Elearning: SCORM-Compliant Content

Grass Roots Group supplies onsite training and elearning to hundreds of commercial and governmental organisations across the world.

Elearning content has historically been delivered to these organisations through a purpose-built web application, accessed via the internet. However, there is a growing need to supply content that can be incorporated into companies' own Learning Management Systems (LMS), so this online content has to be converted and packaged for uploading into industry-standard LMSes without adaptation of the existing system.

Furthermore, the course has to include a knowledge check whereby a preset number of questions from a pool are asked in random order and, in some cases, generate a personalised certificate for printing by the user.

Challenges

As delivered by our client's own system, courses are generated by a server (.NET), which creates pages from content stored in a database. These pages, and supporting assets like images and Flash movies, have to be saved individually and indexed for arrangement into a self-contained content package, for delivery without access to the original server.

Because the server also administers the end-of-course test, questions and answers also have to be downloaded and indexed.

Solution and Benefits

We wrote a small 'extractor' application to control Internet Explorer and use it to automatically navigate way through the course, saving pages and assets along the way. As it reaches the end-of-course test, it displays a screen to the extractor operator, who selects the correct answers; these are then stored along with the question pages, which are indexed.

Once all files have been saved, and test answers provided, files are generated to support the content and to make it deliverable through a SCORM? Learning Management System:

  • A script file to simulate the functionality of the original server
  • A 'metadata' file to describe to the LMS what the course is about, its name, author, version and copyright information, etc.
  • A 'manifest' file, listing all files and assets required to reliably deliver the course.
  • After this, the content is compressed into a ZIP file, which is then immediately ready for uploading into any compliant LMS.

This 'extraction' process has been performed many times for clients like the National Health Service, local government agencies and banks, providing Grassroots and their clients with several distinct benefits:

  • Because the extraction is performed through a browser, no significant changes have had to be made to the original web application -- to it, extractions appear identical to a normal student taking the course and test (if considerably quicker!);
  • Course content pages become individual HTML pages, with name standardised to enable selection of module, section or page;
  • An in-course navigation system exactly replicates the functionality of the original server-delivered menu;
  • Content can be run from the desktop or via a Learning Management System and, when LMS-delivered, provides
    - Bookmarking, so learners can come back to where they last left off
    - Reporting of course completion and test pass/fail
    - Personalisation of the end-of-course certificate, automatically displaying the learner's name upon successful completion
  • SCORM conformant content, tested in WyredMedia's LMS and by the compliance suite provided by ADL, the organisation behind SCORM.

 

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