Comments on: Moodle and SCORM Export?

By: Frank

Frank — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 01:12:33 +0000

Another LMS to consider is the open source LMS eFront. While they have always supported importing and exporting of SCORM 1.2, with the recent release they also support SCORM 2004.

http://www.efrontlearning.net/

By: dnorman

dnorman — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:51:38 +0000

Thanks for the info, Greg! I’ve used ATutor (a couple of years ago now – I’m sure it’s changed a lot since then) and will definitely try it out for a future project. The ability to export content is pretty key – import without export is just lock-in.

By: Greg Gay

Greg Gay — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 14:38:08 +0000

As moodle’s main OS competitor, we ATutor developers having been waiting patiently for moodle to implement some kind of standard exporting so current users could get their content out of moodle and into ATutor, or into any other system that support open content standard for that matter. Not realizing the importance of two way interoperability, many moodle users find out too late that they are “locked in.” Too often I hear, “…it would be too much trouble to switch systems”

While SCORM is one potential means, its really not the best way to move content around in an interoperable way. SCORM serves its purpose as a standard way of presenting and distributing learning content, but it is quite limited in it pedagogical adaptability. More appropriate for content interoperability is IMS CP, and on the assessment side, IMS QTI. Once these components can be imported, exported, authored, knowledgeable e-learning practiioners should be able to use features of the LMS the content imports into to take care of the pedagogical aspects of teaching and learning online.

Since 2003, ATutor has had content packaging importing, exporting, and authoring. You can get your content out of ATutor and into moodle, no problem. The other way around, you’ll have trouble. The ATutor code is there for the taking if moodle wants to implement true interoperability. And now, ATutor has implemented the IMS Common Cartridge specification (compliance confirmed by IMS). You can author common cartridges, export them for use in other ATutor courses or in other systems that import cartridges, and you can import cartridges from other sources and customize them to your teaching needs. Again, moodle if you’re listening, the ATutor code is there for the taking. To complicated is not an excuse, but rather a ploy to prevent moodle users from “escaping” to another system. I’d challenge moodlers to make their system truly interoperable, and we’ll make our code available to do it.

By: dnorman

dnorman — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 02:29:27 +0000

There’s the rub. You can limit yourself to painting by numbers, as supported by the archaic SCORM spec and possibilities of AICC etc… OR you can focus on supporting and engaging in meaningful learning activities. Which become tied to a specific platform because there is no way to import/export those complex and organic interactions in any meaningful way.

By: Bill Fitzgerald

Bill Fitzgerald — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:23:18 +0000

RE: “People need to base all of their courses on SCORM complaint content.”

So, the spec should drive the format/shape/process of learning?

I get it now. It makes perfect sense. And here I was thinking that the needs of learners should be primary.

Palm Forehead!

Thanks for the clarification.

Cheers,

Bill

By: Scott Leslie

Scott Leslie — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 22:13:38 +0000

Nice comment Mark, not self-serving AT ALL. Don’t blame the product vendors, the spec is too complicated, but DO trust the spec, and those specialists who can profit from developing in it.
Nice logic.

SCORM is an answer begged by the question of Learning Management Systems, themselves a beeged question of how to do online learning in a “protected” way. All over the web we see examples of people taking content, getting it to show up in other places, or reusing it easily, without arcane specs like SCORM. Yes, arcane.

By: MarkK

MarkK — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 05:03:04 +0000

email info@bthegame.com for mark Kesley

By: MarkK

MarkK — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 04:59:33 +0000

Stop blaming Moodle, blame yourselves. The best learning package to this date is SCORM 2004. The problem is that it is not easy to implement SCORM 2004 for most companies without experience in this area, so they rely on the Pre built templates (Quize, survey, etc) of their LMS instead of basing each project on SCORM compliant sub sections.

There is a solution
People need to base all of their courses on SCORM complaint content. That means you can’t rely on the Moodle template activities (or added modules) for course creation. You have to more rigorously manage each activity and asset for SCORM compliance and sequencing. To this point in time, Flash -> javascript applications lend themselves quite well to SCORM data transfers. The question is, can your company build an Actionscript project that implements SCORM? Can your company take existing content, modify it to export SCORM compliant variables. Ours can.

If you need expert consultation on risk reduction in software projects relating to SCORM compliancy, please email me.

Mark Kesley
Independant SCORM compliant/Flash/Javascript developer
(Email for samples)

By: Concerning Open Source, LMSs and SCORM: Correcting Some Common Misconceptions | E-Learning Curve Blog

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:32:14 +0000

[...] in point. In her post, Dawn compared Moodle with the proprietary BlackBoard solution. She cites D’Arcy Norman’s blog post (2009) where the author expressed their frustration at being unable to “export a Moodle [...]

By: dnorman

dnorman — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 21:25:38 +0000

OK. good point. the problem should be rephrased as “is there a way to get content out of Moodle in a way that can be ingested into another platform without having to copy and paste a few hundred separate pages?”