Forum Discussion
Upload a published SCORM to Rise 360 to edit
I wanted to follow up on the claim that it is 'technically not possible' to modify a published SCORM file. While I understand that reverting the package back to the native Rise authoring UI isn't an out-of-the-box feature, modifying the published output is absolutely possible and actively done in the e-learning development community.
For instance, Discover eLearning has an open-source project called Fire Mods (https://discoverelearning.com/products/fire-mods/
Since a SCORM package is ultimately standard web architecture (HTML/CSS/JS), there is no technical barrier to editing the output; it simply requires a web development approach rather than relying solely on the authoring tool.
Hi elearning2
Whilst it is technically possible, it is outside of the capability of most Rise users, as it requires JavaScript programming experience. If you explore the published output you will find it is not so easy as all content is encoded in JavaScript. If you try and find a string of text from the content using CTRL+F, you will not find it.
Swapping out images is simple enough as they are all individual assets. Other stuff can be more complex due to how the course is published.
The course is more or less dynamically built to the webpage at runtime. You will not find individual HTML pages with text and images in the published output. This complicates things when considering building a tool that can edit the published output.
Building add-ons, as you referenced, is much easier, as you are adding to the existing course via JavaScript at runtime. I have built add-ons for Rise myself using JavaScript. The task of adding extra functionality, or content to the Rise course at runtime via JavaScript is very different to building a tool that would allow you to edit published Rise content.
It is technically possible, but it requires a skillset beyond the average Rise developer as is probably a niche enough thing that nobody has felt compelled to invest the time and money in building a tool that will allow users to edit the published output of Rise.
It's worth having a poke around in the published output to see what you are working with.
It's worth noting too, that there are many web applications/site around that are processed before being published for distribution, and you would find the same barrier to editing if you did not have the original project files (React, Vue etc) to edit rather than the distribution files. The distribution files may be a minified, uglified collection of JavaScript files and are not the files that are edited when making changes to the application. The original source files would be worked with before publishing the distribution files, and so the files you see on the web, are not likely to be the files the web developers actually work with.
I hope this clarifies things for you. I think it's good fun to poke around in the output of authoring tools to see how they function, but these are just distribution files and processed at run time. They are not very pretty to look at.
A question worth asking though!
Sam
Hi Sam. Thanks for the detailed explanation! As a game developer, I'm very familiar with how SPA frameworks compile, minify, and manage runtime state. I know that the course content isn't static HTML, but rather encoded as a base64-encoded JSON payload within the JavaScript packages (like window.courseData).
My point wasn't that the average Rise user should have to open a JS file and use CTRL+F. My point is that creating a lightweight GUI tool to decode that payload, allow basic string/hex edits, and re-encode it is a perfectly feasible engineering task. The technical barrier isn't that high for a developer; the real issue is simply that Articulate hasn't provided a native post-publish maintenance tool for agencies managing contractor transfers.
I appreciate the technical discussion! It's always interesting to analyze the inner workings of these authoring tools.
Best regards!Yes, I'm with you elearning2 . I do see this being an issue fairly regularly, especially clients losing the source if a freelancer or contractor forgot to hand over the source and they lose contact. I see similar things with graphic editing tools too like photoshop and illustrator where the PSD and AI files haven't been provided or archived.
