SCORM, building without an authoring tool?

Question

I've a couple training courses that I sometimes provide to clients. They are both a few text pages + 20-25 videos + a link out to take an exam in my LMS.

My preference has always been to provide embed links to the videos, as it allows us to easily push out updates. Then the client embeds that in their own LMS / training package (however they want). But two clients are requesting the courses are delivered in a SCORM package to be delivered on their LMS.

I'm familiar with the authoring tools like Captivate and Storyline Articulate. I'm not a huge fan as they feel like canned powerpoints. I'm also not sure that's what the client wants.

Two questions:

(1) My understanding is I can package a SCORM file manually. How does that content present itself when put into an LMS? Would it present slide-by-slide in a single panel (similar to how I see storyline work) or is it distributed based on how the LMS is set-up?

(2) Would doing it manually be advantageous in any way?

Answer 1

Couple things to watch out for -

1. Simply zipping your content folder with a imsmanifest.xml maybe not put the files in the root of the zip like the LMS may possibly expect. Instead you end up with folder/imsmanifest.xml vs /imsmanifest.xml. Something to watch out for, but some LMS's do not care.
2. You can manually edit the imsmanifest.xml, but I'd work to validate it. Performing this task in editors that do not provide feedback can lead to validation issues.
3. Content Packaging is part of it, but the LMS may have its own subset of additional options like how to launch the content (popup, new window/tab, or in a IFRAME). They may have additional scoring/attempts and other settings outside of what the SCORM CAM provides.

Aside from familiarizing yourself with the IMS Manifest format and the above cautionary items you can do do this without to many hiccups.

There is a packager on https://cybercussion.com if you'd like to demo that after you have prepared your Shareable Content Object.

GL