The following interview "SCORM in Higher Education" will shed light on the use of different specifications in eLearning. It was first published in the newsletter "News and Views". It is an interview with Judy Brown, Emerging Technology Analyst, at Academic ADL Co-Lab (www.wiadlcolab.org).

News and Views: What is the role of the Academic ADL Co-Lab in the ADL/SCORM community?

Judy Brown: The Academic ADL Co-Lab is one of three Co-Laboratories associated with the ADL (www.adlnet.org). Our organization provides a focal point for the nation's universities and colleges in promoting high quality, reusable content for distributed learning. We work with schools, government, and industry to test, evaluate, and demonstrate ADL-compliant tools and content in the academic environment. Partnerships in the Co-Lab are available to accredited higher education institutions. There is no charge for such participation - just a commitment to share experiences.

News and Views: I thought SCORM was a Department of Defense initiative. How does it relate to the higher education community?

Judy Brown: The Department of Defense is faced with having multiple systems that require the creation of content specifically for each proprietary system. This is the problem they are solving with SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model). Higher education has the same issue when sharing content with other colleges, universities, or departments that have different eLearning systems. Therefore, the SCORM initiative is just as relevant to higher education as it is to government and industry. Statewide academic systems and collaborative groups have recognized this, and are now actively encouraging vendors to support SCORM. Likewise, many colleges and universities that have been awarded federal government contracts have discovered that SCORM conformance is a requirement.

News and Views: In the higher education sector we hear a lot about IMS. What is the relation between IMS and SCORM?

Judy Brown: The IMS Global Learning Consortium (www.imsglobal.org) is an organization that creates eLearning interoperability specifications. SCORM uses specifications from IMS, as well as work from other organizations such as AICC (www.aicc.org), ARIADNE (www.ariadne-eu.org), and the IEEE (ltsc.ieee.org). SCORM is essentially a very specific 'map' that vendors and content developers can follow to enable the interoperability and reusability of content across systems. Therefore, conforming to SCORM means you are conforming to many of the IMS specifications.

News and Views: How can a buyer be sure that products truly conform to SCORM and will work together 'out of the box'?

Judy Brown: There is a conformance test suite available as a free download from www.adlnet.org. Using this test suite, learning management systems and content can be tested for conformance. Running the test suite generates a test log that indicates areas passed and areas with problems. ADL recently released an updated version of this conformance test suite.

News and Views: What specific SCORM requirements and evaluation criteria should a purchasing organization include in a product acquisition process?

Judy Brown: One good resource that can help with this is a report sponsored by the Masie eLearning Consortium called 'Making Sense of Learning Specifications and Standards: A Decision Maker's Guide to their Adoption' (www.masie.com/standards/S3_Guide.pdf).

I would recommend including the following general criteria in an acquisition process:

• The vendor should be willing to state that their products are SCORM conformant and specify the version of SCORM they conform to
• Require your vendors to demonstrate that conformance using the SCORM test software and procedures available on the ADL Website. Ask them to provide you with the test logs showing the results from their test suite runs
• Require that your vendors correct defects identified in the test logs
• Prior to finalizing a purchase, conduct a test validating the vendor-reported results of SCORM testing

News and Views: Thanks for all this information Judy.

Reprinted with permission courtesy of The CommonPlace.
http://www.thecommonplace.net
Copyright 2002 The CommonPlace.

More information:
An earlier article on SCORM for background:
www.thecommonplace.net/article6.cfm.