ISO/IEC PRF TR 23843

TECHNICAL ISO/IEC TR
REPORT 23843
First edition
Information technology for learning,
education and training — Catalogue
model for virtual, augmented and
mixed reality content
PROOF/ÉPREUVE
Reference number
ISO/IEC TR 23843:2020(E)
ISO/IEC 2020
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ISO/IEC TR 23843:2020(E)
COPYRIGHT PROTECTED DOCUMENT
© ISO/IEC 2020

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Foreword ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................iv

Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................v

1 Scope ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 1

2 Normative references ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 1

3 Terms and definitions ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 1

4 Abbreviated terms .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 2

5 Background ................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 2

5.1 Metadata for digital content ........................................................................................................................................................ 2

5.2 Characteristics of VR/AR/MR content ............................................................................................................................... 2

5.3 Actors and roles ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 3

5.4 Video games as the reference model .................................................................................................................................... 4

5.5 Application of game metadata ................................................................................................................................................... 4

6 Catalogue model for VR/AR/MR content .................................................................................................................................... 6

6.1 ADDIE model ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 6

6.1.1 General...................................................................................................................................................................................... 6

6.1.2 Analyse ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 6

6.1.3 Design ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 7

6.1.4 Develop..................................................................................................................................................................................... 7

6.1.5 Implement ............................................................................................................................................................................. 7

6.1.6 Evaluate ................................................................................................................................................................................... 7

6.2 Requirements for the catalogue model .............................................................................................................................. 8

6.2.1 General...................................................................................................................................................................................... 8

6.2.2 Content entity ..................................................................................................................................................................... 8

6.2.3 Platform entity ................................................................................................................................................................... 9

6.2.4 Local release entity .....................................................................................................................................................10

6.2.5 Distribution package entity .................................................................................................................................11

6.2.6 Additional content entity .......................................................................................................................................11

6.2.7 Agent entity .......................................................................................................................................................................12

Annex A (informative) Related metadata models ................................................................................................................................13

Bibliography .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................21

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Any feedback or questions on this document should be directed to the user’s national standards body. A

Effective use of the characteristics of virtual, augmented and mixed reality (VR, AR and MR,

respectively) content in education has growing importance. There are increasing numbers of VR/

AR/MR educational resources and there are also VR/AR/MR resources that have been aligned with

curriculum documents. One of the main challenges is to search for and find content that is appropriate

for the curriculum. However, lack of adequate description of such characteristics in a standard way

This document describes a catalogue model for virtual, augmented and mixed reality content that can

be linked to curriculum and achievement standards information. The curriculum catalogue metadata is

designed to support search and retrieval of VR/AR/MR content in activities in education.

— comparing and identifying VR/AR/MR content for review to determine relevance to the curriculum.

— exploring and reviewing content to determine relevance and potential usefulness of content

— providing support for feedback regarding performance, technical configuration (e.g. platform,

infrastructure), accessibility/usability information, and other improvements needed.

This document provides related catalogue models and specific elements of the catalogue model to use

VR/AR/MR content for activities in education. However, specification of the catalogue model using the

This document describes how to search for virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed

reality (MR) content through a curriculum catalogue based on curriculum and achievement standards

information. The curriculum catalogue metadata is defined in order to search for educational VR and

ISO and IEC maintain terminological databases for use in standardization at the following addresses:

formally structured statement describing learning outcomes aligned to specific topics or units of

Note 1 to entry: Virtual reality has a high level of immersiveness, fidelity of information representation, and

Note 1 to entry: Virtual and real-world objects co-exist in augmented reality systems.

display continuum in which both real and virtual images are combined in some way and in some

Note 1 to entry: Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are considered to be on the mixed reality

Metadata, as data that provides information about other data, can describe all sorts of digital content

such as audio files, pictures, videos, games and learning resources. Metadata can be applied to not only

a digital object but also groups of related objects or collections of items so that they can be managed

and organized for users to better discover, evaluate, retrieve, use and share the content as needed.

