I have recently approached by my co-worker about creating our own SCORM Packager. Honestly I have little clue about SCORM. I have look into Adobe Captivate and also Articulate Presenter. But unfortunately things that we worked here are highly customized. Our shop are half HTML and the other half is Flash.
Here are my questions:
Any suggestions to where I can get better understanding about SCORM (beside http://scorm.com)? I am looking something more hands-on approach.
is there a tool out there that can take our products (either HTML or
Flash) and wrap them into SCORM 1.2 zip compliant file?
Thanks in advance
For your course to be truly integrated with SCORM, you need to modify your ActionScript to report activities/status throughout the life of the course. This can't be achieved with a packaging tool, because it would have no way of knowing how your custom ActionScript is built and where to hook into it.
Adobe Captivate and Articulate Presenter have SCORM integration built in to their ActionScript, but it's under the hood where you can't see it unless you decompile their SWFs. The bits that are public -- the SCORM JavaScript, the manifest, etc. -- are only part of the story.
If you'd like to see a simple example of how to add SCORM code to a Flash file, see http://pipwerks.com/2008/04/27/how-to-add-basic-scorm-code-to-a-flash-movie/
It doesn't cover packaging, though.
To better understanding SCORM, I think you shoud go to the place where it born: http://legacy.adlnet.gov/Technologies/scorm/SCORMSDocuments/Forms/All%20Documents.aspx
ActivePresenter may be a good option.
I actually made a SCORM packager for my work. It's a bit of a process, but I think the best place to start was to study some working examples. You say you're doing SCORM 1.2, here are the reference files that you'll need; it has the CAM manual which tells you how the manifest file should be built. It also includes the SCORM 1.2 test suite you'll need to use to make sure your package conforms to SCORM, and that the content launches and communicates with the API correctly. The Test Suite is a bitch to setup though, and I recommend setting up a windows XP virtual machine image to test with(I used Parallels).
About your second question, I'm sure there is some public Scorm packaging applications out there, but we didn't find any that fit our needs (hence the need to build our own). You may want to look some more before creating your own from scratch; it will be a lengthy process.
Related
We are building an m-learning solution[IOS and Android compatible] at our company. The product needs to be SCORM compliant. I would like to know whether it should be developed in-house by the developers or other paid options should be pursued? What are other ways of making our product SCORM compliant? We are not rally positive about using SCORM Engine for this due to its high cost solution to our problem here.Any suggestion/help is appreciated.
You can include SCORM within content using a number of open source options available on GitHub.
Getting SCORM in the content (free) is step 1.
Packaging, bundling and deploying is really step 2.
This typically has a close relationship to how Curriculum defines a structure of lessons, modules, units etc. Not knowing exactly how they want to organize this, I can speculate that you may just have a simple "I want to know that the student viewed the content" approach. If you get into a more rich dependency on how the student performs dictating what they see or do next, that requires a much for up front design so you can bridge the design, development, and deployment of your content.
Including SCORM Support in content -
Like mentioned if you search google for my SCOBot project or Pipwerks you'll hit the ground running.
Requires JavaScript friendly developer and some base SCORM knowledge attained thru reading. This could be outsourced.
Knowing the version of SCORM you wish to support can help. Consult the LMS to find out that info.
Far as presenting / creating content; if you are doing this from scratch you'd need a HTML/JS developer or if its more interactive your dipping into WebGL, Canvas or beyond. There are other paid services like iSpring, Captivate and others that offer content creation with SCORM Standards support. They may even take care of the packaging for you (covered below).
Packaging -
This requires a zip (CAM content aggregated model) which includes a imsmanifest.xml file to describe a one to many relationship of a TOC. Again simple is 1, many begins to allow you to group tiers and add objectives and other things increasing complexity but doable.
You can perform creating this package with XML, Zip and specification knowledge. I have a Packaging app on my site and a Mac (free) applescript which can also perform very basic packaging. I am not away of any other free options.
