How to import a SCORM file into Articulate Storyline?

Hi Manh,

Welcome to the E-Learning Heroes community! 

You should still have access to view the project that was uploaded to the LMS. In order to edit a Storyline project, you will need the original .story file. If your team member saved the project to their local hard drive, we will not have access to it. 

If a course was created in Rise 360, you have the option to transfer the ownership of the content. Here's a resource that explains how to manage content when users leave your team.

Please don't hesitate to reach out to our team through a support case if you need further assistance with a project. We'll be happy to help!

Hi Isolde,

Thank you for reaching out!

Currently, you need the original .story file to edit your course. I understand how frustrating this can be when you have instructional designers who have left with these files. We appreciate your feedback and love hearing from our customers about what features will be beneficial to them. 

This capability isn't on our current feature roadmap, but if it does make it on, we'll be sure to update this discussion.

Not to pile on to a 6+ year-old thread (points to Kelly and other @ Articulate for persistence in keeping up with the comments), but there's a very simple reason that some of us might be asking one of the questions in here.

For me, it has nothing to do with stealing IP or unwinding other people's work. It has to do with reusing my own work.

SCORM files prevent vendor lock-in at the LMS level... if I go with Docebo today and decide in 2 years that I want to move to Lessonly, easy peasy.

But, what if I go with EasyGenerator today and want to switch to Articulate in a year? Or vice versa?

It seems like any content I've created on that tool will be stuck in the final version from that tool. If I want to switch to a different content authoring tool and have a need to change/update a course I've already published (this is the important distinction), I'm out of luck and would have to rebuild it in entirety on the new platform.

I recognize that every vendor has its secret sauce and differentiated features that make it unique. But that's why standards like SCORM exist. To baseline capabilities that should enable interoperability across systems.

The anecdote here is more like Rich Text Format than decompiling video games. I write a book with formatting in Microsoft Word. It's my words, my narrative, my IP. My book has chapters, formatting, all of those great things that RTF might support.

My publisher dumps MSFT and moves us over to Google Apps. I take my RTF files, load them into Google Drive and retain the ability to edit my own content. Life goes on.

There are probably technical limitations to how SCORM is written which don't allow for "who owns the IP" (as pointed out in a previous comment). Just wanted to qualify a practical use case for being able to edit SCORM files that I'm faced with as I evaluate content creation tools like Articulate Rise.

Has there been any progress on this? I have hundreds of courses that I want to edit with 360 and publish to a new LMS. I have all the source files but they weren't created with Articulate. 

Not being able to bring SCORM files into storyline is actually something that  makes it very difficult to ever make the switch to storyline if you have designed things in other applications.  You have SCORM outputs from your designs in those, but you're stuck with them as-is.

I am facing that right now, where I literally just built something 5 months ago, and now need to update, but had made the switch to storyline and cannot edit my files.  Instead I am literally re-creating the work product which is a total waste of my time and very frustrating. 

I am facing that right now, where I literally just built something 5 months ago, and now need to update, but had made the switch to storyline and cannot edit my files. Instead I am literally recreating the work product which is a total waste of my time and very frustrating. 

why do you not backup your original .story files?

Scorm is the final output. Similar to a print on paper....if you keep the original Word of .doc you can edit it... i seldom see the question can i generate a Word from my print... thats the same thing as creating a .story from scorm.

Always save and keep track of your .story files. Those are your source. If someone leaves a company he is obliged to make sure those sources are available for his successor. If not im quite sure you can take legal action and sue him/her to deliver those sources.

If you switch to another tool... you might run into the issue that you have to remake your courses. The Scorms you can always upload to any other LMS, but changing things in another authoring tool is impossible.

If you want/need a format thats open to edit in most tools, you should go for HTML5, you can edit HTML5 in Notepad and any editor outthere. As is the HTML5 output Storyline creates is not 100% compatible with standard HTML5. A lot is coded in a specific Articulate way and thus hard to decipher. You however can edit in the published HTML.

I hear a lot of people here asking, “I baked a batch of cookies, and nobody ate them. Why can’t I drop them into a mixer, beat them up, add some peppermint to the dough, and rebake them?” That, after all, is the same as taking SCORM and dropping it into SL, just that one uses a computer, and the other a mixer.  To be fair, if you were an awesome programmer and had sufficient motivation, you could probably create a program to decompile SCORM. You could possibly end up with something. Of course, given the demand, you would be working for cents per year.  In the same way, if you beat the cookies into a fine enough powder, and add milk, you might end up with something.

Perhaps this little analogy will help explain why decompiling SCORM (or any published SL format) isn’t done.

If you want to have a detailed look at how SCORM works, you can get all the resources here:

Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM®) | ADL Initiative (adlnet.gov)

For example:

SCORM_Users_Guide_for_Programmers.pdf (adlnet.gov)

the following elements can you can easily extract from a scorm package (or a "publish to web" package)

unzip the package, you will find ...

• video (mp4)* (-> ./story_content/... )
• audio (mp3)* (-> ./story_content/... )
• images (jpg, png, gif)* (-> ./mobile/... )
• resources (-> ./story_content/external_files/...)
• web object (-> ./story_content/WebObjects/.../...)

* but the original filenames are gone