Application of metadata is controlled by use of schemas consisting of defined fields for specific types

of information, and thus a metadata scheme provides a consistent and interoperable way to manage

the lifecycle of metadata by specific communities and sectors. Annex A describes related metadata

schemes for digital content for reference purposes: the ISO/IEC 23005 series for technical metadata

(MPEG-V, described in Reference [17]), metadata encoding and transmission standard (METS) for

the library sector, VRA Core for the cultural heritage sector, CRMdig for a provenance metadata,

and video game metadata schema (VGMS) for descriptive and discovery metadata. The various types

of metadata and different metadata schemes can be combined to support diverse requirements.

In order to use learning content through technologies to support LET, it is necessary to be able to

search and read learning content information. This requires metadata that enables the interoperability

of educational content and the ability to perform comparisons and searches between LET content. The

ISO/IEC 19788 series provides an extensible approach that can be used to support these efforts, and

VR, AR or MR technology are increasingly applied to create content in various domains including

learning, education and training. However, the existing standards are insufficient to describe learning

content that uses VR/AR/MR technologies. This is due to characteristics of the bi-directional interaction

inherent in VR/AR/MR technology and requirements emerging from the utilization of new types of

media devices. In VR/AR/MR content, the users interact with content directly using their heads and

hands and receive the visual and auditory information back through VR/AR/MR devices such as the

headset. The VR headset provides a larger field of view than monitors do, and thus the actions become

VR/AR/MR content relies heavily on interactions with users in contrast to one-way delivery of content

in non-VR/AR/MR contexts. The interactions might involve not only interaction with content but also

with other users connected to the network. Approaches and methods outlined in the ISO/IEC 19788

series can be extended to support the diverse interactions, properties and effective use of VR/AR/MR

content. Especially, VR/AR/MR content depends on the visual and auditory devices and movement

tracking sensors. The content through digital media can be influenced by the hardware performance

and configurations like resolution or eye-tracking function. Therefore, additional properties that

consider these characteristics need to be incorporated in the metadata of VR/AR/MR-based educational

In order to identify required metadata for VR/AR/MR content in LET, a thorough collection and analysis

of use-cases is required. This document begins by identifying related stakeholders not included in the

traditional metadata and defining relationships among them. Such stakeholders are modelled as actors

as shown in Figure 1. Each actor is represented by a circle, with arrows showing the message that are

passed to the actor through the interaction. Learners, teachers or curriculum developers could belong

to an institute, and thus interactions with those actors can be indirect through the institution as shown

Requirements for metadata for learning resources in online contexts prior to VR/AR/MR technologies

considered the content provider and curriculum developer. However, in VR/AR/MR contexts, the role

of device vendor is to provide devices with required performance for VR/AR/MR content. Device

performance metadata can be used not only for learners or teachers to select learning content in a

learning environment, but also for a content provider to develop content. Note that such characteristics

are similar to the ecosystem of other multimedia content, such as MP3s, in which the content's

producers and consumers, players and applications play parts. In addition, if MP3s are considered as

an example, there are various metadata used to support the retrieval and data interoperability of audio

content. ISO 16684-1 specifies the creation, processing and interchange of standardized and custom

metadata for digital documents and data sets. XMP standardizes a data model, a serialization format

and core properties for the definition and processing of extensible metadata. It also provides guidelines

for embedding XMP information into popular image, video and document file formats, such as MPEG4.

ID3 is a de facto standard that is used as a metadata container that is often used in conjunction

with the MP3 audio file format. It allows the title, artist, album, track number and other information

about the file to be stored in the file itself. ID3 is used for interoperability such as album information

to which an audio file belongs, content image information such as linked image, copyright, content

characteristic information such as compression method or encryption method, file type, key position

for synchronizing with lyrics, recommended buffer size information, etc. This information is considered

not only the consumer's use-case for search and playing audio files, but also the interoperability

aspects for providing an optimized content playback environment for the audio player application. The

MP3 example demonstrates that different types of metadata can be used for each type of content. This

means that an VR/AR/MR catalogue model needs to support a variety of different types of content as

As noted earlier, VR/AR/MR content has different aspects in that users and media interact in both

directions, unlike the various multimedia content. This means that users need to consider additional

types of interactions with content, and the closest form of media that can be referred to is the video

game. Video games use complex multimedia formats that include both music, video and narrative to

