Posts pertaining to SCORM development and the broader SCORM ecosystem
If you spend any time using Captivate to create SCORM-conformant courses, you’re bound to have run into an issue or two that caused you to read some Captivate forum posts. Almost without fail, someone will mention that the solution to their problem was changing the value of the magical g_intAPIType JavaScript variable from 1 to 0 or from 0 to 1.
So what the heck is g_intAPIType, and why does changing it make a difference?
What happens if the browser window containing your course is closed by the learner before the course finishes sending data to the LMS? If you’re not careful about how you’ve coded your course, you can lose some of the data.
A number of people have recently asked me about the scorm.save() function in the pipwerks SCORM wrappers. What is it, and when should it be used?
Someone recently asked me if it was possible to customize Captivate’s SCORM template to reduce the need for manual editing after publishing. In her case, the manifest needed to be edited to include SumTotal TotalLMS’s custom SCORM extensions. The answer is yes. Here’s how.
I’m working on a new SCORM 2004 wrapper for both JavaScript and ActionScript that will contain advanced functionality and improved shortcuts. I’m looking for good ideas.
I’ve had a flurry of emails and messages regarding my SCORM cheat the past few days, and have received feedback from a number of well-regarded SCORM aficionados, some of whom contributed to the standard and helped make SCORM what it is today. This is wonderful, I’m very happy to hear from everyone, especially regarding such an engaging topic.
But as I hear more from these seasoned SCORM pros, I’ve made (what I believe to be) an interesting observation: there is a sharp division between die-hard SCORM developers and casual users. I suppose I’ve felt this way for a long time, but it’s really coming into focus this week. Let me try to define the camps.
I’m always surprised how little people talk about cheating in e-learning; maybe it’s a fear of revealing just how easy it can be. The fact is, SCORM — the most common communication standard in e-learning — is fairly easy to hack. I’ve whipped up a proof-of-concept bookmarklet that when clicked will set your SCORM course to complete with a score of 100 (works with both SCORM 1.2 and 2004).
I recently emailed a shortlist of good SCORM development resources to a colleague, and figured I should probably post a list here, too. This is a quickie list, and I’m sure I’m leaving someone out. If you know of any resources I’ve missed, please add a link in the comments. This list is presented in no particular order.
Matt Wilcox posted an interesting argument about the CSS3 standard; I think the central points of the argument can be applied to SCORM and where we’re potentially headed with SCORM 2.0.
SCO stands for shareable content object. If a course is not built to be shareable, it isn’t really a SCO, even if it uses SCORM for packaging. Spinning SCORM’s communication element off into its own standard — without the name SCORM — would free SCORM to truly be a Shareable Content Object Reference Model, and would free non-aggregators from having to deal with the complexities of SCORM.
