Anyone who works with SCORM 2004 has seen something like this:

Image of file directory with all schema files at root of directory

With just a little effort, you can make it look like this, and still be perfectly valid:

Image of file directory with all schema files placed in subfolder

SCORM manifests are required to specify a slew of schema files via the schemaLocation attribute. Here’s what you’d typically see:

<manifest identifier="pipwerks-schema-example" version="1.0"
          xmlns="http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imscp_v1p1" 
          xmlns:adlcp="http://www.adlnet.org/xsd/adlcp_v1p3" 
          xmlns:adlseq="http://www.adlnet.org/xsd/adlseq_v1p3" 
          xmlns:adlnav="http://www.adlnet.org/xsd/adlnav_v1p3" 
          xmlns:imsss="http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imsss" 
          xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"  
          xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imscp_v1p1 imscp_v1p1.xsd 
                              http://www.adlnet.org/xsd/adlcp_v1p3 adlcp_v1p3.xsd 
                              http://www.adlnet.org/xsd/adlseq_v1p3 adlseq_v1p3.xsd 
                              http://www.adlnet.org/xsd/adlnav_v1p3 adlnav_v1p3.xsd 
                              http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imsss imsss_v1p0.xsd">
Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

Notice the structure of the data in the schemaLocation attribute: external URL followed by a space then the local (relative) URL. For example:

http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imscp_v1p1 imscp_v1p1.xsdCode language: JavaScript (javascript)

In this example, imscp_v1p1.xsd is at the root of the package, in the same folder as the imsmanifext.xml file. The trick is to create a subfolder in the root of the package, then update schemaLocation to point to the subfolder. I created a subfolder named SCORM-schemas, which you can see in the following code exerpt:

<manifest identifier="pipwerks-schema-example" version="1.0"
          xmlns="http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imscp_v1p1" 
          xmlns:adlcp="http://www.adlnet.org/xsd/adlcp_v1p3" 
          xmlns:adlseq="http://www.adlnet.org/xsd/adlseq_v1p3" 
          xmlns:adlnav="http://www.adlnet.org/xsd/adlnav_v1p3" 
          xmlns:imsss="http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imsss" 
          xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"  
          xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imscp_v1p1 SCORM-schemas/imscp_v1p1.xsd 
                              http://www.adlnet.org/xsd/adlcp_v1p3 SCORM-schemas/adlcp_v1p3.xsd 
                              http://www.adlnet.org/xsd/adlseq_v1p3 SCORM-schemas/adlseq_v1p3.xsd 
                              http://www.adlnet.org/xsd/adlnav_v1p3 SCORM-schemas/adlnav_v1p3.xsd 
                              http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imsss SCORM-schemas/imsss_v1p0.xsd">
Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

Test, test, test! I’ve tested this in SCORM Cloud as well as a couple of real-world LMSs and haven’t encountered any issues. Your mileage may vary depending on your LMS’s SCORM implementation, but this is perfectly valid XML and shouldn’t break in any LMSs — unless the LMS is poorly coded, but that’s a rarity, right? (LOL)

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