SCORM Standards & Overview

SCORM 1.2 (previous standard)

• Provides limited Reporting Capabilities and Statuses (only passed/successful).
• Can only write data, so cannot call a previous response to things like tests and quizzes - limited to interactions only.

SCORM 2004, Version 3 or 4 (current standard)

• Separates Statuses, so it can measure both completion and competency. Includes Statuses like Successful/Not Successful, Pass/Fail, and Pass/Incomplete.
• Provides Read and Write functionality, so can recall previous actions or results. This allows for more flexibility in navigation and gating of content.

Single SCO

You can load a single Sharable Content Object (SCO) into Thought Industries and have it work exactly as it was designed outside of the platform.

This option is required for accurate reporting when using some authoring tools.

You will need to create the course navigation within the SCORM file itself.

Embed

You can also embed a SCORM object to play within a Thought Industries course page. When doing so, you should author the object with this in mind and can rely on Thought Industries navigation to navigate through the course.

Data Limits and Learner Placement

SCORM uses a concept called suspend data limit to return learners to where they left off the last time they accessed the content. However, when a course has hundreds of quiz questions or interactions, they can go over that limit, which means learners will be placed in the last place they were in the platform rather than the last spot in the SCORM object. Below are the limits for suspending data limits:

Exit Buttons

Many SCORM files are created without the ability to store data outside the file itself. If you are creating SCORM objects to use in the Thought Industries platform, we recommend creating an exit button or auto commit status every x seconds.

Incorrect SCORM Statuses

Sending incorrect SCORM Statuses over is a common issue. For reference, SCORM only supports the following statuses:

• Passed/Incomplete
• Passed/Failed
• Completed/Incomplete
• Completed/Failed
• Successful/Not Evaluated
• Not Evaluated

Record Runtime Interactions

When creating results in a SCORM object, post results to cmi.interactions.n.result and categorize them as correct/incorrect.

Cmi.interactions.n.Description

All activities, interactions, and questions should be given a unique description that reads easily on reports. For example, if I have a question like “What’s Your Name?” in the SCORM object, the answer should reflect that the learner provided a name. Learner and Correct Response should also be given readable descriptions, such as “Blue” rather than “choice A.”

Transitioning to SCORM Rustici

1. Do I need to Republish All of my files? No. You should test that your files still complete properly and that SCORM reports interactions the same way, but you shouldn’t need to recreate files.
2. What happens to learners that were in progress in a SCORM file? Learners will lose progress within the SCORM package, but we will still have any historical completions saved.
3. Does completion status carry over after Rustici is enabled? Yes, but not individual page completions.

Reporting Best Practices

What SCORM function is used to report completion back to Thought Industries?

Rustici reports on both completion and success. Rustici allows us to report, for example, that a user completed the file but did not pass it. For gating content (such as preventing user progress in courses), we use completion status, not success status. You need to tie completion status to a success status within the SCORM file to use it for gating.

Is there a preferred completion status (passed/incomplete, successful/not successful, etc)?

This depends on what version of SCORM you are using. They return it to us as two separate properties: Passed or Completed for lesson status, and Success Status. For Success Status, you need to use successful/not successful, which will appear in in Thought Industries as passed/not passed.

Setting lesson status to completed depends on your SCORM version: If you are in SCORM 1.2, the lesson status is completed. In SCORM 2004, it's best to have the status also marked as completed.

What do we do with assessment and final exam scores?

This depends on the success status in the SCORM file. You should associate the success of the SCORM file completion to the successful completion of the assessment. For example, if you want a learner to score 70% or higher on the final exam, the SCORM file should have a 70% mastery score for exam passed to satisfy that success criteria in the SCORM Package.

Rustici allows us to report on the assessment score itself, but the assessment score is not used explicitly as criteria for a SCORM file being successfully passed. For example, if you set the completion criteria for the SCORM package to viewing 70% of the slides and an 80% mastery score on the final exam, a learner can score 90% on the exam, but still not show as complete until they also view 70% of the slides.

Authoring Tools

Thought Industries supports SCORM created by such commonly used tools as Articulate 360, Adobe Captivate, and Elucidat. Each of these platforms has unique settings to control progress and completion status within the Published SCORM Package, so you need to know these settings and match them to Thought Industries.

Authoring Responsibilities - Completion Criteria

You should set completion criteria within the SCORM package before publishing it. You can set completion at both course and page level, and the package will report Completed/Passed/Successful status as set in the package.

SCORM Cloud

SCORM Cloud is a Rustici-created testing tool that you can use to test your SCORM files. You can access it at this link.

Thought Industries SCORM Logging

Our logging contains status and SCORM functions that were committed to the platform from your SCORM package.