What is SCORM and SCORM Compliance?

Learning and Development professionals who purchase e-learning need to understand what SCORM Compliance is and how it can make or break their ability to demonstrate the ROI from an e-learning course.

SCORM is a collection of standards and specifications for web based e-learning content. It defines communications between your e-learning course and the host system you’re delivering it on, for example an LMS.

Why should I care?

If the e-learning you put on your host system isn’t fully SCORM compliant you won’t get the management information you need in your reports.

This is because the learner activity will not be tracked properly; for example quiz scores won’t be captured properly and so you won’t be able to track learner progress.

Here’s our handy buyers guide to SCORM for those who want to be sure that the SCORMed e-learning they buy lives up to expectations.

What version of SCORM should I use?

Version SCORM 1.2 is widely used and is the standard supported by most Learning Management Systems today.  It is the version implemented in our software and it’s what we need for loading courses onto Learning Pool DLE’s.

What should I look for when buying a SCORM course?

Ask your courseware supplier to give you the following general guarantees:

All pages and images are present

The course has been fully tested on a UNIX-based LMS to confirm that all images, page, JavaScript, flash file references are spelt correctly and are case perfect.  All links to resource documents, pdf files and external documents/websites are tested

Your supplier should also ensure that the SCORM XSD files are correct and that the manifest file correctly references the values sections in the course as they expect.  The SCORM tracking should adhere to standards and should be demonstrable on at least one SCORM LMS

Sample reports should be supplied to you so that you’re satisfied that the reporting provides the required learner activity information

What technical guarantees should I look for?

Your course could be supplied in one of the following three formats.

Note which type of course you’re purchasing and consult the checklist provided.

• Course without a quiz Correctly records status with cmi.core.lesson_status=”not attempted”, “incomplete,” “completed”Correctly records duration information using cmi.core.session_timeCourse with a separate quiz
• Correctly records status with cmi.core.lesson_status = “not attempted”, “incomplete”, “completed”Correctly records duration information using cmi.core.session_timeAssessment
• Questions/Answers/Responses and pass rate supplied separately.Course with an inbuilt quizCorrectly records status with cmi.core.lesson_status = “not attempted”, “incomplete”, “completed”, “failed”, “passed” and a guarantee that the logic of these status is correct
• Correctly records duration information using cmi.core.session_timeAssessment has correct implementation of cmi.core.score.min, cmi.core.score.max, cmi.core.score.raw

If a quiz has a pass rate then a correct implementation of the masterscore functionality is present

Need to know more about SCORM?

If you have any questions about SCORM don’t hesitate to ask us, we’ll happily give you our advice.