Deployment
Commonly performed thru FTP/FileShare by uploading these CAM (zip) packages. LMS decompresses and reads the manifest. Sometimes you can just copy the raw files up to the LMS thru a media / content server but this greatly depends on the options.
I'm writing some SCORM SCOs to be embedded in clients' learning management systems but I currently don't have anything to test them on. It seems foolish (to the point of being unprofessional) to just foist these files upon the clients and to hope they "just work".
Is there a simple framework I can use to test a SCORM SCO package? I realise I could spend all day setting up a whole learning management system but if there's something more simple, I'd be really appreciative.
You will definitely want to check out the SCORM Cloud. They have a trial version you can use.
There's always the Test Suite provided by the publishers of the SCORM specification.
If you're working with SCORM 1.2, I'd recommend the Reload Scorm Player.
Tt's free, very easy to install and you don't need to be a tech guy to make use of it.
http://www.reload.ac.uk/new/scormplayer.html
I have used the tools from http://www.ostyn.com/resdownloads.htm both for testing SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004. Basicly just a HTML page that wraps the SCO in an iframe with a nice console to keep track of the communicaton.
http://scormpool.com has scorm proxy player with trace log option. Supports SCORM 1.2 and 2004 4-th edition plus you can download player and run it on you local computer.
We are in search of an automated testing tool for our project. As we are in testing department we prefer a tool which would have less programming in it. Please suggest some tools for us .Till now we are testing our application manually.
Our project is being developed in Java.
Is there any freeware tool that I could use or is it better to go for a paid tool?
Thanks in Advance.
Less programming? You'll need something like JUnit to write unit tests if you want to do serious regression testing, but unit tests require you to write some code
Here's a big list of open-source testing tools, some of them may offer what you want: http://java-source.net/open-source/testing-tools/junit
For example, T2 claims to be a random testing tool. As one, it is fully automatic, but one must keep in mind that the code coverage of random testing is in general very limited. It should be used as a complement to other testing methods. T2 checks for internal errors, run time exceptions, method specifications, and class invariant.
Not sure if you mean a CI tool or not, but we use Hudson at Zappos and it works pretty well.
http://hudson-ci.org/
..and there's also CruiseControl: http://cruisecontrol.sourceforge.net/
If you're not talking about CI, maybe you mean QA testing - in which case you should take a look at something like Selenium (for web apps):
http://seleniumhq.org/
If you're doing GUI testing? I'm not really familiar with that area, but I've heard about WinRunner and Rational:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_WinRunner
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/rational/offerings/quality/
..though neither are really free tools. Something like AutoIT might help you move widgets around, but it lacks the reporting parts:
http://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/index.shtml
There could be two answer to you question:
Besides Selenium, though it has ample of advantages, I am reading about another tool which uses same API which Selenium use. The only changes in API I have seen so far is it reduces the complexity of functions thus making it more easier and simpler for user who is learning.
The tool is called 'Helium' and it has 50% (and more) less complex functions and code as Selenium has.
The only problem with this tool is it is paid tool for learning purpose and for implementing not-so-big scale project you can use it. But yeah after some time its gonna cost you.
I have implemented some code on Helium. Please let me know , if you face any issue initially or you are thinking to implement it.
Other being, you can use Selenium Builder(http://khyatisehgal.wordpress.com/2014/05/26/selenium-builder-exporting-and-execution/) which is an advanced form of Selenium IDE. It imports your command in different languages and does work more effectively and efficiently as Selenium IDE does(http://khyatisehgal.wordpress.com/2014/05/25/selenium-builder/) . So you can import scripts in Eclipse IDE and just execute them as is.
Please let me know , if you have any doubt in any of the tool.
I work in a shop that is mostly .NET based, and we're trying to pick out a content management system to use. This means we mostly likely won't be able to use any of the common open source CMS projects (Plone, phpNuke, anthing not based on .NET, etc.).
