SCORM 1.2 Packages

We've bundled our newer lessons into SCORM 1.2 packages for use in elearning systems. If you have purchased a licence bundle you can now download these packages from the My Licence Files section of MyWP.

Hang on, what is SCORM 1.2?

The Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) is a collection of standards and specifications for elearning material. It defines communications between client side content and a host learning platform so that, for example, the student's current place in that learning content can be stored. SCORM also defines how content may be packaged into a transferable ZIP file called "Package Interchange Format."

SCORM content can be generated by elearning authoring tools such as Adobe Captivate and consumed by learning platforms such as Moodle, the open-source Learning Management System.

SCORM was developed by the United States Department of Defense and has had very mixed success in adoption, not aided by its complexity and lack of documentation. SCORM 1.2 was the first version to see widespread adoption (such as in Moodle) and this is the version we have chosen to release our material in first.

SCORM 2004 is the version that follows SCORM 1.2 and hasn't seen nearly as much adoption (it is not supported by Moodle without using third-party plugins). It adds functionality such as sequencing (defining the order that content can be accessed by a student) that is a lot more complex to implement.

The current version of SCORM is the Experience API (previously known as the Tin Can API and alternately known as xAPI). This version is designed to handle a range of learning experiences, including ones that happen outside an online course such as face to face training, mobile learning on phones and viewing training videos. It is slowly being adopted by learning platforms but is still far from universally supported.

Downloading Watsonia Publishing packages

When you drill down into Courseware Extras under MyWP => My Licence Files, you'll see the elearning lessons:

Elearning files

 Elearning files

Along with the SCORM 1.2 lesson package created for each chapter there are also the test questions in both Blackboard and Moodle format.

These files have been automatically converted from their Word versions, and while we've checked a lot of them, there's likely to be conversion errors here and there. If you see anything that looks odd, let us know and we'll fix it up for you.

With the range of learning platforms and configuration options available, we're also sure that there will be enhancements that can be made to these packages. If you have any suggestions or a learning platform that doesn't handle these packages as you expect we'd love to hear from you so that we can fix them up.

SCORM 1.2 packages are available for our Office 2013, Adobe CS6/CC and Windows 8/10 content.

Let us know what you think!

You can reach us at info@watsoniapublishing.com.