The limited interoperability of higher educational software and content is a matter of serious, ongoing concern. Many valuable educational resources remain stove-piped to the context in which they've been created. Collectively, the resources are a box of parts, rather than an integrated ecosystem supporting learning, teaching and research.

Various approaches to achieving greater interoperability and re-usability are known and available, but no approach has proved to be a magic bullet. Among the available approaches are the Open Service Interface Definitions (OSIDs?), developed by the MIT-led Open Knowledge Initiative (OKI). Unlike many interoperability standards and tools, the OSIDs? are intended specifically to address interoperability of educational resources; however, their adoption has not been as rapid or as universal as their original sponsors hoped it would be.

In January 2007, Ithaka and MIT worked on an interoperability study, funded by Ithaka, at the request of the Mellon Foundation, to determine the viability of using the OKI OSIDs? as an approach to achieve greater interoperability within the Mellon Foundation supported projects. This report is the result of interviewing the people directly involved with those projects to obtain their views on achieving interoperability, asking them whether they believe the OKI OSIDs? can be utilized to achieve it, and if so, asking them how best to accomplish that objective.