emission natively.

The digital credentials wave is the most active area in 2026: Open Badges 3.0 (1EdTech, Final May 29, 2024) is now a W3C Verifiable Credential, ditching the old hosted-JSON-baked-into-PNG model for cryptographically signed VCs aligned with the W3C VC Data Model 2.0; the Comprehensive Learner Record Standard 2.0 (CLR 2.0, 2024) extends the same VC pattern to full transcripts; Verifiable Credentials Education profiles at W3C and the Digital Credentials Consortium provide the VC-layer scaffolding. Finally, the school-data interchange layer — Ed-Fi Data Standard 5.x (5.0 launched for the 2024-25 school year, 5.2 in December 2024) for K-12 SIS data, CEDS (NCES P-20W vocabulary, currently v9), PESC XML for postsecondary transcripts, and the legacy SIF / Access4Learning specifications (2.x widely deployed, 3.x with REST infrastructure, “Unity” as the convergence track) — handles the bulk-data-about-students dimension that LTI/SCORM/xAPI deliberately don’t touch. The LRMI vocabulary (DCMI-stewarded since 2014, now folded into Schema.org LearningResource) is the metadata-discovery layer across all of it.

In our deep library

None catalogued. e-Learning interchange formats do not have standalone deep-library notes; they are XML/JSON dialects, JSON-LD vocabularies, and runtime API contracts rather than general-purpose languages.

Cross-reference:

  • citation-formats — sibling metadata-vocabulary family; LRMI / Schema.org LearningResource overlaps with the citation-format authority world (DOI, ORCID, Crossref) at the metadata layer.
  • api-description — LTI 1.3, OneRoster, Caliper, xAPI LRS, and CASE all expose REST APIs documented (or specifiable) in OpenAPI; LTI 1.3 specifically piggybacks on OAuth 2 + JWT.
  • identity-auth-policy — LTI 1.3 uses OAuth 2 / OIDC + JWT; Open Badges 3.0 and CLR 2.0 are W3C Verifiable Credentials, putting them squarely in the VC / DID identity stack.
  • document-typesetting — EPUB 3 and the EDUPUB educational profile sit at the boundary between document formats and learning content.
  • math-notation — QTI 3.0 assessment items embed MathML for mathematical content; LaTeX is also commonly used in question authoring.
  • exam-pseudocode — disjoint family: exam-pseudocode covers the content (CS exam pseudocode notations like AQA / OCR / IB / AP), whereas QTI covers the delivery wrapper for assessment items in any subject.
  • accessibility-aria — QTI 3.0 absorbed the APIP accessibility profile and references W3C accessibility specs.

Tier 3 family table — Content packaging & runtime

FormatFirst appearedOriginTypeStatus (2026)URL
SCORM 1.22001ADL (US DoD) — IMS CP + AICC CMI fusionXML manifest (imsmanifest.xml) + window.API JS runtime; completion + score + bookmarkLegacy but ubiquitous — still the most-requested LMS export in 2026 despite being 25 years oldhttps://scorm.com/scorm-explained/technical-scorm/
SCORM 2004 4th EditionMarch 2009ADLAdds sequencing + navigation (IMS SS), interaction tracking, larger cmi.suspend_data; runtime window.API_1484_11Current SCORM, no successor planned; ADL has effectively pivoted to xAPI/cmi5https://www.adlnet.gov/projects/scorm-2004-4th-edition/
IMS / 1EdTech Common Cartridge 1.42020 (Candidate Final; first update since CC 1.3 in 2014)IMS Global / 1EdTechXML manifest + content packaging; embeds LTI 1.3 + QTI 3.0 + Web Links + LearningApplicationObjectActive — K-12-profiled successor to Thin Common Cartridgehttps://www.1edtech.org/standards/cc
H5P content types (.h5p)2013Joubel (Norway) → H5P Group / communityZIP with h5p.json (metadata) + per-library library.json + content/content.json (instance); HTML5 runtimeVery active — embedded in Moodle, WordPress, Drupal, Canvas; ~50 first-party content typeshttps://h5p.org/documentation/developers/h5p-specification
EPUB 3 (Educational use)EPUB 3.0 in 2011, EPUB 3.3 W3C REC 2023IDPF (until 2017) → W3CXHTML5 + CSS + EPUB-CFI navigation; dc:type=education tagActive — baseline for digital textbooks even without EDUPUBhttps://www.w3.org/TR/epub-33/
EDUPUB Profile (EPUB for Education)2015 (IDPF Draft); transferred to 1EdTech / W3C 2017IDPF → 1EdTech EPUB for Education WG + W3C EPUB CGEPUB 3 profile with structured semantic tags for textbooks; integrates LTI for embedded interactivesLargely dormant — never reached final REC; in practice publishers use EPUB 3 + LRMIhttps://www.1edtech.org/standards/epub-education
AICC CMI / HACP1998AICC (Aviation Industry CBT Committee)HTTP-form-based runtime predating SCORM; tracked completion/score over HTTPEffectively retired; AICC dissolved 2014, transferred work to ADLhttps://adlnet.gov/research/aicc/

