Thinking about SCORM

People have interpreted SCORM for more than what it can do. The
underlying assumption regarding SCORM seems to be that you are using an
LCMS and that you want to do output-side reuse (rearranging existing
compiled content rather than recompiling the course). Frankly, this
will not work. How many times do you take printed documents (especially
with each line already numbered) and physically cut/paste them to create
a new document? Taking the built course modules and trying to cut/paste
them into a new course is exactly the same process.

Reusability works when you can create a new document based on previous
assets. I am using the word "assets" because this is the SCORM term
used in SCORM 2004. I think the "asset" idea for sharing is much more
sensible than the SCO idea. There are assets that you may want to use
among several SCOs (e.g. a multi-page glossary, a page of FAQs, a single
graphic). This concept was missing from SCORM 1.2. Reuse among courses
should generally be done at the asset level, rather than at the SCO level.

The tool I work with (ReadyGo) is designed so that you can easily re-use
a sub-page, a page, a chapter, an entire course, a FAQ page, an
individual test question, a look-and-feel template, a glossary, a
certificate template, a tracking configuration, etc. Notice that
"look-and-feel" and "tracking configuration" can and should be re-usable
and transferable independently of the content. While not technically
"content", the content would be un-usable (or just basic text) without
them, and they should be viewed as components of the course equivalent
to text or individual graphics.

The re-use process consists of selecting of copy/pasting from one course
to another within the authoring tool from the outline view (or as
Christie mentioned, from the TOC). Then, you regenerate the course,
thereby creating content with a consistent look and feel, consistent
page numbering, a new table-of-contents, etc. (In ReadyGo, the
appearance is generally separate from the content, thereby allowing much
greater re-use.) With an LCMS approach, re-use consists of rearranging
components that are already built, possibly using different authoring
tools, different appearances, etc. This can easily result in disjointed
"ransom note" courses.

The SCORM philosophy will work best if we go back to its original
purpose which was to ensure that you could re-use existing (compiled)
content from one LMS to another; not from one COURSE to another, or from
one authoring tool to another. Right now they are caught between trying
to ensure that a course will work well on any LMS (therefore, it pretty
much has to be static) and the Web 2.0 concepts of content aggregation
in real time from multiple sources (thereby breaking LMS-independence)
Note that the LCMS approach may even be negative - can you move your content from one LCMS to another, or to another LMS, even as already-built SCORM modules?

People are much more efficient when they use input-side reusability
(prior to generating/printing - as exemplified by desktop applications)
rather than output-side (LCMS SCO reuse/physical paper cut/paste).
Otherwise, we'd see a lot more adoption of server-based presentation
(equivalent to MS-PPT), document (equivalent to MS-Word), spreadsheet
(equivalent to MS-Excel), project tracking (equivalent to MS-Project)
tools with output-side reusability.

Outsource vs in-house

Since the dawn of Data Centers IT managers have wrestled with the question: Should I bring the application in house or should I pay monthly fees for someone else to manage it. This age old problem is even more important then ever. Software companies have embraced managing software for their customers. In the old days this was called "timesharing" today it may be called SOA (Software as a Service), Hosted Solution, or Application Service.

• Outsourced/Service: The advantage of this approach is less setup. Disadvantages include potentially high total cost (if done on a per-user basis), limited access to result data and potential lack of security (because data is hosted on someone else's server).



• In-House Hosted:Advantages include a fixed software price, more control over look and feel, and "total control" over result data. More setup is required with this approach but the process is faster because the author does not need to do everything through a browser.

New technolgies and eLearning

New technolgies represent a very powerful way of doing things. A good application that shows the power is Google suggest. "As you type, the browser goes back to 'Google' and gives you suggestions as to what is available to fill in."

The main problem with new technologies found in Web 2.0, is that they are solutions in search of a problem to solve. "The SOAP/AJAX technology solves the problem that if someone fills in a blank on a form, you may want to give him feedback (from a remote server) without reloading the entire Web page. Basically, it lets just one part of the form be updated based on information that is retrieved from a server in real-time. This is only really needed if you can't incorporate the information into the Web page when it is being delivered to the student. So, you could create a single page, for example, that gives results from various search engines as the user inputs information into one field."

