It seems like we’ve been talking about “SCORM 2.0″ for years now…wait, come to think of it, it has been years. Literally years. But, finally, alas, we have some progress. The industry is moving forward. Hark, do I hear angels singing?
While it’s not officially part of “SCORM”, LETSI has produced an exceptionally useful enhancement…and guess what, it’s ready and available to be implemented now!
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I had an “ah ha” moment this weekend. To put it in geek-speak, I had my first experience with mobile learning for performance support…and it was amazing.
After seeing a quote to replace the windows in my house which roughly approximated the US median annual household income, I decided it might be a better idea to try my hand at some weatherstripping. So one night, I did some research online, figured out that I could handle it, and assembled a shopping list for my weekly contribution to Home Depot’s bottom line.
Come Saturday, I had my tools and my materials, but standing in front of my first window, I realized I’d forgotten most of the little tips and tricks I’d learned earlier in the week. But that wasn’t a problem, I just whipped out my new Android phone, spent 5 minutes watching a refresher video on YouTube and I was off and running.
Once it became mind-numbingly boring to adhere strips to window, my mind wandered and it occurred to me how brilliantly effective little bytes of mobile learning can be. I didn’t have to go downstairs and sit at the computer, I didn’t have to sit through everything I’d already learned…I just needed a quick refresher and it was sitting right there with me in my pocket.
Of course, I’ve heard all the buzz about mobile learning and yes, I get it at an intellectual level. But now that I’ve experienced it, it takes on a new meaning. This is really powerful stuff.
A lot of people have asked us if we’re doing anything with mobile and we’re not really doing anything yet. We know that the SCORM Engine works on the iPhone and Androids devices, but that’s about as far as we’ve taken it.
The question I keep asking is, “what are the big technical problems to be solved in mobile learning?”. I don’t have a good answer yet, so I’ll pose it here. What are your thoughts? What needs to be done to enable mobile learning on a broader scale? Are the problems technical, or are they more organizational? What should we do in the space? Or, really, does anybody have an idea for a killer app that would let me afford those new windows??!!
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People often ask us to recommend an LMS for them. We shy away from doing so because we don’t want to pick favorites amongst our clients and potential clients. More significantly though, we really don’t know all that much about the functionality and utility of a particular LMS beyond its SCORM interface.
“Well then,” the inquisitor asks, “who has the best SCORM interface?”. Well duh, our SCORM Engine clients of course.
“Come on,” he presses, “who else is good at this stuff?”. One of the first names that comes to mind has always been SumTotal. That judgement is far from a scientific; we don’t go out and technically audit the details of every LMS’s SCORM implementation. Rather, it is an empirical judgement based on how many problems our content customers report with an LMS. More than that, though, it is the experience in working with the vendor if a problem is found. Are they receptive and supporting? Do they have a pragmatic attitude that leads to collaboratively fixing the problem rather that just passing blame?
Historically, we’ve rarely had to deal with SumTotal problems. That bodes really well for the quality of their implementation. On the few occasions where we have had occasion to iron out a problem, we’ve had the pleasure of working directly with their lead SCORM developer, Ben Clark.
SumTotal is closing its Bellevue development office and sending Ben’s job over to India. When we heard the news, we jumped at the chance to bring him onboard. He accepted and will be starting with us next week!
The guys here often joke that I am “one of the top ten SCORM professionals”, well in my mind, Ben is a fellow “top-tenner”. We’ve worked together on the ADL Technical Working Group for several years and Ben has always impressed me with his insight, knowledge and reason. He’s equally adept at seeing the big picture and navigating the technical weeds.
SCORM is at a crossroads now. It needs to evolve and needs to be improved. There will be a lot of work done at ADL, LETSI and others over the next couple years. We plan to be heavily involved, contributing our time, energy and vision to ensure SCORM’s successful evolution. Ben will be joining me in this effort and should enable us to provide a lot more bandwidth to standards development activities. We’re looking forward to great things to come.
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As you may know, SCORM is a reference model that is composed of other underlying standards. Two of the most important parts of SCORM, the CMI data model and the ECMAScript API, are governed by the IEEE. The IEEE is currently soliciting comments on these standards. That means, now is the time for you to speak up if there are things that you want to see changed.
- Does the data model need more elements (for instance interaction results descriptions)?
- Do you need more places to store things (perhaps some more storage)?
- Are things too complicated? Too simple?
- Should the JavaScript API be changed?
Use your imagination and speak up. Now is the time to be heard. The wheels are in motion for the evolution of SCORM. They turn slowly, but they are turning.
Request for Comment on IEEE LTSC CMI Standards
The IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee (LTSC) is issuing this Request for Comment on three of its foundational standards:
- 1484.11.1: IEEE Standard for Learning Technology – Data Model for Content Object Communication
- 1484.11.2: IEEE Standard for Learning Technology – ECMAScript Application Programming Interface for Content to Runtime Services
- 1484.11.3: IEEE Standard for Learning Technology – Extensible Markup Language (XML) Schema Binding for Data Model for Content Object Communication
These standards were completed between 2003 and 2005 and have been implemented in many different applications around the world.
- They derive from portions of the Aviation Industry CBT Committee (AICC) CMI Guidelines for Interoperability specification.
- They have been profiled by the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative’s Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM(R)), and SCORM 2004 3rd Edition has recently been approved as an ISO-IEC Technical Report.
- They are currently being used in a Web Service interoperability project by the International Federation for Learning, Education, and Training System Interoperability (LETSI).
These standards have been in use for over 6 years, so the IEEE LTSC is now deciding whether or not these standards need to be revised. The IEEE LTSC CMI Working group seeks your participation in submitting comments on these standards for consideration in this decision process.
All comments should be sent to sthropp@ieee.org. All comments received will be made public on the IEEE LTSC website (www.ieeeltsc.org) and will be discussed at a CMI Working Group meeting in the future.
The request for comment review period is scheduled to end on January 22, 2010, at which time the IEEE LTSC CMI Working Group will begin to review and determine the next steps for these standards.
Thank you for your participation in this effort.
IEEE LTSC Chair – Don Holmes
IEEE LTSC CMI Working Group Chair – Schawn Thropp (sthropp@ieee.org)
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Beyond the check box, a new e-book.
Categories: Ideas and Thoughts, SCORM, Standards Evolution
14 Oct 2009
SCORM used to be binary, either you had it or you didn’t. But that’s not right. Let’s face it, in reality there are some good SCORM implementations and some, well, really bad SCORM implementations. Our new e-book will help you decide which is which.
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