Tier 3 family table — Learning analytics & assessment

FormatFirst appearedOriginTypeStatus (2026)URL
xAPI 1.0.x (Tin Can API)2013 (1.0.0) → 1.0.3 (2016)ADLJSON statement (actor / verb / object / result / context) over HTTP to an LRSStable, still widely deployed; superseded by 2.0 / IEEE 9274https://github.com/adlnet/xAPI-Spec
xAPI 2.0 (IEEE 9274.1.1-2023)October 10, 2023ADL → IEEE Learning Technology Standards CommitteexAPI base spec formalised as IEEE standard; adds contextAgents, contextGroups, document concurrencyCurrent standard — first IEEE-stamped xAPI; LRS vendors certifying through 2024-2026https://standards.ieee.org/ieee/9274.1.1/7321/
cmi5 (xAPI profile)2016 (“Sandstone” first release); ADL+AICC originADL (with AICC, 2014)xAPI profile adding launch / authorization / session / course-structure semantics SCORM hadCurrent; “Quartz” working draft on the AICC-ADL repohttps://aicc.github.io/CMI-5_Spec_Current/
xAPI Profiles spec2017 (1.0 published on adlnet.github.io)ADLRDF/JSON-LD vocabulary + statement-pattern definition language; ADL Profile Server hosts a SPARQL endpointActive — IEEE p9274.2.1 working group standardising it post-xAPI-2.0https://adlnet.github.io/xapi-profiles/
IMS Caliper Analytics 1.22020 (Caliper 1.0 in 2015)IMS Global / 1EdTechJSON-LD events with explicit @context and Sensor/Envelope transmission model; triple-style actor/action/objectCurrent; competes with xAPI but smaller adoption outside higher-edhttps://www.imsglobal.org/spec/caliper/v1p2
QTI 3.0 (Question and Test Interoperability)Final Release May 11, 2022IMS Global / 1EdTechXML for assessment items + sections + tests + response processing; absorbed APIP accessibility profile; supports CAT and Portable Custom Interactions (PCI/TEI)Current; QTI 2.x still widely deployed during migrationhttps://www.imsglobal.org/spec/qti/v3p0/oview
QTI 2.22015IMS GlobalOlder XML assessment standard; predecessor to 3.0Legacy but still installed at major assessment vendors during 3.0 migrationhttps://www.imsglobal.org/question/qtiv2p2/imsqti_v2p2_oview.html

Tier 3 family table — LMS interoperability & rostering

FormatFirst appearedOriginTypeStatus (2026)URL
LTI 1.12012IMS GlobalTool launch via signed HTTP form POST + OAuth 1.0a HMAC-SHA1 shared secret; tool consumer + tool provider modelDeprecated — 1EdTech announced security-driven deprecation; sunset in progresshttps://www.imsglobal.org/spec/lti/v1p1/
LTI 1.3 + LTI Advantage2018 (1.3 Final), Advantage services 2019+IMS Global / 1EdTechOpenID Connect launch + OAuth 2 + JWT-signed messages; Advantage = Names & Role Provisioning Services (NRPS), Deep Linking 2.0, Assignment & Grade Services (AGS)Current standard for LMS↔tool integrationhttps://www.imsglobal.org/spec/lti/v1p3/
OneRoster 1.2September 2022 (1.2 Final)IMS Global / 1EdTechREST + CSV bindings for Rostering, Gradebook, Resources services; SIS↔LMS class-list and grade-pass-backCurrent; v1.1 still widely deployed in K-12https://www.1edtech.org/standards/oneroster
IMS LIS (Learning Information Services)2010IMS GlobalSOAP + REST predecessor to OneRoster; person/group/course managementLegacy — superseded by OneRosterhttps://www.imsglobal.org/lis/
SIF Specification 2.x (US/UK)2003+ (2.8 in 2014)A4L (formerly SIFA)XML pub/sub over a “Zone” infrastructure; school SIS dataWidely deployed in US/UK K-12; A4L migrating users to Unity / 3.xhttps://data.a4l.org/sif-specifications/
SIF Specification 3.x / Unity3.x infrastructure 2013+; Unity 2020+Access 4 Learning (A4L)RESTful infrastructure (SIF 3.7) + Unity object model bridging 2.8 + 3.xCurrent track; gradual migration; 2024 Joint Venture with PESC announcedhttps://a4l.org/our-history/

