Where's the Beef? The Need for More SCORM Content Samples

WHERE IS THE BEEF? This is certainly a common request from content developers I've heard for many years now. No, I'm not referring to burgers ;-) I'm sure you've heard of Wendy's famous catch phrase, but in case you haven't I'm unfortunately referring to there NOT being enough SCORM content examples available for reuse and sharing among the SCORM community. We have a 10 year old technical specification (SCORM) that addresses the reuse and sharing of learning content, so wouldn't you think we would already have an abundant collection or repository of SCORM content examples that actually leverage the specification itself?

While the ADL has certainly provided some excellent examples on their website (recently reconstructured: http:///www.adlnet.gov), I believe it is time for the SCORM community to take it to the next level and collaborate on building a "SCORM Repository of SCORM Content Examples". The SCORM community would greatly benefit from an open source repository of SCORM examples much like the Adobe Flash developer community benefits from sharing and reusing source .FLA files on sites such as Flash Kit, Hot Scripts, and Oh My Flash. In a nutshell, I'm proposing a SCORM content repository for the purpose providing SCORM developers with the ability to share and reuse their source SCORM content. This might help content developers to learn both the basic techniques and the more advanced features of SCORM. Some of the more sophisticated examples could be licensed for a fee. This could perhaps provide the incentive for content developers with the more advanced SCORM development skills to demonstrate and share their examples.

There are many design and configuration management issues associated with implementing any web-based software application, but one specific concern with implementing a repository of this nature is Quality Control. ADL or some other entity would need to conformance test and approve the ingestion of SCORM content examples to evaluate them for quality assurance. Perhaps the content developer would have to go through some type of quality control process / approval process for "certified" content only?

Is there interest in such a resource? I'm certain the infrastructure supporting this SCORM repository architecture would have to be robust enough to handle the growth if the interest is indeed there. Perhaps there are already open source repository applications that would support such an initiative? Tell me your thoughts and feel free to add your comments to this blog post.

Like Adobe's Official Flash Examples, the ADL has provided the SCORM community official SCORM 2004 content examples available on their website. However, with the recent reconstruction of the website they are somewhat difficult to locate. Therefore, I have taken the initiative to create a section on my SCORM resource website, CONFORM 2 SCORM, dedicated to providing the SCORM community with a collection of SCORM content examples (Just Click Here). The most recent addition to this collection comes from Rustici Software and includes quite an impressive number of samples for both SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004 content packages.

This listing of SCORM content examples on CONFORM 2 SCORM is not all inclusive, but it's a start! If you have some examples you would like to add to this collection, please sign up for an account at CONFORM 2 SCORM and click "Suggest A Link". Any registered user can submit links to the CONFORM 2 SCORM directory. If you have a content example or other resource you would like to share, but don't have time to register for an account feel free to contact me at: jhaag[at]conform2scorm[dot]com.

LETSI Releases SCORM 2.0 Report

LETSI recently released the results of their SCORM 2.0 effort. Between July 2008 and January 2009, the effort involved over 250 people and produced 100 white papers. While the SCORM community is actually much larger in total, the response to this effort was very impressive. During this effort I volunteered as co-chair of the LETSI Strategic Communications Working Group. As a proud native of Pensacola, Florida I helped with some of the planning and arrangements for the SCORM 2.0 workshop held at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. The workshop hosted sixty-five educators, technologists, and policy makers to discuss possibilities and priorities. The momentum continued after the workshop as the LETSI Working Groups collectively spent several months discussing the issues and producing this final report about LETSI's assumptions on "SCORM 2.0".

After reading this document (and if you have any knowledge of SCORM), you will most likely say to yourself..."all of these concepts are outside the scope of SCORM". And then chuckle to yourself about sounding so cynical :-) The ideas and assumptions made in this document are beyond the meaning behind the acronym (sharable content OBJECT reference model). We are talking about more than learning objects here, and they are also implying support for multiple types of learning theories and instructional models (e.g. behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, connectivism, instructor-led training, blended learning, self-paced learning, comptency-based learning, etc.).

