Help Shape SCORM 2.0
6.03.2008 - Mike Rustici
SCORM 2.0 is coming and we need your help to figure out what it will look like. A lot has changed since SCORM was conceived almost a decade ago and everything about it is on the table for change. LETSI issued a call for white papers to solicit requirements for SCORM 2.0 from the community...THAT MEANS YOU!!! We need YOUR feedback! This is your chance to make SCORM work better for you.
--What has SCORM done well? What is good about SCORM that should be preserved?
--Where is SCORM weak? What is bad about SCORM that should be thrown away or replaced?
--What do you wish you could do with SCORM but can't?
--What little things annoy you about SCORM?
--What pain points do you have that need to be addressed? Think beyond content interoperability...what does the learning industry need to help it through the next decade?
--Are there new technologies that should be incorporated into SCORM? ex: web services, semantic web, etc
--What kind of changes do you foresee in the way you procure and use training systems and content?
--What kinds of learning activities do you want to monitor and track?
--What does the future of online learning look like?
Formal or informal white papers on the topic can be submitted directly to LETSI. If you're not the white paper type, or you just have a few quick thoughts, feel free to add comments to this post or send an email to 2.0@scorm.com. We will make sure they get in front of the right people. Please don't be shy, everybody's opinion matters.
1. I wish different SCOs can communicate their data info directly. 2. The annoy things are the rollup and sequencing. Especially, the rollup is too difficult to test. SCORM doesn't define when and how to trigger the rollup process, and results in inconsistent rollup results across different LMSs with the same content package.
Also, some current SCO variables as language settings and user preferences should be "Course variables": eg. the preferred language of a student usually doesn't change between SCOs.
Here's a summary of some of the comments that have come in via email:
Randy Simmons from Medical Present Value says:
Here are my thoughts regarding the new SCORM standards.
1. SCORM is too complex now. Make it simple. There are many software companies, those that create courses and those that create LMSs and we need all these various software pieces to work together via SCORM. The simpler it is, the better the software will communicate.
2. Provide better explanations, examples and training. Especially when it comes to the imsmanifest file. I can not find good documentation, even on the ADL website. Of course, the simpler and easier they make SCORM, the easier it is to document and learn. Also, the SCORM testing software ADL provides does not give clear reasons when it finds an error. There is no explanation of the error.
Andrew Poulos from Apixel says:
You have to ask us about what is wrong/bad with scorm???
Its *not* a standard:
1. Each vendor can implement in slightly different ways e.g cmi.core.exit is required to be "suspend" for some and "" for others.
2. It changed enough from version 1.2 to 2004 to break things.
Zaheer Inamdar says:
The one most important thing is there is not good guidance available for developing SCORM complaint LMS. Developers often find it difficult to read those heavy lengthy documents provided by ADL (scorm specification books). After this i think need of new e-Learning technology is to provide conetnt online and create and make courses available to the audience. In tis scenario, SCORM should be abale to provide a good way to secure the content. Also SCORM should address of course updations. If one course is published for learners, course author should be able to add contents and re-publish it later. In this scenario, the learnering activity records should be preserved.
So basically three points i wud like to underline- 1. Proper guidance for developing SCORM based LMS and SCORM content for software developers. 2. Content Security. 3. Updating/Re-publshing the course content.
Ellen Meiselman from the University of Michigan Health System says
I did hear about the SCORM 2.0 effort - I would like to be involved somehow, but I have not yet even had a chance to work much on SCORM 2004 (our current LMS is 1.2 only) so didn't feel like I had as much to offer as far as suggestions.
My current complaint about SCORM is one I am certain has been handled in SCORM 2004, related to the limited number of buckets you have to pour and retrieve individual interaction data into. In SCORM 1.2 you kind of end up having to use the suspend data for everything because you can retrieve from it.
My other big issue is the eternal conflict between browser security requirements and the need to communicate between windows and frames. Not to mention the differences between browsers. We have to support Safari, Firefox on both Mac and PC and IE6 and 7 at the moment.
Gerald Hernandez of the US Army Medical Department says:
There is currently a poor life cycle management model when developing and maintaining SCORM courseware application. The use of web tools that separate content from presentation, are now moving to the next developmental phase of separate SCORM framework code from content/presentation layer in a courseware application.
This will make courseware content much easily for reuse and maintenance.
Other products such as SharePoint Learning Kit , DITA Wiki , and Sakai Scorm 2004 Player are showing us the future of integrating CMS with SCORM when using web 2.0 technologies (AJAX).
I hope you look at these examples when developing your next generation SCORM 2.0 Tool.
