The Learning Registry is a joint effort of the Department of Education and the Department of Defense, with support of the White House and numerous federal agencies, non-profit organizations, international organizations and private companies.

This effort, begun in 2010, is creating a set of technical protocols as a platform for innovation by content authors and aggregators. Applications built to harness the power of harvesting and analyzing the Learning Registry data will allow educators to quickly find content specific to their unique needs. The Learning Registry will store more than traditional descriptive data (metadata)--it will also allow sharing of ratings, comments, downloads, standards alignment, etc.

This effort has been driven by a call for increased openness, sharing and use of digital learning resources as described in both the National Education Technology Plan and National Broadband Plan. The specifications have been developed to support learning organizations from across all education sectors.

Importantly, the Learning Registry is not a specific destination, portal or engine that educators will “go to”.  Rather, it is an open technology framework to which any content creator can publish, and any technology vendor (e.g. learning management system, content aggregators, or application developers) can leverage for their applications.

The Learning Registry beta release has been developed by a team funded by the Department of Education and ADL: SRI International, Lockheed Martin, National Science Digital Library (NSDL), Navigation North, and Butte County Office of Education/CADRE.