Resources

What is SCORM?

The Shareable Courseware Object Reference Model (SCORM) is an XML-based specification supporting learning technologies. It have been developed by and distributed through the Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative Network. It is undoubtedly the fastest growing standard being accepted by major eLearning vendors.

SCORM Best Practices Guide for Content Developers

Implementation Issues in SCORM

True Re-use of Learning Objects

One problem holding back more widespread re-use of SCOs is the "mosaic effect" that arises when assembling a course from sequences of SCOs that are from a different origin. To reuse these SCOs for different courses (or clients for a different context), or in combination with SCOs from other providers, the courseware developer must edit the HTML tags to change the appearance of the SCO to suit the new context. This re-work severely compromises a key promise of the SCORM initiative: "the flexibility to incorporate instructional components into multiple applications and contexts" (Dodds, 2001) and undermines the principle of separating content from its presentation.

To overcome this problem, this website is providing tools and methodology to promote SCORM-SSS, a scheme devised by our founders. See the papers in Implementation Issues.

Information on Style Sheets

Style-sheets can be created with commonly used tools such as Dreamweaver and there is ample information and resources available to designers on how to use cascading style-sheets for a range of purposes.

For some inspiration, see CSS Zen Garden.

For some practical tips, see A List Apart.

Creating Custom Look and Feel for your SCORM Course

Please work through our sample SCORM course on this topic.

FAQ

Why don't you use a complete CSS approach? Why you still recommend frameset in your solution?

Up to now, SCORM is silent about how you should provide navigation to your course, not to mention the mandane details in designing a specification to meet every need. Most vendors resolve to use frameset anyway. So choosing to use frameset is driven by a practical consideration. We need a solution TODAY!

Why don't you define classes in the CSS but resolve to use standard HTML tags?

SCOs, by definition is HTML pages with special codes to support communication with the LMS. Moving away from this will mean most SCOs available today need to be reworked. More importantly, defining any class or structure to a learning object is an on-going process. We are not optimistic about the chances of success in this approach. Any attempt to impose structure on learning objects has to meet many different design requirements from different stakeholders. See our paper on "layered model". We believe we are offering the best approach both from theoretical and practical prospectives.

HTML has been a de facto standard on the web since its first days. It is sufficient to specify the look and feel in most situation. This is the best common ground to build our solution.

What happens if my SCOs have not been upgraded to SCORM-SSS compliant?

Course Player allows your course to degrade very gracefully. You can still use Course Player to deliver you course on CD or on simple web server.

Which browsers do Course Player support?

Course Player supports IE 5+, Gecko-based browsers such as Mozilla, Netscape 7 or Firefox. Unfortunately, at this stage, we do not support Opera and Safari.

Do you intend to submit SCORM-SSS for standardisation consideration?

Yes. Your experience and comment will help us a lot. Please contact us.

About SCORMPlayer.com

The SCORM logo is a trademark of Advanced Distributed Learning (Source: Advanced Distributed Learning). SCORMPlayer.com is a business unit of Digital Learning Systems P/L registered in Australia. The use of the term SCORM and any SCORM logo is in line with the ADL logo usage guideline (http://www.adlnet.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=licensefiledid-725&libid=365 downloaded on 24th June 2004 14:00). In particular, SCORMPlayer.com may use SCORM logo under the guideline that we are an organisation seeking to promote the benefits of participating in the ADL Initiative. Our use of the word SCORM and SCORM logo does imply any endorsement from ADL.