So, it is obvious that a new name for this effort is in store. What LETSI is trying to do will encompass so much more than the current or future SCORM models. Although the ADL has decided to continue to support SCORM, and LETSI will probably have little or no further influence in the acronym as we know it today, I know that I will continue to embrace the SCORM (inherently as part of the ADL and DoD community). However, what I have found to be quite exciting though, is the fact that the SCORM community has come together to share ideas and help LETSI begin to lay the foundation for something new and exciting that will still support the SCORM model. More than support, LETSI's vision and efforts (if fully realized) will provide so many new opportunities. As a member of LETSI, it has been fun to be part of such influential group of peers working together on identifying new requirements that will ultimately drive the open source development of new learning technologies. I , like many other peers, don't think this effort or ideas shared from this point forward should be called SCORM 2.0. So, what should this new effort be called? Aaron Slivers recently posted a new campaign via the LETSI Blog titled, "Name the Next SCORM" in an effort to ask the elearning community to ask for your input.

Reasons for eLearning failure

Mark Simon (Eliassen Group) wrote an excellent article in the January 2009 edition of ASTD's T+D Magazine titled, "E-Learning NO How: 7 disastrous decisions sure to sink any e-learning implementation. Click the title of this post to read the full article.

1. Fire and forget
   After you’ve created an eLearning course, you can’t just send it out and assume everyone will take it. Follow up with email reminders, internal marketing, and communication from management.


2. Don’t worry about assessments
   Don’t assume the learner mastered the material. Assessments are necessary!


3. Ignore the working environment
   Consider providing links to job aids and other performance support tools for the learners. Remember, they will return to their work environment after the course.


4. Forget about the LMS
   Make sure your course works seamlessly with your LMS. Don’t just assume your part is done after you’ve built the course.


5. Don’t worry about teaching the e-learning interface
   Provide support materials to make sure your learners know how to navigate your eLearning interface.


6. Make it difficult to access the course
   Automatically enroll users in your course or make sure the course can be found easily in the LMS.


7. Ignore workstation configurations
   Do some research with help from your IT department. Your users may not have the right browser, plugins, etc. Figure out how to handle upgrades and prepare documentation for learners if they need to make changes to their systems.

Read the full article here.

Free Public Webinar: Innovation for E-Learning Systems: LETSI & SCORM 2.0

Tom King and Avron Barr will be presenting during the ATSD TechKnowledge 2009 Virtual Conference today. The webinar is free and open to the public. Here's a description of the event:

"Collaborative, adaptive and mobile systems are creating opportunities for new instructional methods that challenge learning management systems (LMS), core to e-learning for the past 15 years, and shareable content object reference model (SCORM). This session will address the changes, capabilities, and implementation considerations that training managers and designers will need to know to design, develop, and deploy next generation e-learning with SCORM 2.0.
LETSI (learning-education-training system interoperability) working groups will produce a SCORM 2.0 design document. The design document will address the features, overall architecture, and implementation decisions in SCORM 2.0. It will be approved by the LETSI sponsors in December 2008; implementations will begin in 2009. In this session, key LETSI volunteers will provide you with advance notice, emerging best practices, and critical planning information.

Adobe Introduces eLearning Suite

Adobe announced yesterday the release of their new elearning suite. It includes a new SCORM Packager to create LMS-compliant content from Flash Professional & Adobe Captivate. A new blog was created today that provides a few screen captures as well: http://tinyurl.com/bpwgmq

ADL Releases SCORM 2004 4th Edition Beta Software

ADL has released the highly anticipated 4th Edition. With the release of the 4th edition it is now possible to create many of the originally promised conditional branching behaviors that were part of the IMS S&N spec. Most importantly, with the release of the 4th edition SCOs within a single activity tree willl be able to share run-time data...

read more | digg story

SCORM 2.0: high-level solutions or low-level tools?

