People interested in understanding the underlying details of the SCORM Cloud API are welcome to do so via this documentation. For anyone looking to integrate with the Cloud, though, the concepts below are fundamental.
Application Identifier
This is your name if you will; it tells us who’s knocking on our door. The app_id, as seen in the code, is like a username, but with a different scope. Your Facebook application might have its own, or perhaps your Moodle installation. At its most basic, an app_id is associated with an individual who’s willing to pay for the usage and with the credit card they’ve provided. So be a little careful about sharing this, but not too careful, as it’s worthless without your…
Security Key
This is your baby, your password. Protect this one with your life. (That’s probably a bit dramatic, in that it could be changed for you, but this is your secret key.) While you can request a certain value for your app_id, we’ll be providing a ridiculously complicated string for you to use here. This value will ultimately be hashed with your app_id in such a way that you can send it across the internet to us for validation. In its basic form, you’ll simply maintain it in a configuration file on your servers.
Course
Put simply, this is the “thing that a learner will take”. It doesn’t matter at all what you call it in your system or how you refer to it. Generally, a “course” corresponds directly to a SCORM package (PIF).
Upload Service
SCORM courses have to be delivered from the same server as the SCORM API. That means that your course has to be uploaded to the SCORM Cloud. This service manages the upload process for you.
Registration
When a “learner” (or whatever you call them in your system) takes a “course” (or whatever you call it in your system), we keep up with that combined entity as a “registration”. You can then retrieve information about their progress by reporting on that registration.
