If your organization is exploring the use of a Learning Management System (LMS) to manage your corporate eLearning program, you may be hearing about the various technical standards in the eLearning marketplace, including AICC. While learning standards can be a factor in your LMS choice, it is important to understand the differences and value of each so that you can make an informed decision and choose a platform that will provide your organizations with the features you need over both the short and long-term.

​

The Importance of Technology Standards in eLearning

eLearning standards refer to a set of common rules that are adhered to for content, authoring tools and LMSs. These standards are established to provide industry participants with guidelines to ensure that eLearning content can be easily deployed across various platforms, while ensuring interoperability across devices.

​

There are two primary types of eLearning standards.

​

Courseware Design:  Refers to the various characteristics of course design and development

​

Technical:  Refers to the deployment of courses on LMSs or some other type of portal

​

The Origins of the AICC Technical Standard

Technical standards are designed to support the interoperability and portability of eLearning courses across platforms, browsers, and devices. Of these standards, the three most commonly used are AICC, SCORM, and WCAG.

​

The name “AICC” refers to the group responsible for its creation: the Aviation Industry Computer-Based Training Committee. AICC was formed in 1988 by various companies, including Boeing, Airbus, and McDonnell Douglas with the goal of standardizing the materials and technology used in the training of airline workers. However, the specifications established by the AICC eventually reached far beyond the aviation industry and into corporate training. This expansion made AICC the first true eLearning standard ever established.

​

AICC utilizes HTML forms and simple text strings for the transmission of information between the course content and the LMS. Industry experts have long cited security and flexibility among the primary benefits of using AICC. On the downside however, AICC does not support the tracking of course progress.

​

The Current Status of AICC

Despite its age, AICC remains the second most widely used technical standard in corporate training (behind SCORM).  In 2014 though, the AICC chose to dissolve due to its declining membership. But AICC did pave the way for the standardization and interoperability of eLearning content. As an organization AICC created and maintained a learning technology framework that was later built upon by both SCORM and xAPI.

 

About LMS Portals

LMS Portals offers a cloud-based, multi-tenant learning management system that allows our clients and partners to launch and manage multiple customized eLearning environments to support their various training audiences. With LMS Portals, you can build new eLearning environments on-demand, and each portal you launch can have its own branding, user onboarding, learning paths, collaboration tools, analytics, and more.

​

Contact us to learn more or visit our Partner pages