We’ve been working with several content interoperability standards since 2003, when we introduced IMS Content Packaging, and IMS QTI a year or two later. From the begin we’ve understood that interoperability is a two way street. You need to be able to get content in and out of a system for it to truly be interoperable. It was not long after CP and QTI were introduced in ATutor, that a SCORM 1.2 player came along, contributed by an ATutor community member. Like others though, we recognized the limits of SCORM in terms of interoperability, and in terms of pedagogy. We still support SCORM 1.2, and there’s a SCORM 2004 player in the works, but our focus has continued on “freeing the content.” When we implement a content standard it includes both critical pieces of of interoperability puzzle: importing and exporting.

Part of the trouble, I think, with uptake of these standards are the levels of conformance that can be attained. IMS in particular has not had a conformance level associated with being able to export content, so there’s little initiative to create export tools. They realize this now, and they are working to fix that problem.

In the latest release of ATutor, we introduced IMS Common Cartridge 1.0 Lite authoring, importing, and exporting (IMS approved). The code is now out there and available for others to examine, and even copy if they are an open source system. Martin, I’d encourage the moodlers to look at ATutors implementation, and even to use our code to add CC exporting to moodle.

Full details of the ATutor CC implementation can be found through the SourceForge news release.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/sfnews/forums/forum/1059436

If you want a place to try CC, visit the demo site:
http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/demo.php

greg

The core of this discussion centers on perception.

The core misapprehension seems to me to be twofold: first – the general interpretation (probably, as you point out, by potential clients and their expectations – however misguided – of a platform’s features and functionality) that OSS solutions somehow align to accredited standards in ways that proprietary software doesn’t, and secondly and more specifically there is the common fallacy, that mythical meme: “SCORM is good.”

I’ll address the latter first.

Tell me if you’re familiar with this scenario: a prospect contacts you and asks you to submit an RFI for implementing their new LMS. Somewhere in the body of the text is the innocuous phrase “must support e-learning standards like SCORM.” And so the RFI is duly submitted, including an indication that “why yes indeed, we do support SCORM, AICC, PENS, PDF and whatever you’re having yourself” – this will get you through to the next phase of the tender process and at that stage you can point out that SCORM ain’t what they think it is…

And you go through the tendering process, and you ask pertinent questions about integrating or migrating content, and HRMS / ERP interoperability and their people airily say “Oh, you know, SCORM… it all uses SCORM” and it becomes harder and harder to ask the question “sorry but do you actually know what SCORM is?” and “can we see your best practice documentation and implementation guides?” and as the momentum of the project increases you’re gripped by a sense of panic as you realize that they don’t know what they’re talking about and if you raise it as an issue you may lose the contract and so you try to crowbar a hack into place that will somehow bolt all the enterprise systems together and then you’re in customization hell and you wish someone would just shout “STOP!”

And all for the want of a horseshoe nail, as the proverb tells us.

Or in this case because a customer didn’t know what SCORM is, but still asked for it, all in ignorance. Why does this occur? I suspect (but I have no empirical evidence to support my assertion) that this has emerged because people want to sound knowledgeable. “SCORM” sounds “techie” enough to be credible, both to other ICT types, and especially to non-techies. I suspect that much like “cloud computing” “SAAS” and “SOA”, “SCORM” (as a meme, not in it’s real incarnation as a specification/reference model) now lives in most peoples’ heads somewhere between technobabble and nonsense [click here for Oracle's Larry Ellison's take on this phenomenon (humorous)].

Now the more general bit: I called my blog post Correcting Some Common Misconceptions because misconceptions are mostly what I encounter when people talk to me about standards and SCORM and so on. In a sense, I think that I mostly wrote this post because it’s easier to point people to the post and ask them to read it than to watch their eyes glaze over when I try to patiently explain standards, specifications and interoperability to them.

I think Dawn, that you were making the same point in a different way. Having said that, I have since gone back and re-read your original remarks, and as I said in my post I’m afraid that, sadly my poor, unsharp mind could not sublimate the meaning you ascribe to your post – for example, when you say “preposterous” you append the adjective “seeming” to it, which implies (to me) that you support the proposition.

So, I undertook your research activity by Googling “Moodle and Standards.” The #1 return was a link to a post where, in answer to the query “…in the biggest sense, which standards [are] supported by Moodle?” Martin Dougiamas responded: “In the biggest sense … HTML, XHTML, XML, JPEG, GIF, PNG, IMAP, POP3, LDAP, PAM, Paypal, Shibboleth, CAS, SQL, HTTP, FTP, Javascript, SCORM 1.2, Excel, Open Document Format, Word, Flash, MP3, Moodle plugins.”

And in the biggest sense, we can say that most platforms would support these standards. Equally, as I said in my post “Neither OSS nor proprietary software e-learning platforms align to accredited …standards.”

Let the buyer beware indeed.