Here are a couple of things that I think would make SCORM more practical... these are really about the architecture, security, and a rethinking of some assumptions that lead to the current one:
1) expand scope from assessment-only to testing - brings on a need to pay more attention to security
2) enable an alternative 'API' method which does not put ECMAScript in the critical path - better meet the security challenges posed by #1 above - promotes SOA architecture - ECMAScript (JavaScript) was a good choice and probably the only viable one in the most critical period in SCORM's development. But, there are now good alternative specifications for establishing communication channels between browsers and servers that are widely and successfully used.
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4 Comments:
At Jun 10, 2008 9:18:00 AM,
Michael said…
1. I wish different SCOs can communicate their data info directly.
2. The annoy things are the rollup and sequencing. Especially, the rollup is too difficult to test. SCORM doesn't define when and how to trigger the rollup process, and results in inconsistent rollup results across different LMSs with the same content package.
At Jun 17, 2008 4:29:00 AM,
joost said…
I second the wish for sharing data between SCOs.
Also, some current SCO variables as language settings and user preferences should be "Course variables": eg. the preferred language of a student usually doesn't change between SCOs.
At Jul 25, 2008 10:57:00 AM,
Mike Rustici said…
Here's a summary of some of the comments that have come in via email:
Randy Simmons from Medical Present Value says:
Here are my thoughts regarding the new SCORM standards.
1. SCORM is too complex now. Make it simple. There are many software companies, those that create courses and those that create LMSs and we need all these various software pieces to work together via SCORM. The simpler it is, the better the software will communicate.
2. Provide better explanations, examples and training. Especially when it comes to the imsmanifest file. I can not find good documentation, even on the ADL website. Of course, the simpler and easier they make SCORM, the easier it is to document and learn. Also, the SCORM testing software ADL provides does not give clear reasons when it finds an error. There is no explanation of the error.
Andrew Poulos from Apixel says:
You have to ask us about what is wrong/bad with scorm???
Its *not* a standard:
1. Each vendor can implement in slightly different ways e.g cmi.core.exit is required to be "suspend" for some and "" for others.
2. It changed enough from version 1.2 to 2004 to break things.
Zaheer Inamdar says:
The one most important thing is there is not good guidance available for developing SCORM complaint LMS. Developers often find it difficult to read those heavy lengthy documents provided by ADL (scorm specification books).
After this i think need of new e-Learning technology is to provide conetnt online and create and make courses available to the audience. In tis scenario, SCORM should be abale to provide a good way to secure the content. Also SCORM should address of course updations. If one course is published for learners, course author should be able to add contents and re-publish it later. In this scenario, the learnering activity records should be preserved.
So basically three points i wud like to underline-
1. Proper guidance for developing SCORM based LMS and SCORM content for software developers.
2. Content Security.
3. Updating/Re-publshing the course content.
Ellen Meiselman from the University of Michigan Health System says
I did hear about the SCORM 2.0 effort - I would like to be involved somehow, but I have not yet even had a chance to work much on SCORM 2004 (our current LMS is 1.2 only) so didn't feel like I had as much to offer as far as suggestions.
My current complaint about SCORM is one I am certain has been handled in SCORM 2004, related to the limited number of buckets you have to pour and retrieve individual interaction data into. In SCORM 1.2 you kind of end up having to use the suspend data for everything because you can retrieve from it.
My other big issue is the eternal conflict between browser security requirements and the need to communicate between windows and frames. Not to mention the differences between browsers. We have to support Safari, Firefox on both Mac and PC and IE6 and 7 at the moment.
Gerald Hernandez of the US Army Medical Department says:
There is currently a poor life cycle management model when developing
and maintaining SCORM courseware application. The use of web tools that
separate content from presentation, are now moving to the next
developmental phase of separate SCORM framework code from
content/presentation layer in a courseware application.
This will make courseware content much easily for reuse and maintenance.
Other products such as SharePoint Learning Kit , DITA Wiki , and Sakai
Scorm 2004 Player are showing us the future of integrating CMS with
SCORM when using web 2.0 technologies (AJAX).
I hope you look at these examples when developing your next generation
SCORM 2.0 Tool.
At Jul 29, 2008 11:58:00 AM,
Jon Gorrono said…
Here are a couple of things that I think would make SCORM more practical... these are really about the architecture, security, and a rethinking of some assumptions that lead to the current one:
1) expand scope from assessment-only to testing
- brings on a need to pay more attention to security
2) enable an alternative 'API' method which does not put ECMAScript in the critical path
- better meet the security challenges posed by #1 above
- promotes SOA architecture
- ECMAScript (JavaScript) was a good choice and probably the only viable one in the most critical period in SCORM's development. But, there are now good alternative specifications for establishing communication channels between browsers and servers that are widely and successfully used.
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