The Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM)

Before we begin to talk about SCORM, let’s take a quick look at what a Learning Management System is. This is important, as LMSs are what make SCORM indispensable in today’s eLearning utopia.

A Learning Management System or an LMS is a computerized system that allows learners to log in, view instructional material, share information, and ideas with others, and be evaluated. An LMS is also capable of tracking an individual’s progress (through evaluation and feedback – sometimes supported by facilitators,) and “intelligently” deciding the order in which competencies are taught.

So how does SCORM come into picture? SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) exists mainly in view of LMSs. If an LMS is SCORM conformant it is “intelligent.” It doesn’t just provide information to the learner and evaluate him; it also decides the direction that the course needs to take according to the learner’s performance and competence. It behaves much like a teacher in the real world would do, minus the human imperfections, of course.

SCORM conformant content ensures reusability of Content Objects (also called Learning Objects.) Let’s take the instance of a repository of different Content Objects, which are made accessible to the course designers (teachers, facilitators in a online course, and so on). The course developer can then select Course Objects from this repository, and sequence them according to the needs of their course.

Take another extremely simplistic example to see how SCORM conformant software impacts learning efficiency and effectiveness. There is an online course with two students, one being smarter than the other. The first student moves faster and can quickly lose interest if he's allowed to read just one lesson a day. The LMS can track the students’ progress and allows the first student to move faster by giving him more lessons.

As the course progresses it becomes evident that the second student needs to be explained the concepts further if he’s to complete the course successfully. The LMS promptly rummages through its database and comes up with three simple lessons that will help the student learns faster. The LMS then embeds the additional lessons in the course plan for the second student!

This is a simplistic example. Imagine an online class with 30 individuals, each with their own personalities, learning styles, and even lifestyles. The 30 individuals can differ in numerous ways, and to track their progress and react intelligently is the job of an LMS that is SCORM conformant.

The above example is not to say that the LMS is a super machine that can handle everything on its own. Of course, there are teachers, evaluators, facilitators, data administrators, and many others who ensure that the learner learns in the most efficient manner.

Content is said to be SCORM conformant if it has the following properties:

• Reusability
• Accessibility
• Interoperability
• Mobility
  

Your content doesn’t need to be SCORM conformant if you do not need to track students’ progress and redefine content accordingly. So if you are writing for mass audience you don’t need to bother yourself with making your content SCORM conformant. On the other hand if you are developing content that will eventually be served from an LMS and the instructional strategy of the educational body wishes to ensure that all the above four requirements are fulfilled, you need to follow the SCORM guidelines.

The next question is how is SCORM Conformance implemented.

Following are the two broad steps that you need to take for ensuring SCORM conformant content:

• Assemble or aggregate the content in such a manner that it is reusable by not being very context sensitive, accessible with ease, can be moved from one course/location to another, and doesn’t need to be reworked in the event of change in LMS/operating system. This is achieved through the Content Aggregation Model (CAM) of SCORM.
• While creating content take care of the fact that your course needs to build in mechanisms that will work in tandem with the LMS to track learner’s progress and enable the facilitator/educators to make use of that information.
  

Click here to visit the website of Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) to read about SCORM.

Author: Shafali R. Anand