Standards

National and international standardisation

National and international standardisation give learning providers, software vendors, publishers and others the confidence that XCRI-CAP will remain the UK's eProspectus standard for many years. It will be used by an increasing proportion of organisations that create, maintain and publish course marketing information.

UK standard

XCRI-CAP version 1.1 was endorsed in January 2009 by the UK's Information Standards Board (ISB) as the UK's eProspectus standard. The ISB is part of the Department For Education and is the official authority for information and data standards in education, skills and children’s services.

The UK Government has identified interoperability and the use of common data standards as a major method of improving the delivery of services in the education and training sector. The Department of Children, Schools and Families (DCSF, now the DFE) recommended the use of XCRI-CAP in the development of Area Wide Prospectuses and local Common Application Processes for courses offered in the 14-19 years sector.

XCRI-CAP is currently being implemented by major national authorities that collect courses information, such as UCAS and the Skills Funding Agency’s Courses Directory service.

The XCRI-CAP Roadmap

It is intended that XCRI-CAP will be governed by an appropriate UK national authority, for example the British Standards Institution (BSI).  The Roadmap below shows how XCRI-CAP may develop over the years.

European standard

A European standard called 'Metadata for Learning Opportunities - Advertising' (MLO-AD) was approved early in 2011 and has been strongly influenced by XCRI-CAP. XCRI-CAP version 1.2 conforms to the requirements of the MLO-AD European Norm.