But, neither are supported as export formats from Moodle. Moodle happily ingests those formats, acting to absorb content into what then becomes an inescapable pit of quicksand. It’s a one-way trip. Content can check in, but it can never leave.

If Blackboard did that, there would be villagers marching in the streets with torches in hand. The Blackboard SCORM import/export stuff might not be perfect, but at least they try to let people move content out.

With Moodle, it’s currently a vendor lock-in proposition. The only saving grace is that the vendor just happens to be an open source project. But it’s still lock-in.

I’m really hoping I’m missing something obvious, but having the only information about SCORM exporting on the Moodle website be a few comments in the forums (one of which jokes “why would you want to leave Moodle?”) isn’t exactly comforting. Standards are only good if they’re used bidirectionally. Standards used to promote lock-in are nothing but tools of oppression. OK. So it’s not as dire as that, but you get my point.

photo credit: Jef Poskanzer