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Hi, my name's Jono Poltrack. I'm a software engineer on the ADL Technical Team. This is
part three of the Introduction to SCORM video series. This one's on the SCORM Bookshelf.
The objective of this video is to understand the SCORM Bookshelf and related software.
Okay, we call it the SCORM Bookshelf because the SCORM is actually a collection of four
different books. Most of the information that's in those books comes from other organizations.
That's why it's called a reference model-- the Sharable Content Object Reference Model--
because we've gone out to other organizations who have different pieces of the e-learning,
web-based content puzzle and we pulled these into SCORM, provided an application profile on
top of those to further restrict the requirements so that it works better in the SCORM environment.
Also we're going to talk about some auxiliary documents and some software products. The
first book is the Overview. It contains an overview of SCORM 2004 including the history,
current status, future direction of ADL SCORM and an introduction to SCORM's high-level
functional requirements. If you missed part one of this video series, it's on high-level ADL
and the SCORM. It contains some more details on those high-level functional requirements.
In fact you may hear them referred to as the "ilities". So if you missed that, that's
available on ADLnet.gov. The Content Aggregation Model, CAM book. This defines how to package
content to enable exchange between learning systems, describe content for search and discovery,
and encode sequencing in your manifest. The CAM book contains specs and standards from
two organizations, specifically LOM metadata,learning object metadata that comes from IEEE and
it's an accredited standard. And then there's two specifications from IMS. Content packaging-
that again is how you take your course and package it up so it can be moved from system
to system. And, IMS Simple Sequencing- that's how you define those static rules ahead
of time so that when your learner is taking the course based on their interactions with
the course they may get different content or see it in a different way. The Run-Time
Environment book, RTE. This provides information on the SCORM data model elements and the SCORM
API. This book contains two specs from IEEE: specifically the Application Programming Interface,
API, and the data model. Both are IEEE standards. In addition in SCORM in 2004 fourth edition
there's a new part in this book and that is the ADL interSCO data model extension and
what that allows you to do is, unlike the regular run-time data model which is scoped per SCO,
this data model - the ADL extension data model gives you the ability to share data between
SCOs. It's unstructured, you can use it in any way you like. But if you have four
SCOs and you want them to all be able to access that same bucket of data, our extension data
model is the way to go. The Sequencing and Navigation book. This defines how sequencing
can be applied to content to prescribe the manner in which learners receive content from
the LMS interoperably. This again includes that IMS Simple Sequencing specification.
It's in two books you notice. I mentioned the IMS Simple Sequencing spec. In the Sequencing
and Navigation book that's really more focused on the LMS side of things. How do I interpret
those rules and provide the right piece of content? Next, in the CAM book when we talk
about IMS Simple Sequencing that was more from the content side of things so, in my
package how do I define those rules for my specific course? Also in the Sequencing and Navigation
book there's another ADL-developed spec and that's our ADL Nav data model. Early on we realized
that people wanted to put their own "Next" buttons and "Previous buttons". Since the resources
and the organization of those resources are separate in the SCORM environment, typically
in SCORM Version 1.2 and older versions the LMS had to provide the navigation controls
because the LMS was the the only thing aware of what was next or if something was next.
So the ADL Nav data model was created to give the content the ability to ask the LMS is
there something next to go to, and if so, I want to execute the continue sequencing
request. Again that was something built by ADL, and not borrowed from another organization.
So now we're going to the supplemental books, the ADL Guidelines for Creating Reuseable
Content with SCORM 2004. This includes the DoD instructions and guidance for instructional
designers who are implementing SCORM 2004,
registering content in the ADL Registry. If you missed part one of this video series,
we talk a little bit about the the ADL interoperability infrastructure that contains the SCORM and
our ADL Registry which is based on CORDRA technology. So for more information on the
registry go ahead and check out part one which is available at ADLnet.gov. Ok, we're going
to move into software now. The first piece of software is the Sample Run-Time Environment,
SRTE. This is an example of an ultra-simple LMS that is SCORM-conformant. It's used for
testing not production purposes. This was actually built as an example to LMS
vendors early on. It was our implementation of the data-model. Our implementation of how
you may import a package. Now that wasn't a requirement that you build it that way, but
not only did it serve as an example but a ground truth that the specs and standards that we were
pulling into the SCORM actually worked. As time went on the focus of the Sample RTE moved
from the LMS side of things to the content side of things. Content developers realized
that they could use the Sample RTE to preview their content without
purchasing or going through the process of moving their packages into their final LMS
system. The sample RTE is available on ADLnet.gov under the SCORM page. It's free and it contains
all of the source code. The ADL SCORM Test Suite: Tests content or system against each SCORM
conformance requirement. This is also used by the ADL Certification Testing Center for
certification purposes. The Test Suite is what you can use to say you're SCORM conformant.
If you're building content, or you're building a learning management system, you want to
test that thing and see if you're actually conformant to that version of the SCORM. One
thing to note is that when you use the Test Suite you're testing to a specific version
of the SCORM. So for example, if you use the SCORM 2004 Fourth Edition Test Suite Version
1.1.1, well then you're testing versus the conformance requirements of SCORM 2004 Fourth
Edition. If you have a SCORM 2004 Third Edition system then you need to use the appropriate
third edition test suite to test for conformance. This software is available for free on ADLnet.gov.
The ADL RELOAD Editor. This is a content package and metadata editor. This can be used to create
your content packages and add sequencing rules. Right now the current version supports SCORM
Version 1.2, SCORM 2004 Third and SCORM 2004 Fourth Edition content packages. Also, you
can create ADL Registry metadata with the current version of the ADL RELOAD Editor.
This is also available for free at ADLnet.gov and this comes with all the source, similar
to the SRTE. To learn more about ADL you can go to ADLnet.gov, there you can subscribe to
our ADL Insights newsletter. Also you can follow us on Twitter at @ADL_Initiative,
join our Advanced Distributed Learning group on LinkedIn. That concludes part three
of the Introduction to SCORM video series. Part four is coming
up on certification and conformance. Thanks for watching