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.
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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.
We have been building a SCORM packager and API, customized for our own applications, so we don't have to use tools like Storyline or Lectora to provide content to an LMS.
Our test package seems to work fine on Scorm Cloud and Moodle. So, we are happy, but not 100% sure we are done.
Our question is therefore: is there another method to test our SCORM capability before sending packages to customers?
Short answer: Download the SCORM Conformance Test Suite from ADL (e.g. http://www.adlnet.org/resources/adl-conformance-test-suite-verion-1_2_7?type=software_downloads) and test, test, test.
Long answer: If you don't know where you're going, any road'll take you there. I mean, what are you trying to achieve? If you wanted your content to work in SCORM Cloud and Moodle, you're ok. If you wanted it to work in EVERY LMS, it will never happen, because there are dozens of LMS with poorly implemented SCORM API. If you wanted to legally cover your behind, you should look into your service agreement. What does it say about determining "broken content"? What do you do (legally speaking) if your content works everywhere except your client's LMS?
Ideally, you should determine quality criteria in the agreement, make sure you comply with those and define what happens if your content doesn't work for your client.
adding to Sergey's response: all you can do beyond the conformance test suite and SCORM Cloud is test in as many LMSs as possible. They definitely have quirks. At a minimum, I suggest downloading and installing every major open-source LMS you can find, including Ilias and Sakai. You might also be able to get free trials for commercial LMSs if you contact them directly.
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.
Is there any SCORM RTE in .NET exists?
I have gone through DotNetNuke but found it unfriendly.
If you are looking solely for a .NET SCORM RTE and not a full blown LMS than Rustici Software makes a .NET SCORM RTE available at http://scorm.com/scorm-solved/scorm-engine/
If you need a good LMS starting point then try the Sharepoint Learning Environment at slk.codeplex.com. There is an RTE in there, as well as many other tools for a full SCORM environment.
Bear in mind that a SCORM RTE on its own may not be very helpful. You need to consider matters like persisting it, how and where you are going to do this. And without the rest of the SCORM environment ( particularly SN ) then you will not have proper SCORM compliance.
If you need it simply for running certain SCORM packages, then this should do you fine.
I'm not sure where to start when it comes to load-testing ASP.NET applications. My team doesn't use VSTS so that option is out. Does anyone have any good suggestions or experience they can share?
I'ved used Microsoft's free Web Application Stress Tool. It lets you record a browsing session, then replay it using multiple clients.
It seems that Microsoft has pulled this application from the download center, but you can use this alternative download (it may require 7-Zip to unpack).
Red Gate Software has a product called ANTS that can be used to do this.
Click Here for product link
Using BrowserMob.com is quite cheap for what it provides. You can listen to an interview with the founder of Browser Mob on Startup Success Podcast #18.
You can use Grinder.
Its a nice Java Based Opensource tool, to load test webapps. Pretty lean as well.