In this post we will cover one important feature in an LMS platform: how it communicates with other systems. This is done through standards that help in LMS integrations of other systems. One of the most used standards is SCORM for eLearning. With this standard you can integrate different technologies and applications that otherwise would not work due to technological imcompatibilities.
The growth of eLearning programs make it necessary to possess a system that can manage access to students, instructors, managers, and other stakeholders, to educational content that may or may not count towards a grade or some other achievement. This system is commonly known as learning management system, or LMS platform. No eLearning program could work properly without one; they have become essential since they can do more than provide secured access to educational content. In another post we covered the issues that may arise when integrating a learning management system into an eLearning program.
On the other hand, educational content could be developed outside an LMS platform. There are many tools used to create engaging educational and training materials for later LMS integration, which can manage access to it. Since those tools became available, there was no secure or straightforward way to insert that content into the LMS platform.
Surely, you could just post the module in some server and insert the link to it in the LMS, but where is the fun in that? You need to communicate the score to the LMS, if those modules carry a grade or some other kind of evidence of achievement, it would be impossible to post that in some kind of scoreboard, unless the LMS and the module could communicate somehow.
This is the reason the big wigs of online education in the military decided to create some kind of standard to make this possible, and they came out with the first version of such standard, called SCORM. Shareable Content Object Reference Model, or SCORM, is an object reference model, in other words, is a set of instructions that allow some of the content or some segments of an object to be shareable with other objects such as a LMS.
But let me also define what a Sharable Content Object (SCO) is so you can understand why it is the most granular piece of content in a SCORM package. This package can be a module, a chapter, a page, but there are many other objects that fall into this definition. Some may say that a SCORM package should be the smallest piece of content that is both reusable and independent. Form the point of view of the LMS platform, this is the item shown separately in the table of contents (or some other area that stores SCORM for eLearning). It tracks its performance separately from other items, with its own bookmark, score and completion status.
In many cases, the shareable objects are courses developed using authoring software such as Articulate Storyline, Captivate, or Lectora, among others. If you are curious about the implementation of the standard, you may need to learn a web markup language, which is similar to HTML, called XML or eXtensible Markup Language. Unlike HTML, XML allows for the transport of data within the content, which is then communicated to the LMS.
What else does an LMS does?
An LMS platform has tools that allow instructors develop a complete course that can have a long shelf life. I have seem many courses that have gone through many iterations, and this has allowed an evolution towards a better course thanks to feedback and constant improvement. In no particular order, most LMS systems contain the following tools:
- Quizzing
- Module builder
- Assignments
- Discussions or chat system
- Video conferencing
- Gradebook
- File system
These are not minimum requirements, some LMS systems would lack one of the above tools, others may have a system with several tools not mentioned in this list.
What is the connection between LMS and SCORM?
All the previously mentioned systems in the LMS are integrated and work together inside this environment. In many cases a module, package, or external quiz was developed using a different system such as an authoring tool. Examples of these are Storyline, Captivate, Lectora, among others. All these authoring systems have a publishing option called SCORM, this makes the published material compatible with the LMS.
Another important concept in the SCORM standard is the so-called run-time communication, also called data exchange. This specifies how the content will send data to the LMS while the learner is using the content. We can also refer to these processes as delivery and tracking of content. We can describe this communication through two different components. In the first one, the content has to check with the LMS that it can send data. Once SCORM package has checked with the LMS, it can then communicate through a series of “get” and “set” calls and an associated vocabulary.
Before SCORM no standard existed for the development of eLearning materials. The US Government, through its military branch, decided to create a series of standards with the purpose of ending the chaotic development of educational materials that could not work across systems the military has for education and training. SCORM is based on those standards, they are not mandatory and the LMS market has pushed many authoring tool vendors into making their published packages SCORM compliant.
How does SCORM for eLearning work with the LMS?
When you publish a course using an authoring tool using the LMS option, or SCORM option, the software prepares the content for the interface and the LMS API (Application Program Interface) will grab that information to integrate the object into any of their designated tools.
How authoring tool vendors interpret SCORM has created another issue. Packages produced with one authoring software cannot be transferred to other system developed by a different company (you cannot open an Articulate module using Adobe Captivate, for example), it will not matter if both are SCORM compliant. If you have a legacy package and the authoring tool is not in the market anymore, you will have to start development from scratch.
Which kind of data is passed to the LMS is another problem. Most LMS systems have definite rules on the type of data they can accept from a SCORM package. In many cases, the promise of richness of data from the interaction of a user with the package falls short just because the LMS would not let the package pass that information to the system, and the data is just lost. CanvasMed, for example, only allows for the final grade in a quiz to be passed to the LMS in the form of a grade posted in the Gradebook.
So, the 1 thing you should know about SCORM for eLearning and why you should care is that, even though there is a SCORM standard, implementation in a learning management system is not the same across developers. Please, don’t design your SCORM ´packages with no consideration on this one fact, or you will spend a lot of time reworking the product so that it functions properly inside the LMS platform. I would recommend you test your SCORM packages for compatibility and that it does what you intended. If you move to a different LMS platform, you will need to conduct new testing, and you may need to modify the package.
A last note SCORM is still evolving and it might change names soon (TinCan or xAPI are two proposed names), it is slowly taking a central role in eLearning development for LMS integration. LMS systems are catching up and soon you will be able to integrate more information into the LMS. If authoring tool makers agree on using the same standard, portability of SCORM packages could become a reality, this would mean a step forward towards universal eLearning. But we are not there yet.
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