Information School in University of Washington has made efforts to define a metadata schema for games

and released the video game metadata schema (VGMS) Version 4.0 in 2017. VGMS has been developed

to advance the cataloguing and classification of digital games as cultural artefacts and support the use

of games in education and science. This metadata schema defines not only the information above, but

also various types of items that can be included in other media such as networked feature, connectivity,

Our approach is to adopt VGMS as the basis of the metadata for VR/AR/MR content and then to evaluate

the applicability of the game metadata in terms of the actions identified above. Our preliminary effort is

to identify the relevance of the VGMS properties to the actors of VR/AR/MR content. Table 1 lists VGMS

properties in categories and associates the relevance to the actors of VR/AR/MR content.

In order to use content from VR/AR/MR technology in LET, there should be plenty of information

available to browse. Furthermore, it is necessary to be able to express various data generated in the

process of producing learning content. To achieve this, the data generated in the lifecycle of the learning

content is analysed based on the ADDIE model and the properties of the catalogue model are defined.

The ADDIE model is a methodology for the creation of training materials in the learning content. It is

applicable in any type of an organization and provides a means for sound decision making in order to

This model consists of 5 phases: analyse, design, develop, implement, evaluate. Figure 2 illustrates the

Analyse is the first phase to producing learning content. Analysis targets are configured learners,

The learner is determined, which the learning content will target. The characteristics shared by

potential learners, such as their age, gender, social and economic status and experience should

be analysed. Learning goal analysis is a process of determining what knowledge to convey through

learning content, and how to evaluate it after learning is completed – this should also be clearly

expressed. The constraints consider physical and organizational constraints that can occur depending

on the environment in which the learning content is consumed. The technical requirements consider

the learning environment that the learner should configure, such as the software and devices needed

to use the learning content. The knowledge source considers the source of the material used to produce

Design is the phase of creating the basic structure of learning content. It determines the brief concept

of learning content and creates various documents necessary for actual development. The decisions to

be made during the design process consist of three parts: deciding the format of the course; developing

educational strategy; and evaluating the result. The course format is a method of imparting knowledge

to learners. The most efficient teaching method should be selected based on the learner's information

The educational strategy means class activities to help learners understand class, such as discussion,

testing and lecture. These class activities consist of four stages: preliminary activity; presentation of

material; practice; and post-activity. Preliminary activity motivates learners by understanding their

goals and explaining the benefits they can gain. Presentation of material conveys knowledge to learners

through various materials and examples. Practice presents problems and provides appropriate

feedback so that learners can practice what they have learned. Post-activity is the process of discussing

learning outcomes after an activity has been completed, allowing the learner to remember it or to ask

The result evaluation method is a method for evaluating whether or not the specified goal of the

learning content has been achieved. If the goal of content is simple knowledge transfer, the evaluation

method should be multiple choice questions. However, if the goal is to teach the skill to the learner, they

The development phase is the process of developing content based on the decisions made through

analysis and design. It consists of three parts: creating a prototype; developing the course; and

The prototype should be able to show the learner a rough view of the learning content. After

demonstrating a prototype to managerial decision-makers or clients, full-scale development of learning

content begins. In developing the course, the following points should be considered constantly: 1)

knowledge within the learning content should be provided in logical order; 2) the final learning

goals should be kept in mind. The developed learning content should satisfy the quality assurance

through various tests. A typical test method is that a learner performs content directly. Through this,

it is necessary to repeat the process of measuring the learning time, goal achievement and so on and

The performance phase is a key phase in the ADDIE model, where learners perform learning through

learning content. It consists of three parts: training the instructors; preparing the learners; and

The instructor should know the information related to the learning content and confirm it before

performing the education. The information that the instructor should understand is the learning goals,

learning activities, media content of learning content, and evaluation methods. The learner needs the

basic knowledge necessary for the learning. Typically, the learner should use the program used in the

learning process, how to use the learning tool, and prior knowledge. If there is a lack of such knowledge,

preliminary training should be carried out to satisfy them. Finally, a learning environment such as

identification of software and equipment needed for learning content should be prepared.

The evaluation phase is a process of evaluating the learning content and all the results that occur during

the learning process. The evaluation consists of formative evaluation and summative evaluation.