Michael
–

That being said, thanks for the taking the time to follow up on some of the ideas in my post. You are making some great points. However, I am afraid you misinterpreted a bit my intention with the post. I started with a bold (and self-proclaimed “preposterous”) claim regarding open source software and lack of standards support, that’s true. However, neither did I promote a comparison between Moodle and Blackboard wrt their level of SCORM support, nor did I advocate that open source software is ALWAYS lacking in standards support vis-a-vis proprietary software (or vice versa).

My intention was really to tackle one aspect of the open source vs. proprietary software discussion from a different angle in the learning space. Because, unfortunately, one of the arguments I have been hearing lately over and over is that open source software is by definition more interoperable and more standards-friendly (or specifications-friendly if you prefer) than proprietary software. I do not agree with that and I used Moodle as a case study to show that open source is not panacea when it comes to standards. Hence, my closing statement: “The point that I am trying to make is that standards and breadth of functionality are hugely important and to make the assumption that the term ‘open source’ automatically translates into these can lead to uninformed decision-making and projects that don’t reach their expected ROI.”

There are certain areas where open source software has dominated the market and other areas where proprietary software has been widely more successful in the market. So, maybe the question is not open source vs. proprietary, but what software better meets the needs of a specific market. And what I am seeing with our clients in the learning space is that strong SCORM support (even though not a fully accredited standard), among other standards, is one of those needs.

British car designer Sir Alec Issigonis famously said that “a camel is a horse designed by a committee” – I guess that SCORM falls in to that category. I think that IMS CC has gotten off to a good start and has potential; it remains to be seen how many commercial software houses integrate it – I’m sure that the OSS community will create plug-ins as and when user demand calls for it (see Martin’s comment above).

Cheers,
Michael
–

Is it too cynical to suggest that BB like the status quo, where organisations like yours provide a steady source of revenue for their ongoing growth and development?

Best,
Michael
–

As it happens, the organisation I work for has occasion to migrate large (hundreds of thousands of users) from both legacy ’siloed’ application platforms, as well as from older versions of our software to newer versions: even when the data “plays well” with the newer systems we still encounter issues. To expect e-learning content created at different times, by different authors, and on different tools to almost ‘magically’ interoperate is unrealistic.

The propensity of software to ‘bloat’ or feature-creep outside of LMSs’ core functionality of administering, managing, tracking, and reporting training events, and into – for example – content authoring, adds what I will charitably call an extra layer of “sophistication” to the issue.

Keep up the good work and best regards,
Michael
–

Good thoughts! I’m a fan of looking at things, even open source, with a critical eye.

What you’re probably looking for is Common Cartridge – it’s an IMS spec. http://www.imsglobal.org/cc/commoncartridge.html

At this point, the only LMS I know that supports Common Cartridge is ANGEL – which was bought by BlackBoard 6 months back. BlackBorg has verbally committed to supporting Common Cartridge – but no date was given as to when (and we all know that verbal commitments aren’t worth anything).

I used to be an ANGEL engineer and used to have to reverse engineer BB (and WebCTs) “SCORM compliant” packages. They used to obfuscate the export as much as possible, to the point it only passed the automated conformance check. Any kind of actual interoperability was mitigated by the obfuscation.

So…yeah…no good answer. I’d say let your dollars do the talking and look at something like Sakai.

As someone who’s tried to implement SCORM 2004 – SCORM is a nightmare. The spec was obviously put together by a government body – it’s way over-engineered and counterintuitive.

Good discussion!

I’m the Moodle founder, perhaps my perspective can help here.

I agree it would be brilliant if all courses were totally interoperable between all systems, but there are two big problems with that.

1) No universal interchange format exists. SCORM is really the very lowest common denominator and is not much better than plain web pages or flash. Most LMS systems have many unique features beyond that. The best we can do is hope for the best migration possible between any pair of systems, and that will generally have to be specific code for that combination. Often this process will have to customised even further depending on HOW an institution was using the given features. Each migration needs to be approached as a project.

2) It’s natural that software developers use their limited resources to produce what their users want most. Moodle users and people who help fund Moodle development are just not that keen on exporting Moodle course to other LMS systems so no-one in our community has had much motivation for that. On the other hand, there is naturally more motivation for all systems to produce ways to import data. Moodle can import Blackboard and WebCT courses, for example, as well as SCORM and IMS CC. This is not intentional lock-in, it’s a just a natural consequence of solving problems as they come up. I would be ecstatic to include exporters in Moodle if someone could fund their development.

As Michael said, content authors who want cross-platform materials should create them in one of the neutral packaging standards from the start (and then add things like collaboration and management using the LMS).

Cheers,
Martin

I agree that SCORM isn’t an export format, but the only other alternatives are proprietary “cartridge” formats and proprietary backup archives.

At my university, we have thousands of courses built in Blackboard. We migrated from WebCT in 2001 (IIRC). The thought of trying to migrate those thousands of courses into any other platform is painful enough to make the university continue cutting large cheques to Blackboard Inc.