The biggest downsides are ...

• In order to develop content that uses this, you need to be a "power programmer." You need to be able to code the Web pages to use the AJAX approach (basically, each piece of your Web page can go off to a different server and ask for information when the user clicks, mouses over or types in that piece of the Web page); you need to be able to write and debug the server-side component(s) that provide the information; and you need to make sure that these behave nicely.



• Not all browsers support this type of architecture yet. In the newer versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer, you have to use an ActiveX component. This opens you up to security issues. (The AJAX ActiveX component doesn't, but allowing ActiveX does because an ActiveX component can do anything to your computer once it is allowed.) Older browsers won't handle it, so you need to make sure your page "appears well" with older content.



• If you are going to provide services, you will need to publish a description of your interfaces so that the power programmers can use them. You'll also need to ensure that there is no way to breach the security of your "services."

If you can find good applications that require the communication/feedback in almost real time -- that AJAX provides -- you may find that traditional approaches will work just fine."

Using ReadyGo to turn content SCORM Complient

I have been asked by a number of organizations the following: "We are searching for an editing/creation tool that will allow us to transfer our raw content into a SCORM-compliant module that we can then give to our partners for their LMSs. We are looking for an 'off-the-shelf' application that can be purchased."

If the user is able to copy and paste existing content, you should consider ReadyGo Web Course Builder (price is $499 per developer). The software is template-driven -- thereby providing "inherent instructional design" and freeing the course developer from extensive visual layout work (without losing the flexibility of implementing proper Web layouts).

With a simple menu selection, courses can be regenerated for AICC (about 15 different variations already created), SCORM (about 20 different variants based on different LMS capabilities available), no tracking, e-mail based tracking, or tracking through ReadyGo's Server Side Testing module. Depending on the in-house custom LMS interface, it might even be possible to add an interface to that system cost-effectively."

Technology used to create web pages

I think people are talking about technologies without looking into the using them and even more importantly, having learners access the pages created by them.

Presently HTML is king when it comes to a language used to create web pages. I think HTML's limitations has some advantages, specifically making it accessible to more people. for example this is a an easy way for SMEs to create web courses. Actually,
HTML by itself isn't used by SME's, but authoring tools that
create it does. Then, there are other tools like Google Docs,
FrontPage, & DreamWeaver that can easily edit what the authoring tool has
created (if there is a need for that).

XML is being used more often for display of content, and that is
fine. Likewise, it is being used more frequently for data storage, and
that too is good. However, simultaneous use of an XML document for both
display and for data storage seems extremely difficult and what would
be the point of doing this?

XSLT (style sheets and display for XML) is and will be very useful for what it is intended to do. I don't know what tools actually do the XSLT translation?
For example, browsers can display HTML and XML, and different parsers
can read/parse XML. If you use an XML parser, you still have to program
the interpretation and use of the parsed data, and that is fine because
now there is a more accessible file storage format. With XSLT, what
creates the output file?

LMS update - what they can can & can't do

Based on my last post I got some questions on that status of LMS's. Some of my information is a little dated, but here is what I can bring up-to-date.

1. Aspen: SumTotal has several LMS offerings including "Docent", "Voyager", and "Aspen". Of these, I have only seen that "Aspen" has the interactions and objectives support.
2. IBM: Yes, they keep changing names. The last time I saw things with their system was about 2 years ago. I think what I saw later became Lotus Learning Space, but this is conjecture.
3. Oracle: The Oracle iLearning, which is now "OLM" would be the most complete offering to look at from Oracle. I only recommend Oracle for companies that already have other Oracle financial systems already installed. As with any LMS, the cost of the LMS is only a small fraction of the total cost of ownership. The bulk of the cost is the integration of the LMS's database with any existing personnel system. If Oracle is already available at the organization, then adding their LMS is cost-effective. My experience with the other systems you mentioned that are now owned by Oracle is that their data support for the eLearning standards were minimal at best.

I have seen many other LMSs (including other "big" ones) that were purposely omitted from my list because they do not support for interactions and objectives. In some cases, delivering interactions even caused the LMSs to throw exceptions. Unfortunately this occurred on some well known brand-name LMSs.