Tier 3 family table — Credentials & competencies

FormatFirst appearedOriginTypeStatus (2026)URL
Open Badges 1.x / 2.02011 (Mozilla) → 2.0 in 2018 (IMS)Mozilla → IMS Global / 1EdTechHosted JSON metadata + signed/baked PNG/SVG; BadgeAssertionLegacy — being phased out as 3.0 adoption rampshttps://www.imsglobal.org/spec/ob/v2p0
Open Badges 3.0Final May 29, 20241EdTechW3C Verifiable Credential (OpenBadgeCredential) with VC Data Model 2.0; cryptographic signatures replace hosted-JSON modelCurrent; flagship 1EdTech credential formathttps://www.imsglobal.org/spec/ob/v3p0
Comprehensive Learner Record (CLR) 2.020241EdTechW3C VC-based comprehensive transcript; co-developed with Open Badges 3.0; AACRAO official standardCurrent; CLR 1.0 (2018) being deprecatedhttps://www.imsglobal.org/spec/clr/v2p0
W3C Verifiable Credentials Education Profile2023+ (DCC Education profiles)W3C VC WG + Digital Credentials Consortium (MIT)VC Data Model 2.0 application profile for educational credentials; substrate under OB 3.0 + CLR 2.0Activehttps://www.w3.org/TR/vc-data-model-2.0/
CASE 1.1 (Competencies and Academic Standards Exchange)April 2, 2025 (CASE 1.0 in 2017)IMS Global / 1EdTechREST + JSON-LD for hierarchical academic-standards / competency frameworks; per-item GUIDs; CFDocument / CFItem / CFAssociationCurrenthttps://www.1edtech.org/standards/case
LRMI (Learning Resource Metadata Initiative)2011 → DCMI stewardship 2014AEP + Creative Commons → Dublin Core Metadata InitiativeSchema.org LearningResource extension vocabulary (educationalAlignment, learningResourceType, educationalUse, audience)Active as a Schema.org subset; primary OER discovery vocabularyhttps://www.dublincore.org/specifications/lrmi/

Tier 3 family table — School data standards

FormatFirst appearedOriginTypeStatus (2026)URL
Ed-Fi Data Standard 5.x5.0 launched for 2024-25 school year; 5.2 in December 2024Ed-Fi Alliance (Dell Foundation)Unifying Data Model (UDM) — relational + REST API spec for K-12 SIS / assessment / program-evaluation dataCurrent; ODS/API 7.x is the reference implementationhttps://docs.ed-fi.org/reference/data-exchange/data-standard/
CEDS (Common Education Data Standards)2010 (v1) → v9 most recentNCES (US Dept of Ed)Voluntary P-20W vocabulary — element names, definitions, option sets; not a wire format but a normalisation layer for state data warehousesCurrent; annual release cadencehttps://ceds.ed.gov/
PESC XML (College Transcript)2007+ (XML transcript standards)Postsecondary Electronic Standards CouncilXML for college transcript / academic record / course inventory; current College Transcript v1.3 + AcademicRecord v1.6 + CoreMain v1.10Active — de facto for US/Canadian electronic transcripts; 2024 A4L joint venturehttps://pesc.org/approved-standards/
EdFacts (US federal K-12 reporting)2007US Dept of EdFederal P-12 statistical reporting submission format; CEDS-alignedActive for US state-to-federal reportinghttps://www2.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/edfacts/
Vendor-proprietary content schemas (Khan Academy, Duolingo, Anki, SuperMemo)2006+ (Anki) / 2008+ (Khan) / 2011 (Duolingo)Vendor-specificEach defines its own JSON / SQLite / proto schema for items, decks, mastery models; SuperMemo’s SM-2/SM-18 algorithm is well-documented but the storage formats are not portableVendor-locked; only Anki’s .apkg (SQLite + media) has meaningful third-party toolinghttps://docs.ankiweb.net/exporting.html

Notable threads

  • SCORM’s persistent dominance is a network-effect lock-in story, not a technical one. SCORM 2004 4th Edition was finalised in 2009 — 17 years before this note — and ADL has shipped no successor. The technical limitations are well-known: a single score per SCO, complete/incomplete only, fragile JS-API discovery via findAPI, no analytics-grade event capture. Yet every authoring tool ships SCORM as the default export because every LMS still ingests it. xAPI/cmi5 was supposed to displace SCORM by 2020; in practice it has supplemented rather than replaced it, because SCORM “good enough” + universal ingest beats xAPI “more powerful” + LRS-required.

