We have gone out to tender for a new LMS and a vendor has come back advising "they do not currently support SCORM 2004. However, we do support all standard file types, as well as ADL SCORM 1.2 and TinCan or xAPI content. Is being SCORM 2004 compliant a essential requirement?"
We mainly use SL and Rise for our courses and publish using SCORM 2004.
What is the difference between publishing using 1.2 and 2004 ?
If you are after a new LMS, for me the priority would be for xAPI compliant. Scorm 1.2 is just an older version of scorm, if you do not get xAPI then Scorm 2004 3rd or 4th edition should be. must as they will ensure some of the common issues with a scorm 1.2 LMS do not occur.
I thought when publishing a course using 1.2 effected the quiz data and the reporting available on this through the LMS as well as the resume data characters? Is this correct do you know?
Depends on the LMs, but for most, it is the question data and the number of resume characters (although a lot of LMS's work around this). It is an old standard that most LMS's use, although it will limit your choice xAPI is so much more flexible and will give some level of future proofing, I would advise most of my clients to avoid any LMS that is only Scorm 1.2 unless other features are more important.
Resume data is very small (4096) in Scorm 1.2 and complex courses and large courses will send a lot of information back this typically gets truncated and users cannot resume where they left of.
Question level data does not get sent back to the LMS makes analysing reports difficult.
Scorm 2004 onwards separated completion from status which gives more options for reporting.
Scorm 1.2 doesn't support sequencing.
Overall I think the major downside of scorm 1.2 is the lack of granular detail being sent back to the LMS and ability to report on it.
What I notice is indeed that SCORM 1.2 has less suspend data (4000 characters). Suspend data is used to store several data such the answers a student gives. As I have a modules in which the student has to type in a textbox how he will use what he has learned on a dialy basis, 4000 characters is way less.
A customer is asking: Do you provide e-learning content in SCORM 2004 3rd Edition compliant file for use in a client's LMS? Currently we are on Articulate 360. So I know we can publish in 2004 v. 3, but currently our content is published using 1.2. So my question is do we have to republish our courses to 2004 v. 3 for it to work on their LMS.
I just wanted to add a quick note: it looks like your email signature came through when you replied via email. You can remove it by clicking ‘Edit’ below your response. Here’s a quick Peek video if you need help.
Another question. If we republish all our courses using 2004 v. 3 will that prevent other customers who have LMS limited to 1.2 from playing the content?
Phil, I should have been more specific. We are hosting content on an LXP. We have uploaded at least 100 SCORM files published using 1.2. According to your previous answer, we would need to republish and re-upload all the content republishing using 2004 v. 3 to integrate with an LMS using 2004 c. 3. If we replace all the current files with 2004 v.3 published files, will that have any affect integrating with an LMS having only 1.2 capabilities? Also can 2004 c. 3 be uploaded as a zip file?
Thank you. I'm not very tech savvy so I hope I'm using the right language here.
16 Replies
If you are after a new LMS, for me the priority would be for xAPI compliant. Scorm 1.2 is just an older version of scorm, if you do not get xAPI then Scorm 2004 3rd or 4th edition should be. must as they will ensure some of the common issues with a scorm 1.2 LMS do not occur.
Hi Phil,
Thanks for this!
I thought when publishing a course using 1.2 effected the quiz data and the reporting available on this through the LMS as well as the resume data characters? Is this correct do you know?
Depends on the LMs, but for most, it is the question data and the number of resume characters (although a lot of LMS's work around this). It is an old standard that most LMS's use, although it will limit your choice xAPI is so much more flexible and will give some level of future proofing, I would advise most of my clients to avoid any LMS that is only Scorm 1.2 unless other features are more important.
Really useful, thank you Phil.
You also mentioned about the common issues with SCORM 1.2 LMS. What are these issues that could occur?
Resume data is very small (4096) in Scorm 1.2 and complex courses and large courses will send a lot of information back this typically gets truncated and users cannot resume where they left of.
Question level data does not get sent back to the LMS makes analysing reports difficult.
Scorm 2004 onwards separated completion from status which gives more options for reporting.
Scorm 1.2 doesn't support sequencing.
Overall I think the major downside of scorm 1.2 is the lack of granular detail being sent back to the LMS and ability to report on it.
This post was removed by the author
Thanks for your help Phil.
What I notice is indeed that SCORM 1.2 has less suspend data (4000 characters). Suspend data is used to store several data such the answers a student gives. As I have a modules in which the student has to type in a textbox how he will use what he has learned on a dialy basis, 4000 characters is way less.
A customer is asking: Do you provide e-learning content in SCORM 2004 3rd Edition compliant file for use in a client's LMS? Currently we are on Articulate 360. So I know we can publish in 2004 v. 3, but currently our content is published using 1.2. So my question is do we have to republish our courses to 2004 v. 3 for it to work on their LMS.
Yes you will need to republish.
Sent from my iPhone
Thank you Phil!
Hi, Ruth.
I am glad Phil was able to help you out!
I just wanted to add a quick note: it looks like your email signature came through when you replied via email. You can remove it by clicking ‘Edit’ below your response. Here’s a quick Peek video if you need help.
Thank you Maria!
Another question. If we republish all our courses using 2004 v. 3 will that prevent other customers who have LMS limited to 1.2 from playing the content?
You can publish as many different versions as you need. Publishing as 2004 will not prevent you publishing as 1.2 in the future.
Sent from my iPhone
Phil, I should have been more specific. We are hosting content on an LXP. We have uploaded at least 100 SCORM files published using 1.2. According to your previous answer, we would need to republish and re-upload all the content republishing using 2004 v. 3 to integrate with an LMS using 2004 c. 3. If we replace all the current files with 2004 v.3 published files, will that have any affect integrating with an LMS having only 1.2 capabilities? Also can 2004 c. 3 be uploaded as a zip file?
Thank you. I'm not very tech savvy so I hope I'm using the right language here.
Ruth-
Sorry Ruth, are you using something like scorm dispatch? You will likely need scorm 1.2 for a scorm 1.2 LMS and scorm 2004 for scorm 2004
Sent from my iPhone