As you observed, the "big" LMS vendors seem to have less to offer than some of the smaller ones. My experience has been that some of the smaller ones have much better technical support, better technical implementation, and better customer support. Among the big ones, Oracle impressed me, but that was at least 3 years ago. For those of you who would like to know my qualifications to make these statements, I work on the LMS integration for ReadyGo. We have an authoring tool that creates AICC or SCORM conformant packages. In the course of doing this, we have integrated with dozens and dozens of LMSs. What we have seen is that each LMS has their own interpretation of the specifications, especially with AICC. With SCORM, there are fewer interpretations, but there are still behaviors and limitations imposed in the LMS that can affect the learner experience. We have made ReadyGo open enough that it is possible for us to create "LMS-packs". These are analogous to printer drivers. When you go to generate (print) your course, you can choose what LMS or specification you want it to work with like you would choose a printer. This allows the course to report as much information as possible to the LMS without causing the LMS to interfere with the learning experience. For example, some LMSs are set up so that once the student completes the course, they are not allowed to take it again. When customers don't like the one-time-only use of courses, we can set up the LMS-pack so that the course never reports a completion status. Then, the LMS doesn't block the learner from re-using the content. The learning level of the student could be passed, for example, through the score. So that is why I feel that I can provide my opinions on LMSs.

My greatest frustration has been that most LMSs and, as a result, most authoring tools have gone for the minimum necessary to be able to put "SCORM Conformant" on their sales brochures. You can see this when the authoring tool only offers one "AICC" and/or one "SCORM" output option. Course developers have then had to rearrange their courses or just forget about tracking anything more than course completion. This has crippled the true capability of SCORM and AICC, and has resulted in "junk food" courseware as the norm.

SCORM and SCO's

Lots of LMS's and authoring tools limit their system by their limited reading of the SCORM specification and their limited implementation of SCO's. There is nothing in the SCORM specification that says that a SCO must be a single page of content. In fact, I believe it is a bad
design decision to make each page a SCO, but this appears to be the
group-think way of doing things. Here is my rationale: When you go from
SCO to SCO, the LMS has to close the previous SCO and then Launch the
next one. In some cases this means that the user must return to the
table of SCOs and manually launch the next one. That completely breaks
the learning flow.

Imagine that every time you want to see a new page of Google results you
have to go back to the start page, and re-input your search. That would
chunk your learning experience down into little pieces. And, we haven't
even addressed the delays most LMSs have in closing one SCO and
launching the next. I have seen delays as big as 20 seconds when going
from unit to unit, and this is on a DSL line.

If you want to see a tool that uses chapters or entire courses as a SCO,
you can take a look at the ReadyGo Web Course Builder.

One of the reasons that the "group-think" has gone with page=SCO is that
the majority of LMSs don't capture or report interactions and
objectives. This means that you can't get granularity of reporting
unless you have granularity of content. That is to find out if someone
answered a specific question correctly, you must use question=SCO.
Technically, it is easier to implement a single question on a web page,
but instructionally, I wonder if that isn't worse. In school, do
teachers hand out a single question, then pick it up, grade it, tell you
your grade, and then hand out the next one? I usually learned the
answers to one question by understanding another question on the test.
Since the objective should be training/teaching rather than measuring,
wouldn't it be better to use the pedagogical methods that have been
refined over centuries? Yes, we have new technologies available, and
these afford new opportunities, but it doesn't mean that we should
jettison older methods just because some 20-somethings with their cool
new iPods walking around with headphones believe they are the first to
ever do this, and thus anything the above-30s do must be trashed and
dis'-ed. (Does that stand for disregard, disparage, disagree, or all of
the above?)

Another tragedy of the minimalist LMS approach is that it becomes
impossible to use the LMS to carry out surveys and assessments. The
good news is that there are LMSs (Avilar, Oracle, MeridianKSI, IBM,
Aspen) that do capture and report interactions and objectives. So now,
there is hope that your LMS can be used to evaluate your course both
from the point of view of figuring out if the instructor is giving bad
questions and for the student to let you know their thoughts.

So, if you let a SCO be more than a single page, you can have the
summary as part of the SCO, and have the navigation/reusability, without
making compromises.