learnability matters

We often face many issues with LMS and SCORM packaging as we program for different types of LMS. This article will help e-learning course providers understand SCORM and LMS in detail and why the SCORM issues pop up.

What is an LMS
LMS is a suite of functionality designed to deliver, track report on, and manage learning content and learner progress and interactions. Most LMS are web-based to facilitate “anytime, anywhere” access to learning content and administration.

Let’s look at the advantage of an LMS over a normal web server. LMS allows:

1. Richer and reliable interaction between the student and administrator.
2. Instructor/admin to track progress of each student, time taken, score assessment scores and so on.
3. Delivery of several courses and content.

Customized LMS
As organizations realized the need for an LMS, they started building LMS for their organizations according to their needs and likes. These LMS are called customized LMS. They are unique to an organization and have a specific set of functionalities and design possibilities.
The main drawback of customized LMS is that the content must be specifically designed to fit with in a particular LMS in order to work properly. Therefore, if you develop a course for an LMS called X it may not compatible for LMS Y.
To overcome the troubles of having customized LMS, experts started thinking about a set of standards that when followed would ensure that the courses will be compatible to anyAdvanced Distributed Learning Initiative (ADL) introduced SCORM(Sharable Content Object Reference Model), which is a collection of standards and specifications for web-based e-learning. It defines communications between content and LMS. SCORM also defines how content can be packaged into a transferable ZIP file.
A SCORM is a competitive edge conformance that helps the user to:

• use standardized packages of learning content.
• recognize individual students and collect info about their progress.
• make use of meta data

So now, your LMS can offer different feature sets, have different strengths, and be very different in look and. If you follow standards set by SCORM, the courses work pretty well.The goal of SCORM is to enable interoperability, accessibility, affordability, durability and reusability of web-based learning content.The latest SCORM version is SCORM 2004 (1.3). The older versions of SCORM are SCORM 1.0, SCORM 1.1, and SCORM 1.2.

SCORM Content packages

A SCORM content package is a self-contained ZIP file containing certain contents defined by the SCORM standard.
Content Package must contain:

1. XML manifest file (imsmanifest.xml)
2. All schema/definition (.xsd and .dtd) files referenced by the manifest file
3. All resource files used by the content package and its learning activities

SCORM content packages contain an XML manifest file that describes the package and its contents. The name of the manifest file is always imsmanifest.xml and it must appear in the root of the content package.

Manifest file must contain:

1. Unique identifier
2. Minimal metadata describing the package and its SCORM version
3. One or more resource definitions listing all files required to launch and deliver each resource
4. One or more organizations of learning activities

The other optional contents of manifest file:

• Sequencing information for organizations
• More metadata for the content package, resources, and organizations

Basic structure of imsmanifest.xml:

SCORM Resources

In SCORM, a content object is just an HTML page or document that can be viewed with a web browser (can be designed using any technology such as flash, javascript, and so on).However, resources can not be pages that require a server-side engine to process, such as ASP, PHP, or JSP pages. Resources are of two types Assets and Shareable Content Objects

Resource files and dependencies:

Consider the launch file of your learning material that is an HTML page that embeds a Flash SWF file and images and refers to a style sheet also. This learning objective should be registered as a resource in the manifest file. All the files of the learning object, including the HTML page, the Flash object, and its images, style sheet are the resource files. A resource may also reference another resource as a dependency (For example the SWF calls another SWF).

Every learning object file in your content package listed as a resource or resource file. The .xsd and .dtd files, used to validate the manifest and metadata files, need not be listed as resources.
Sample of resource structure:

<resources>

<resource id=”RES-001″ type=”webcontent” adlcp:scormType=”sco” href=”launch.html”> <file href=”shell.html”/>

<file href=”apiWrapper.js”/>

<dependency identifierref=”RES-002″/>

</resource>

<!– A collection of dependency files (no href). –> <resource id=”RES-002″ type=”webcontent” adlcp:scormType=”asset”> <file href=”logo.gif”/> <file href=”style.css”/> <file href=”screen.swf”/> </resource>

</resources>

SCORM Organizations:

An <organization> element is the root of an activity tree. Each organization has a sub-element <title>, the content of which is the learning module’s title.

Sample of organization structure:

<organizations default=”ORG-001″>

<organization identifier=”ORG-001″ structure=”hierarchical”>

<title>Test File</title>

<item identifier=”File-001″ identifierref=”RES-001″>

<title>Test 001</title> </item>

<item identifier=”ACT-002″ identifierref=”RES-002″> <title>Test 002</title> </item>

</organization> </organizations>

Shareable Content Object

A Shareable Content Object (SCO) is a launchable learning object (resource) that communicates with the run-time environment that launched it. A SCO must be designed so that it can be launched in a standalone web window or in a frame in an HTML frameset.

2) Schema/definition files: The files with extension xsd and .dtd are for validating the XML manifest file. These files describe the manifest format and must also appear in the root of the content package.

SCORM Conformance - Checklist:

How will you ensure that your e-learning content is SCORM conformant?

1) While developing the e-Learning content, ensure the SCORM compatibility requirements by ensuring that the content:

• Can be delivered via a web browser
• Is packaged with all files and dependencies in a ZIP file
• Does not depend on server-side scripting languages
• Does not depend on external files

2) Organize all content files and dependencies into a single directory structure.

3) Define and describe the content using an imsmanifest XML file as described by SCORM.

4) Make sure that the imsmanifest lists all necessary information to run the content.

5) Package all the content and necessary files into a ZIP file.

6) Ensure that when you extract the package, XML manifest is placed in the root directory.

(Note: Instead of zipping the entire folder with the course related files, select all files and then ZIP.)

7) Download test suit from ADL website and test your package for SCORM compatibility.

References:

• Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL)
• IMS Global Learning

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