Towards normalization in e-learning for collaborative work environments

Contemporary approaches on information and communication technologies and their implication on knowledge domains reveal needs to improve our manners for treating information. The possibilities of XML technologies and hypermedia allow the development of new systems to distribute knowledge in local or global fashion. This perspective enhances the role of authors who have now access to open channels for sharing and working with other authors. This paper presents an exploration of digital documents in the educational field and its implications within common problematic such as normalization, modeling, sharing and reuse, with the intention to present an integration of two software applications developed at the Paragraphe Laboratory of the University of Paris VIII: ICRS and HTT Online. Taking into account the works lead by W3C, IEEE, and IMS Global, our study aims to link the robustness of XML technologies with the support of collaborative work strategies in distance learning environments where Learning Objects and Content Packages seem to become the common currency between universities and educational institutions.