I'm looking for a free SCORM 1.2 to SCORM 2004 3rd edition converter.
Most likely the content is already talking directly to the LMS.
SCORM 1.2 you'll have say lms.LMSGetValue(n) vs SCORM 2004 you'll have lms.GetValue(n).
So you could look for 'API_1484_11' instead of 'API', then make the translations like above and that could solve the problem. Far as I know though there is no magic converter.
http://github.com/cybercussion/SCOBot.
Wiki is updated. I built it to talk SCORM 2004 but roll back to 1.2 semi gracefully but, with some level of understanding about the character limits and the fact most of 1.2 was optionally implemented on a LMS. At minimum some stuff to draw off of.
Depending on the "API" look-up mechanism in SCORM 1.2, you may be able to spoof it. Essentially let the content connect to a fake "API" and then forward to the API_1484_11. Depends if the look-up starts from the top down or the bottom up though.
Good luck
Related
I have to do a college project, where I have to do an LMS, and one of the requirements is to allow the import of SCORM files. However, when I went to research I saw something about SCORM using the flash player, which ended support this year. Can anyone answer the question if SCORM really needs the flash player to work?
No. The only hard technical requirement is a JavaScript environment (or an environment that sufficiently mimics a JavaScript environment) which is why SCORM is very often considered a browser based specification. "Browsers" and therefore JS environments are finding their way into all kinds of places.
To elaborate a bit more on Brian's answer, take a look at the following resources.
SCORM1.2 Golf Examples
https://scorm.com/scorm-explained/technical-scorm/golf-examples/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=natural_search
SCORM Run-Time Reference
https://scorm.com/scorm-explained/technical-scorm/run-time/run-time-reference/
Rapid E-Learning Dev Software
Articulate
Captivate
Lectora
I have experience in all three software's listed above; however, I have standardized all training development in my team to use Lectora because of its flexibility and ability to add JS, jQuery, CSS, etc. to my content. You are really limited by your own skills at that point and if you have the computer programming skills then you can exploit Lectora to it's fullest potential.
Using Lectora, I can use Actions to modify any/all SCORM variables using the run-time reference listed above as my guide.
Microsoft Media Foundation (MF) was introduced as the successor of DirectShow in Windows Vista. I have mostly ignored it, but it has some features (such as decoding of WMV AC-1 files) which are hard to implement in DirectShow. Media Foundation is also a more modern API so it would seem logical to make the switch.
However, the online teaching resources and official documentation seem greatly lacking. There is only 1 book covering the topic (published by Microsoft) and it is no longer available for normal prices. (People charge $500,- or more for second hand versions.)
As far as I could find there are no other books. While other techniques from Microsoft are usually covered in multiple books by multiple publishers.
The official Media Foundation blog has not been updated in since 2011. In the two years that it was active only 10 technical articles were written, 5 of which covering error logging/tracing instead of actual functionality.
The StackOverflow tag ms-media-foundation is only used with 328 questions, of which 142 are unanswered. In contrast there are 1641 DirectShow questions of which only 496 are unanswered.
So what happened to Microsoft Media Foundation? Will the new API ever take off and replace DirectShow or has even Microsoft forsaken MF in favour of going back to the old and rusty (trusty?) DirectShow. Or is there maybe another, non Microsoft framework, that has taken over?
Firstly I don't know the answer and am someone who has spent way too long trying to get even basic Media Foundation scenarios working; at times it feels more like a quest in search of some long lost secret scripture than programming.
My suspicion is that Microsoft does want to make MF the standard media API for the Windows platform and perhaps the best indication is the Windows Universal App Samples where there are 7 instances of "mfapi.h" but zero instances of "dshow.h". Also the relatively new WPF MediaCapture and MediaElement controls do hook into the Media Foundation APIs so it seems safe to say that for all new work Microsoft are using MF instead of DirectShow.
Wow I see what you mean about Polinger's MF book! I have the book (which I'll now shortly be selling at that price) and can assure you it's definitely not worth it. I've never really found it much help despite re-reading it numerous times. It's pretty much the same as the online docs in that it sticks to a small number of specific scenarios (in fact a number of chapters in the book just re-print the SDK samples) and as soon as you need to do something outside those you are on your own.
In regards to the official MF blog there was a thread on the MSDN forums griping about thing and to which one of the Microsoft guys responded saying they have switched blogging platforms (it obviously would be nice if they could put a note indicating that). Apparently a number of the Microsoft MF devs are still blogging. This seems to be the most "active" one.
Update: If anyone happens to get drawn here due to the Polinger book reference note that the companion code can be downloaded from here (the original link quoted in the book is http://go.microsoft.com/FWLink/?Linkid=229072 which at the time of writing redirects to the aforementioned page).
For me, Media Foundation is really a very nice API to do multimedia programming.
What I can blame, is that Media Foundation's releases don't apply to Windows 7, currently the most popular OS in the world.
Media Foundation has a lot of competitors (DirectShow, Ffmpeg, Gstreamer, etc...). So, more choice, less developers, less tutorials and so on...
I try to promote this API as i can, so here is my work on Media Foundation : MFNode
I cover a lot of scenarios, and you have to check source code to learn.
