Is AICC Right For You? By Peter R Lynch, VP Technology, CRKInteractive In any endeavor that intimately involves technology acronyms abound and certainly on-line learning is no exception. If you have ever been involved in an on-line learning project, you have likely run into the term AICC.

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AICC, which stands for the Aviation Industry CBT (Computer-Based Training) Committee (www.aicc.org), is nothing more then a standardized way for a on-line course and a Learning Management System (LMS) to share information with one another. An LMS being a system (usually web based) used to enroll and track student progress and performance in on-line courses.

So, Is AICC Right For You?

The answer is yes...conditionally. Because AICC is a standardized way for LMS's and on-line courses to speak, it permits any AICC on-line course to run under any AICC compatible LMS. This is generally known as platform independence. This has two major benefits:

• Prevents LMS lock-in. Courseware can be easily moved to other AICC compatible LMS's protecting your course development investment should you need to change LMS's.
   
• 3rd party AICC courses can be easily integrated into an AICC compatible LMS. This gives you a large number of courseware vendors to choose from because most design for AICC.

Given this, AICC seems like a no brainer, so why the conditional yes?

There could be any number of circumstances where AICC might not be the best choice. Here are a few:

• Complex course tracking requirements - Even though AICC defines a rich set of tracking mechanisms, most LMS's implement only the mandatory AICC parameter tracking items necessary to comply with the standard. In most cases the mandatory tracking items are plenty but, to be sure, first define what course metrics need tracking then determine if the LMS's AICC implementation can support them.
   
• Course navigation -  AICC tracks individual items defined as an Assignable Unit or AUs. These units can be as small or large as needed but to enable tracking of these units, each one usually needs to be launch separately from the LMS. If your course design mandates a single launchable interface to access all course content, it becomes difficult to track sub items, especially if the LMS only tracks the mandatory items mentioned above. If AICC is a requirement, plan to breakout out each trackable item (usually lessons) into standalone units that can be launched and tracked separately.
   
• Browser dependencies -  For two way communication to take place between a course and an LMS, the student's browser may need to support JavaScript, Java, and/or certain Plug-ins. Most modern browsers support these technologies, but in some corporate environments, security policies disable them. When considering AICC, determine what technologies need to be supported on the student's browser before you purchase or start developing courseware.
   
• Development complexity - If you are developing you're own courseware, your first AICC implementation can be challenging. The AICC specifications document relating to courseware communication is over 300 pages long. While there do exist tools to help manage the complexity of an AICC implementation, you may need either AICC technical resources or the time to learn any AICC course development tool yourself.

A possible alternative to AICC is usually provided by LMS vendors themselves. Most LMS vendors offer courseware development tools that integrate directly into their systems. These tools usually do a credible job at helping non-technical personnel develop on-line courseware. However, if you plan to purchase or develop a significant amount of courseware, be prepared to perhaps repurchase or redevelop it should your LMS vendor ever change.

We at CRKInteractive chose to develop our courseware to the AICC specification. We felt the platform independence benefits far outweighed any other consideration. For us it was the right decision. Is it right for you? Given what you now know, hopefully it will be easier for you to determine.

About Peter Lynch

Peter Lynch is Vice President of Technology at CRKInteractive. His background includes more than 10 years experience in application development and over 5 years experience in developing technology based learning solutions. Visit CRKInteractive's Professional Services site to see how CRKInteractive can assist you in your online learning initiatives. 

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