Since I'm a huge usability nerd (just finished reading The Design of Everyday Things by Norman), I've been looking at them from that point of view. Frankly, I haven't been too impressed. This quote sums it up:
Most open source content management software is useless. The only thing worse is every commercial CMS I’ve used. - Jeffrey Veen
Here's a short list of our requirements:
Has to be .NET based
Prefer open source or on the inexpensive side
Limited feature set (we don't need too many features and they make things harder to use)
Does need Active Directory integration and robust permissions
Should be focused on web standards and usability
I know it's probably an impossible feature list, but are there any content management systems that kinda sorta look like they might not suck more than a Dyson?
Edit:
Here's the current situation:
I'm going to push for N2. I've got Active Directory integration working well (I even wrote a custom role provider). The only thing missing is workflow functionality. Hopefully I can get something going with that since it's the last sticking point. The N2Contrib project might provide a starting point if I can figure it out.
I would still love to check out Stencil CMS if/when it gets off the ground.
One of my co-workers was trying to get Umbraco going but wasn't having much luck.
Thanks for the help!
Self-plug is lame, but what you're describing is pretty much exactly what I am getting ready to release for $79 a pop. If you're still looking in a few weeks, take a peek. If you'd like, shoot me an email (rex#stencilcms.com).
I've heard both positive and negative feedback about Umbraco. A lot of people like Graffiti, but it's more blog-oriented than a full-blown CMS.
Check out N2 (http://n2cms.com/). I think that it covers most, if not all, of your requirements (I don't think it has Active Directory capability at this time). We are using N2 and I have really enjoyed how flexible it has been.
My company just completed a review of several commercial .NET-based CMS/portal platforms and, while I can't reveal who was in them (thanks, NDAs!), I can tell you that IMO they all sucked very, very badly.
Good luck on your search. I'll keep an eye on this thread in the hopes that there's something we missed.
We had a similar set of requirements and chose Telerik Sitefinity. It's got it's faults but overall I've been happy with it so far.
Unfortunately Jeffery speaks the truth. Which is probably why I build a new custom cms from the ground up every few years. Basically, the motivation for "boxed" CMS packages is to have every feature on earth and be everything to everyone and therefore do nothing particularly well for anyone. With the feature bloat comes the usability nightmares. Unless you start customizing and then you usually end up forking the project and losing the advantage of community updates.
Kentico CMS according your list:
Has to be .NET based
It's .net based, .NET Framework 2.0 or later
Prefer open source or on the inexpensive side
Free edition which can be used for commercial purposes is available, paid license starts at $750, source code is an option
Limited feature set (we don't need too many features and they make things harder to use)
Many built-in modules/features, anyway they can be easily disabled to keep the UI simple to use
Does need Active Directory integration and robust permissions
AD, Forms and Live Id! Integration
Should be focused on web standards and usability
UTF-8 Support including RTL languages, WAI Compliant, XHTML Compliant, XML, XHTML, HTML, XSLT, CSS.
Instant on-line demo or download available at:
http://www.kentico.com/Download.aspx
Each project using SCons seems to be reinventing the wheel.
I would be glad to take someones directory layout, and/or solution for variant builds(debug/release), and/or testing framework, and/or best practices.
Even several not-too-simple examples would help.
You may be interested in Google's Software Construction Toolkit that was made open source in February 2009. It adds new features on top of SCons, such as improved Visual Studio project file generation, unit test functions, and distributed builds with distcc or incredibuild.
The SCons Recipes in the wiki is a good place to start. In addition take a look at other projects which use SCons, e.g. the Ardour build system. If that doesn't cut it, there are a few third party SCons extensions you may want to take a look at:
Parts
Aqualid
To the best of my knowledge, there are no SCons best practices which were agreed upon. The SCons community seems to favor adaptability over "canonicalization". It is not hard to design a decent SCons-based build system from scratch, though. (Once you have understood how VariantDir works, at least.)
If you are using Eclipse for C++ development you may want to check out this SCons builder plugin (http://nic-nac-project.org/~lothar/eclipse/update/SConsBuilderPlugin.html)
Another good example of SCons use is build system for MIT-licensed Godot game engine:
https://github.com/okamstudio/godot/wiki/compiling_intro