Provision of distance learning services over Interactive Digital TV with MHP

E-learning technologies have developed greatly in recent years, with considerable success. However, there is increasing evidence that web-based learning is not reaching the social sectors which are more reluctant to contact with the new technologies, thus leading to inequalities in the access to education and knowledge in the Information Society. By hiding the intricacies of computers behind the familiarity of household equipment, Interactive Digital TV (IDTV) is considered to play a key role in addressing this problem, and the term t-learning has been recently coined to mean TV-based interactive learning.Despite several approaches to t-learning have been proposed, works are missing that conceive it as a whole, delimit its scope in comparison with web-based learning and analyze the influence of the normalization of IDTV as a services platform. This paper addresses these issues, and introduces a framework for the development and deployment of t-learning services that promotes interoperability and reuse while taking into account the characteristic features of the IDTV medium.