You will find :
audio/video player (win32)
custom media session
sequencer source
audio/video capture
screen capture
kinect V1 capture
wave audio mixer
http streaming (winsock)
jpeg encoding (Gdiplus)
dxva2 technology
cuda decoding
directX9 renderer and shader
COM technology
different kind of mediafoundation Source, Sink and Transform (mpeg2, flv, a52, vp6...)
mp3 to wave transcoder
EDIT
More MediaFoundation code here : github mofo7777
I suspect one reason for MediaFoundation not being used as much is that it limits you to encoding in WMV format only, and limits your ability to decode too (you can decode more than just WMV, but even the old VFW from Win 3.1 days allowed you to select a compressor of your choice)
The even rustier and older VFW (video for windows) is simpler than all of them latest and greatest, and allows multiple compressors - so I am wondering if MediaFoundation will ever be updated to allow more compressors and decompressors (or encoders and decoders) than the very limited selection they offer.
MediaFoundation API's, although interfaces, seem pretty low level still, and requires lots of boiler plate code just to get basic things working - powerful for WMV production, as they give you plenty of tools - but, a little bit hard to use for doing basic tasks (best is to download wrappers around the API, which to my surprise, not many exist.. these API's are not so popular as you would think).
I'm new in SCORM and don't know a lot about it.
My customer already has his own custom LMS with courses. And he wants these courses "to be mounted on Blackboard". And it appears that material would have to be SCORM compliant to play in Blackboard.
The problem is, that existing courses are not linear, but branching. For example, if user answered "Yes" on first question, he will get question with id=2 next. If he answered "No", he will get question with id=3 next. As I understood, you do not have the ability to create such "branching" packages in SCORM. Only linear. Am I wrong?
Or, maybe, Blackboard allows you to use your own LMS and only send back to Blackboard "SCORM big four" data?
When I last checked Blackboard Learn included the same SCORM player used by scorm.com. So if the packages play there they should work within Blackboard Learn. You might be better off implementing the courses in Blackboard's internal content structure.
SCORM 2004 would allow you to take advantage of the sequence and navigation. Enabling you to set pre/post rules on skipping based on outcomes. Allows for controlling the flow, choice and allowing the student to move forwards and backwards (or not). You'll have to see if it fits the use case though.
IMS Simple Sequencing was dropped into it, so most the detail I think you'll find more beneficial from IMS Global since for whatever reason it's not highly documented in the SCORM 2004 specification. http://www.imsglobal.org/simplesequencing/
There are also a lot of moving parts here to so it can get overwhelming. I can't say I've ever seen a great tool to design this flow/rule/behavior, and its been the subject of a few reasons why some feel SCORM 2004 didn't get more widely adopted. SCO's can make requests to the "adl.nav" space for requesting jumping to another SCO or continuing etc. too.
Rustici has some "Golf Examples" on http://scorm.com/scorm-explained/technical-scorm/golf-examples/ which also highlight some of these more rich examples under the "SCORM 2004 4th Edition" section on that page. But have several SCO and manifest examples you can use as a basis for understanding a little of what you can accomplish.
Edit: Another option if its just single questions, is to just let a SCO manage this. I've had this on ones where they had "roles" at the beginning and we had to present different questions to a counselor vs. a teacher. So you can have more custom control within the SCO, and you don't have to get your geek on with all the IMSManifest.xml rules.
Thanks and good luck,
Mark
I have TinCan LRS and tons of SCORM content. So instead of using SCORM server-side stuff for storing learning results, I want to alter SCORM player so it would issue TinCan statements to my LRS.
Is this theoretically possible?
I clearly understand that I should rewrite SCORM player, providing custom RTE handler.
I don't know SCORM very well, please warn me if there are any potential pitfalls.
Yes, it's possible to map SCORM calls to the Experience API (aka Tin Can). A quick Google search returns this, which should give you some pointers: Converting SCORM packages to Tin Can API
The XForms standard page seemed to indicate that it was no longer live, and that html5 kinda sorta does the job now. Is this the case? I'm looking at storing heterogenous data nuggets as XML fragments - generating a editor page according to the datatype.
To add to Phil's answer:
The XForms Working Group at W3C is active and currently working on XForms 2.0. See in particular the proposed 2.0 features on the wiki and the in-progress draft of the spec as of Feburary, 2012.
Also I don't think it's fair to say that HTML 5 "does the job". HTML 5 forms bring small and welcome improvements over HTML 4 forms, but they don't bridge the gap with XForms.
XForms on the other hand provides:
MVC architecture
XML data model (you like it or you don't, of course)
a powerful repeat model with xf:repeat
declarative properties and calculations
declarative event handlers
integration between the data model and REST services with xf:submission
built-in notion of hint, help, and alert messages
And I am probably missing some.
UPDATE 2016-11-28: For an answer up to date as of the end of 2016, please see this newer question.
The standard definitely isn't dead, although it's perhaps true to say that it hasn't gained much traction within the standard web-browsing ecosystem.
I have worked on a number of projects where XForms has been used as the forms layer in some bespoke application; in my cases the XForms parts have been handled by either Backplane BX or Ubiquity XForms, both of which may be worth taking a look at depending on your requirements (full disclosure: I've worked in the past as an implementer on both projects). Backplane BX is Windows/IE specific; Ubiquity XForms is a cross-browser, client-side javascript library; both are open source.
There are also a number of other libraries that I've not worked with but which I've heard good things about: Orbeon and XSLTForms spring to mind, but a more complete, albeit slightly outdated, list can be found here.