Step 1 – Getting Started … The RTE Frameset

Posted on May 31, 2009 by Steve Addison

The ‘Run Time Environment’ (or RTE) is the part of SCORM that specifies how the course will talk to the learning management system (LMS). The other part – the Content Aggregation Model (or CAM) – specifies how the course should be packaged up for import into the LMS. We’ll start with the RTE and worry about the CAM later.

Work your way through the SCORM 1.2 RTE specification, and you’ll discover that the course communicates with the LMS through a set of JavaScript functions which are located in a window or frame called ‘API’ located somewhere above the course in the frame/window hierarchy. These JavaScript functions then invoke appropriate code on the LMS server to save data into and read data from the LMS database.

So where in the frame/window hierarchy do you have to put it? It would appear from the SCORM RTE documentation that it can be anywhere above the course, or in a child frame/window of a frame/window above the course. Confused? Well, don’t worry about it – SCORM makes the course (not the LMS) do the hard work by requiring it to include code to locate the API frame window.

Continue reading →

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Background Reading

Posted on May 30, 2009 by Steve Addison

SCORM – the Shareable Common Object Reference Model – started as an initiative from the Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative (ADL – part of the US Department of Defense) – and built on earlier projects such as AICC.

The ADL website can be a little hard to navigate, especially if you’re looking for older documents rather than the SCORM 2004 documents. So, if you have trouble locating the SCORM 1.2 documents, you can use this link to download them from the VS SCORM website.

An excellent introduction to SCORM can be found on the website of Rustici Software including a technical overview of SCORM 1.2.

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Start Reading Here … Some Ground Rules

Posted on May 30, 2009 by Steve Addison

OK – it’s time to get started. I’m going to set a few ground rules to bound the problem a little better.

  1. I’m going to limit the investigation to SCORM 1.2. There’s not many people using versions of SCORM earlier than 1.2, and SCORM 2004 is a lot more complicated. But, if I can figure out SCORM 1.2, that should be a good stepping stone if I choose to go further.
  2. I’m going to look for a solution that requires only JavaScript on the client side i.e. no Java. A lot of businesses have trouble allowing Java through their firewalls, so a solution that avoids it from the outset would seem to make most sense.
  3. Rather than build it into a real LMS, I’m going to mimic the LMS side of things with some simple PHP coding, and use a MySQL database to store the data.

That’s it. I’ll let you know if I can think of any more.

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