Nowadays learning objects are considered educational resources that can be employed to support learning. Combining these digital pieces of knowledge to design and develop online course is still a challenge. Some issues come from the heterogeneity of platforms, standards and instructional design it becomes difficult the maintenance, the access and the interoperability of learning objects. This work proposes to specify learning objects in terms of web services in order to mitigate these issues. The current proposal is intended to help in the maintenance and interoperability of learning objects from different sources, repositories and learning management systems. A case study presents a performance of current approach.

1. Vossen G. and Westerkamp P. 2003. E-Learning as a Web Service, Proceedings of the Seventh International Database Engineering and Applications Symposium (IDEAS'03), pp.242-247
2. Otón-Tortosa S., Ortiz-Baíllo A and Hilera-González J. 2007. “SROA: Sistema de Reutilización de Objetos de Aprendizaje”, IE comunicaciones, Revista Iberoamericana de Informática Educativa, No 5, 7, pp 7-22,
3. Ortiz-Baíllo, A., Otón-Tortosa S., Barchino-Plata R. 2005. Learning Objects Universal Publishing and Location Architecture using Web Services, Proceedings of the 1st Iberoamerican Congress on Ubiquitous Computing, Alcalá de Henares, Madrid (Spain), Edited by José R. Hilera González et al.
4. Canales-Cruz A. 2007. “Un Modelo Semiformal para el Desarrollo de Software Educativo”, Phd thesis, Instituto Politecnico Nacional, Mexico City, Mexico.
5. Moral M. and Cernea D. 2005. “Diseñando Objetos de Aprendizaje como facilitadores de la construcción del conocimiento”, II Simposio Pluridisciplinar sobre Diseño, Evaluación y Descripción de Contenidos Educativos Reutilizables (SPDECE), Barcelona
6. Solis-Moreno I. 2001. “Sistema de Búsqueda y Selección de Servicios Web”, Tesis de maestría del Cenidet, Asesorada por Fragoso O. y Santaolaya R.
7. Muñoz-Arteaga J., Alvarez-Rodriguez F. and Chan-Nuñez M. 2008. “Tecnología de objetos de Aprendizaje”, Editorial Universidad Autónoma de Aguasca-lientes, ISBN 978-970-728-067-0, pp 374
8. Muñoz-Arteaga J., Ochoa X., Calvillo-Moreno E. and Parra G. 2007. “Integración de REDOUAA a la Federación Latinoamericana de Repositorios de Objetos de Aprendizaje”, Proceeding of 2da. Conferencia Latinoamericana de Objetos de Aprendizaje, Santiago de Chile.
9. World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Services Description Language (WSDL), Available online at http://www.w3.org/TR/wsdl
10. ADL, Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM), visted date: May 1, 2011, http://www.adlnet.gov/Technologies/scorm/default.aspx
11. World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), Available online at http://www.w3.org/TR/SOAP/
12. IMS Group Management Services WSDL Binding. (2004), Available online at http://www.imsglobal.org
13. World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), “eXtensible Markup Language (XML)”. Available online at http://www.w3.org/XML
14. Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UD-DI). Available online at http://www.uddi.org
15. IEEE Standards Department, 2002. Draft Standard for Learning Object IEEE Publications P1484.12.1/D6.4,
16. Newcomer, E. 2002. Understanding Web Service: XML, WSDL, SOAP and UDDI, Addison Wesley
17. Dougiamas, M. and Taylor, P.C. 2003. Moodle: Using Learning Communities to Create an Open Source Course Management System. In: Proc. of the World Conference on Educational Multimedia Hypermedia & Telecommunication ED-MEDIA’03, Honolulu, AACE Press, pp. 171–178.
18. Smith-Nash S. 2005. Learning Objects, Learning Object Repositories, and Learning Theory : Preliminary Best Practices for Online Courses, Interdisciplinary Journal of Knowledge and Learning Objects. Volume 1,
19. Sánchez-Alonso, S., Soto, J. and Sicilia, M.A. 2008. Designing Flexible Learning Object Repositories: Balancing Flexibility and Delegation in Ontological Characterizations. In Harman, K. and Koohan, A. (Eds.), Learning Objects: standards, metadata, repositories, & LCMs (pp. 221-253). Santa Rosa, California: Informing Science press. Heras S., Rebollo M., Julián , Arguing About Recommendations in Social Networks, pp. 314-317.
20. Wiley D. 2000. A Connecting learning objects to instructional design theory: A definition, a metaphor, and a taxonomy. In D.A. Wiley (Ed.).
21. González Calleros, J.M., Guerrero García, J.,Muñoz Arteaga, J.,Vanderdonckt, J., Martínez-Ruiz, J., Method for Generating Multiplatform User Interfaces for E-Learning Environments, in T.-T. Goh (ed.), “Multiplatform E-Learning Systems and Technologies: Mobile Devices for Ubiquitous ICT-Based Education », IGI Global Inc., Hershey, 2009, pp. 90-111.

Learning objects repositories web services WSDL metadata