Comments on: SCORM for Dummies http://cogdogblog.com/2004/05/26/scorm-for/ Alan Levine's blog space for barking about instructional technology Sat, 22 Nov 2008 06:00:33 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 By: Scott Leslie http://cogdogblog.com/2004/05/26/scorm-for/#comment-591 Scott Leslie Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000 http://cogdogblog.com/2004/05/26/scorm-for-dummies/#comment-591 Alan, the irony of this presentation you point to is that it is by Phil Dodds of the ADL, who obviously knows a great deal about SCORM, and yet I would rate this one of the worst 'dummies' guides I've ever seen; poorly laid out, still crammed with acronyms, and using phrasing, like the one you point to in your last paragraph, that speak of seemingly non-existance SCORM-compliant LMS and just end up confusing the reader. The document is entirely accurate, just not very clear. SCORM really does two things. It makes learning content portable between systems that recognize the manner in which SCORM content packages work. And secondly it means that the systems between which that learning content can be moved can all launch and track how users move through the content in exactly the same way. What it meant is that publishers could no longer get away with selling you digital content that wouldn't play properly in your CMS/LMS, and CMS/LMS vendors couldn't get away with selling you a system that trapped you into forever using that system because your content was stuck in its proprietary format. It is important in providing a stable format for electronic learning content and thus creating the basis for a content marketplace to emerge, but at the same time it is dead boring stuff, and IMHO gets more attention than is its due simply for having a cool-sounding acronym (never underestimate the power of a cool-sounding acronym!) Cheers, Scott. Alan, the irony of this presentation you point to is that it is by Phil Dodds of the ADL, who obviously knows a great deal about SCORM, and yet I would rate this one of the worst ‘dummies’ guides I’ve ever seen; poorly laid out, still crammed with acronyms, and using phrasing, like the one you point to in your last paragraph, that speak of seemingly non-existance SCORM-compliant LMS and just end up confusing the reader.

The document is entirely accurate, just not very clear. SCORM really does two things. It makes learning content portable between systems that recognize the manner in which SCORM content packages work. And secondly it means that the systems between which that learning content can be moved can all launch and track how users move through the content in exactly the same way. What it meant is that publishers could no longer get away with selling you digital content that wouldn’t play properly in your CMS/LMS, and CMS/LMS vendors couldn’t get away with selling you a system that trapped you into forever using that system because your content was stuck in its proprietary format.

It is important in providing a stable format for electronic learning content and thus creating the basis for a content marketplace to emerge, but at the same time it is dead boring stuff, and IMHO gets more attention than is its due simply for having a cool-sounding acronym (never underestimate the power of a cool-sounding acronym!)

Cheers, Scott.

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