One person's paranoia is another person's engineering redundancy.
— Marcus J. Ranum
One person's paranoia is another person's engineering redundancy.
— Marcus J. Ranum
1 SCORM is an acronym for Shareable Content Object Reference Model. SCORM is a standard way (protocol) to upload, launch, and track courses. SCORM is often used for Web-based e-learning. Different course creators or instructors can develop courses to SCORM specifications, and the various courses can be hosted on any Learning Management System (LMS) that plays by the same set of rules. The LMS manages the learners' registrations and course access, as well as the results. Results are often measured in page views or in correct answers to quiz questions. SCORM defines how the course content communicates with a host system (usually part of the LMS). SCORM also defines how course content may be packaged into a transferable file (in the .ZIP format) that can then be installed on any SCORM-compliant LMS. SCORM was designed for the US military. The current version of SCORM is SCORM 2004 (previously called SCORM 1.3). SCORM 2004 introduces "sequencing," a set of rules that determines the order in which content is presented to a learner.
2 A Learning Management System (LMS) is a software tool that manages certain aspects of an organization's training program, such as user registration, course completion tracking, and course content sequencing. Commercial and open source LMSs are available. Most LMSs provide statistics as part of the learning "management," such as a list of students enrolled in the LMS and the number of page views by student.
Warning: This paragraph is an opinion and should be taken with as much salt (or as many margaritas, if that's more effective for you) as necessary. Because most LMSs are designed as learning management tools, and not course creation tools, LMSs tend to focus on what an administrator needs to do more than on what the learners need to do, or even what course creators/instructors want to do. Most LMSs limit what the course creator can do and most LMSs do not offer optimal interface design for the learners. On the other hand, LMSs are evolving, so there's hope for the future.
