Use SCORM runtime API without LMS?

Question

I am new to SCORM and have been given an assignment to integrate SAP Workforce Performance Builder exported SCORM (can either be 1.2 or 2004) content into an existing PHP website.

To put it simple, I need to be able to display the exported SCORM material in the browser (I can already do this), and be able to get the statistics through the SCORM runtime API.

I understand that I will need to make use of an LMS to allow communication with the SCO through the SCORM runtime API. I have looked into several open source LMS's, but haven't found a good solution for my purpose. The problem is that a lot of these LMS's are designed to run on the domain of the provider, and have built in tools to follow up on users' progress and scoring.

What I'm looking for is a simple, lightweight solution to be able to interact with the SCORM runtime API, so I can fetch the time a user has spent on a course, his score, etc. I will insert the gathered data into my own database, and code the backend where results can be evaluated myself, all I need is a way to get to the SCORM data.

I feel like I'm missing something, as surely you don't need an entire LMS implementation to simply listen for the basic 8 SCORM API calls, and log the results? Any help or a nudge in the right direction is greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

If you just need to mimic an LMS, providing a pseudo SCORM API so the course can 'speak' to your PHP site, try Claude Ostyn's SCORM Test Wrapper. It's pure client-side JavaScript, as lightweight as you can get with SCORM.

In a nutshell, Claude's test wrapper provides a simple SCORM API for the course to connect to. It receives communication from the course, which you can handle however you like. No backend code is provided; if you want to incorporate with a database, you will need to modify the wrapper to push/pull data from your site's database (this is typically handled via AJAX).

Once you build out the data store, you can make your site behave as an LMS, enabling the site to launch SCORM courses, and enabling the courses to send/receive data to your site via the SCORM API. No LMS or 3rd-party server required.

Notes:

• There is no support for unzipping packages or reading manifests. (I suspect you're not interested in going that far.)

• SCORM also supports sequencing and navigation, which go way beyond simple JavaScript wrappers. If you need to support the sequencing and navigation features, you'll need to grab them from an existing open-source project (not easy) or pay a 3rd party like Rustici Software (SCORM Cloud). I suspect the content you create via SAP will not use any of SCORM's sequencing or navigation features, so you'll probably be OK.

• Claude passed away a while ago, so he can't support you. Shout out to the guys at Rustici Software, who have preserved the site for the SCORM community.

Answer 2

From the courseware's point of view, it is just using javascript to call functions on an API or API_1484_11 object. If you can write the javascript code to sufficiently ape the interface, and store/return the necessary data model elements, then you don't need "an entire LMS implementation".

You need to carefully read the Run-Time Environment documentation though.

If you only ever plan to use it for running SAP Workforce Performance Builder produced courseware, then you can implement enough or the data-model to make that work correctly (although I've seen this done, then people surprised/confused/angry when other SCORM compliant courseware does not work, so beware.)

(Aside) You also need a reliable way to install/update your courseware packages from a PIF zip file. Again, for dealing with courseware from a specific content creator and not needing to write a full blown generic interface, you can just pick out the bits of the imsmanifest.xml file you need.

(Digression) Having written the courseware side of the interface a few times, I've seen interesting gotchas in various LMS implementations of the API, including things like returning the boolean true or false instead of a string "true" or "false" which can catch you off guard. May favourite so far is an LMS that truncates the cmi.suspend_data at the first newline character. (Actually, the implementation was that inept that there was a bug in their bug, and it also chopped off the character before the newline as well.)

Answer 3

You'll mainly want to capture, maintain and enforce the Student Attempt Object. I've used this in a JSON format now for a while, and you can take different approaches to how you store information collected by a Shareable Content Object. Normally people pluck the parts they need vs. trying to go 100% into full SCORM support so these types of questions are popular.

By creating the SCORM Runtime for either SCORM 1.2 or 2004 you'll mainly be providing those methods to build the data from the student session. This can look like https://gist.github.com/cybercussion/4675334 (based on Unit test data for SCORM 2004)

1. You attempt to route your calls to your server side. Normally this results in a lot of lag. And I normally don't advocate it as an option.

2. You cache the student attempt, but you post the whole JSON object on a commit call. This normally results in a larger data post which can blimp on you if there are a lot of journaled interactions.

3. You take a hybrid approach and only post the data thats changed and merge that on your server limiting the data blimp issues that could occur.

I have a bunch of info up on the wiki here too https://github.com/cybercussion/SCOBot/wiki as well as a lot of sample code, tips etc...