My Quest for SCORM Compliance

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What is SCORM

Sharable Content Object Reference Model, that's what SCORM stands for, but what does it mean? Well if you want an in depth explanation you will want to explore some websites. I have found the best explanation, for those that are patient enough to go through this entire site one button at a time located here. For the purposes of understanding my motivations to learn SCORM, it is enough to know that when I make my programs (learning objects really) SCORM compliant I will be able to give them to anyone that uses a SCORM compliant learning system, such as Angel, WebCT, and Blackboard and they will be able to put one of my learning objects into their course and have it automatically record data from the object most notably the score that a student achieves while using the object into their course gradebook.

The kind of programs I am making are often called learning objects. A learning object is simply a small program that addresses a single objective or small set of related objectives. When a learning object is SCORM compliant, it is called a SCO (Sharable Content Object). Thus what I am really saying here is that I want to make SCO's.

Why I Want To Achieve SCORM Compliance

I have made many learning objects already and I have many plans to make more and to improve the one's that I have already made. If you would like to see a sample of my work, you can visit lsquaredmath.us. My students have used these objects and I have gotten postive feedback from them and from other instructors that have worked with them. So why do I need to take time away from developing these objects to learn how to make them SCORM compliant? In a nutshell, the answer is to make the learning objects more usable in a larger variety of situations and someday to make them marketable.

Anyone can search the internet and find a large variety of interactive programs that they might want to put into a course in which they are teaching, but if you have no way of tracking your students use of these programs, then the programs simply become an extra item that you refer your students to as something that might be helpful. If you really want your students to use the program then you need to make it part of their grade and it is difficult to grade something that you can't track. With a traditional face to face class, I can track my students use in the classroom by having them show me the results of their use, but if I want my students to use the program outside of class, then they have to either print their results and bring me the printout or their needs to be a way of recording their results. When I teach an online course, it becomes impractical for my students to show me printed results. Thus, I really need the results to be recorded in a secure place that only I have access to. Hence the desire for SCORM compliance.

Challenges in Achieving SCORM Compliance

It seems like if the standards are already set, that it should be simple to just follow those standards and turn a program that already has assessment features built in, into a SCORM compliant program that can send the assessment score to an LMS (Learning Managment System) such as Angel. The problem is nobody has written a clear set of instructions for a developer such as myself, with limited knowledge outside of how to write programs, to turn learning objects into SCOs. I have a book on how to use Adobe (used to be Macromedia) Flash's built in templates and another book that is not specific to a particular programming language. The first book doesn't go into depth for developers whose programs would not fit well with a template. Both books have references that you need to go to outside of the book to get details on how to do various steps in the process. I might have all of the information that I need between these two books and their references. It is hard to tell as I am still working through all of the information.

To start with, I just want to be able to record a score. One little piece of data that I am trying to send from the program to the LMS. I have to wade through a lot of information just to do that one little thing, and I am sure that I will keep at it until the task is accomplished as long as I am of sound mind and body to do so. Once I get this figured out, I think I should write my own pamplet, "SCORM Compliance Basics for Learning Object Developers". I say pamplet instead of book because I believe it should be that simple. If not, maybe I will write the book. Writing books is not really the line of work that I want to go into, but I need this book and there are probably others out there that need it too.

Future Plans Towards SCORM Compliance

Just in case, I don't achieve SCORM Compliance with the resources that I already have, I am saving my money and planning on going to SCORM School at the end of this semester. The school has recommended prerequisites of familiarity with JavaScript and XML, so I should probably study ahead and try to finish the semesters assignments early, so that I have time to go into more depth on those two topics.