Interesting blog posted by Philip Hutchinson from pipwerks।com.

W3C Releases Mobile Web Best Practices

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) today released the 1.0 version of their Mobile Web Best Practices document. The guidelines offer mobile web developers a consistent set of best practices to apply when creating content for consumption on mobile devices.

read more | digg story

SCORM 2.0: LETSI Announces a Call for Participation

SOURCE: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/06/prweb988494.htm

LETSI, Learning Education Training Systems Interoperability, the international, nonprofit federation dedicated to improving individual and organizational learning, has taken on the task of developing the next generation of SCORM, the Sharable Content Object Reference Model. As part of this initiative, LETSI is soliciting White Papers from all stakeholders interested in shaping the future direction of SCORM and the implementation of learning systems technology.

(PRWEB) June 1, 2008 -- Stakeholders in all parts of the education and training world are invited to submit White Papers concerning the technical and pedagogical requirements for future learning systems interoperability. The deadline for submission is August 15, 2008. The open solicitation was announced May 28th, 2008 at the SCORM Technical Working Group meeting, hosted by the Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative in Alexandria, VA.

The development of the next SCORM, the Sharable Content Object Reference Model, has been tasked to LETSI, a new international federation for Learning-Education-Training Systems Interoperability. LETSI's goal is to advance innovation and adoption of learning technology across all market sectors and to support the use of open software standards in learning technology.

Open standards reduce life cycle costs and risks, and promote innovation. SCORM allows content developed in one system to be shared and fully functional within any other SCORM-conformant system. SCORM has been successfully used to develop sharable content in self-paced military training; automobile sales force training; healthcare professional re-certification; K-12 after-school tutoring in South Korea; and many other types of e-learning applications. Over the last decade, SCORM has become the de facto international software standard for learning systems interoperability.

SCORM 2.0 will include specifications and standards created and managed using open, transparent processes that are not encumbered by patents, licenses or restrictions that would impinge on its availability to the global LET community. LETSI will create an open source software community to support SCORM adopters and product developers. LETSI itself does not develop the component standards that go into SCORM.

"Given the demands for harmonization across international technical learning standards, Core SCORM will be based on unencumbered open standards to maximize market growth and global adoption and implementation." -- Paul Jesukiewicz, Deputy Director, Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative.

The U.S. Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative (ADL), which has been the advocate and steward of the first ten years of SCORM's development, will continue to support the SCORM community and will maintain the current version, SCORM 2004. LETSI was formed by the ADL and eleven other organizations to provide an international, balanced, open forum for SCORM development and to harmonize activity across the diverse communities that are investing in learning technology: public education, higher education, for-profit education, military training, professional development/certification, corporate training, and on-the-job performance support.

To accommodate these diverse market needs, SCORM 2.0 will have two components:
1) A general reference model, Core SCORM, based on widely adopted, accredited learningtechnology standards that support basic interoperability.
2) Additional components that support broadly applicable LET functionality and instructionalcapabilities based on specifications that are not yet standards.

SCORM 2.0 will have a modular, extensible architecture that will allow specific communities of practice to adapt and extend the model with functionality and innovations that are important for their particular situation (e.g., a new medical simulation standard or aviation-industry specific metadata). LETSI will play the leadership role in publicizing such extensions and will consider them for future inclusion in SCORM.

In mid-October, LETSI will host a 3-day SCORM 2.0 Workshop where participants will discuss alternative future learning technology solutions. The results will be incorporated in the next release of SCORM, which LETSI will announce at year's end. It is expected that new products that are SCORM 2.0 conformant will begin to appear in late 2009.

LETSI is sponsored by a dozen organizations with commitments to SCORM and to the development of open learning technology standards. LETSI is organized as a program under the IEEE Industry Standards and Technology Organization. For more information about LETSI, please visit: http://www.letsi.org.

For more information about the white paper solicitation and the SCORM 2.0 Workshop, visit:http://www.letsi.org/SCORM2/
###