  • xAPI’s analytics promise vs adoption reality. xAPI was sold as the foundation for “learning analytics” — verb-rich statements feeding dashboards and adaptive systems. The IEEE 9274.1.1-2023 stamp finally gave it formal-standard status. But the ecosystem fragmentation problem (every vendor invents their own verbs, profiles diverge, vocabulary servers go stale) is unresolved, and the analytics use case has been partially absorbed by Caliper Analytics (in higher ed) and by vendor-specific xAPI dialects. The cmi5 profile is the practical bridge: it gives xAPI the same launch + lifecycle semantics SCORM had, which is what LMS administrators actually wanted.

  • LTI 1.3 + Advantage as the modern launch + auth standard. LTI 1.3 (2018) replaced LTI 1.1’s OAuth 1.0a HMAC-shared-secret with OpenID Connect launch + OAuth 2 client credentials + JWT-signed messages — finally bringing LMS-tool launches into the modern security web. LTI Advantage layered on Names & Role Provisioning, Deep Linking 2.0, and Assignment & Grade Services. In 2026, LTI 1.3 is the unambiguous default for new tool integrations, with 1EdTech publishing a security-driven deprecation schedule for 1.1. The interesting design move was not inventing new auth; LTI 1.3 is essentially a careful application profile of widely-implemented IETF + OIDC primitives.

  • Open Badges 3.0 + W3C VC convergence is the most significant 2024-era shift. Open Badges 1.0–2.0 used hosted JSON + cryptographically baked images, with the issuer’s host being a single point of failure for verification. Open Badges 3.0 (May 2024) re-bases the entire format on the W3C Verifiable Credentials Data Model 2.0: badges are now OpenBadgeCredential VCs signed by the issuer’s DID, holdable in any VC wallet, verifiable against the issuer key without contacting the issuing host. The same pattern applies to CLR 2.0. This pulls educational credentials into the broader DID/VC stack alongside driver’s-licence VCs, mDLs, and W3C VC-JOSE — a much richer interoperability story than the old hosted-badge ecosystem could deliver. (identity-auth-policy cross-link.)

  • The QTI 3.0 + APIP merger. QTI 2.x and APIP (Accessible Portable Item Protocol) had been parallel tracks for a decade — QTI for assessment items, APIP for the same items with embedded accessibility metadata. QTI 3.0 (Final May 2022) merged them into a single specification, native CAT (Computer Adaptive Testing) support, and Portable Custom Interactions (a sandboxed JS extension mechanism for technology-enhanced items). Migration is slow because state K-12 testing systems have multi-year procurement cycles, but new RFPs since 2023 generally specify QTI 3.0.

  • The school-data interchange world is mostly disjoint from the e-learning world. Ed-Fi, CEDS, PESC, and SIF/A4L deal with the administrative dimension (student demographics, enrollments, course catalogues, transcripts, federal reporting) and barely touch SCORM/xAPI/LTI/QTI. The 2024 PESC + A4L joint-venture announcement is a notable consolidation move, and Ed-Fi 5.x’s API-first model is gradually displacing CSV file drops in US K-12. CEDS isn’t a wire format — it’s a normalising vocabulary the others align to. This split is real and hard to bridge: the e-learning track is consortium-and-vendor driven, the school-data track is government-and-SIS-vendor driven.

  • H5P as the open-source insurgent. H5P sits outside the consortium track entirely. It’s a content-type ecosystem (~50 first-party types: Interactive Video, Course Presentation, Drag and Drop, Branching Scenario, etc.) that authors directly inside an LMS via a WordPress/Drupal/Moodle plugin. Content is portable as .h5p zips. H5P content emits xAPI statements out of the box. It is by far the dominant interactive-content format in K-12 OER, university OER initiatives, and small-to-medium training. Its weakness — a single non-profit (the H5P Group) effectively governing the spec, with few independent runtimes — is also its strength: governance overhead is low and the ecosystem moves quickly.

Citations

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