Forum .LRN Q&A: LORSm SCORM issues

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Posted by Michele Slocovich on
Hello,

I'd like to share the problems we're having with SCORM support.

The problems can be of (at least) 3 different types:

a) LORS problems:

the WBT doesn't load into LORS (half-broken courses) or
(more often) the WBT loads correctely but content is not visibile, I can only see folders but not SCOs, some issues with non-standard characthers in SCO names and links...

b) Delivery problems:

the course can't find the API adapter, the course doesn't track, the course overlaps tracking for a SCO with one another (that drives again to poorly implemented courses... but that's what's on the market!!!), the course doesn't use LMSFinish (should the client overcome this on unload ?)

c) tracking/datamodel problems

these are a direct consequence of b), and they could be due to some limitation of the datamodel (lorsm_cmi* tables) or to the limits of the applet->servlet->datamodel flow, which, in turn, can impact on the datamodel->servlet->applet at the loading of a course.

Most evident problems are those connected to the "delivery" category. That part is also the one which would seemingly most benefit of a pure JS implementation.

I am currentely working on the b) category and trying to figure out how to tackle problems in the a) category (there are courses, created on windows, which have uppercase filenames and mixed case links... other whose hrefs are prefixd by a ./ and seem not to work.)

What would be ideal in my opinion is trying to find a list of free/open SCORM WBTs which we could use to test the implementation. One tool I found most useful in doing the most basic tests has been the "SCORM Detective" from SABA (can be freely downloaded from their site).

Michele

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2: Re: LORSm SCORM issues (response to 1)
Posted by Michele Slocovich on
Apart from the SCORM Detective, here is a link to some sample content:

http://www.atutor.ca/view/16/4690/1.html

the "NATO" one, has the "problem" of HREFs being expressed as "./sco/whatever" which fools up the retrieval from the content repository (tried to modify the links in the manifest.xml, and load the course once again and it worked).

I guess this is a problem on our side and not of "poorly designed content". Therefore it should be addressed, but how ? My knowledge of the lors content repository is not that deep.
Does anyone has guidelines for such problems ? (which could be similar to the mixed case links as well as the non standard (accented) characters content).

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3: Re: LORSm SCORM issues (response to 1)
Posted by Michele Slocovich on
In order to make a bit of clarity regarding the categories for the problems:

a) LORS problems: these are "course loading" problems and have to do with lors::imscp and (maybe) lors::imsmd calls. These problems consist of treating correctely weird characters, paths, sizing correctely the fields of the datamodel, and doing everything consistentely with the delivery process, which is based on lors::cr::get_item_id and lorsm::delivery, lorsm::get_ims_item_id and maybe others.

b) Delivery problems: javascript to java collaboration and dialogue with servlet. Each course seems to require different behaviour from the client. Some seem to expect the window to close when they issue LMSFinish, others don't even bother sending LMSFinish when they reach their end or get unloaded (so they expect the client to do that on their part ?).

c) tracking problems (regarding both the datamodel for the scorm runtime, its trackability and the rendering/extraction of the data - done in through the "tracking-rte")

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4: A) course loading problem (response to 3)
Posted by Michele Slocovich on
as an example the lenght of many fields won't be enough.
it depends on every course, but the main problem is that we are using fixed lenght fields for storing an XML structure.
So, as an example, i needed to change this

-- SCORM extensions (based on SCORM 1.2 specs)
prerequisites_t varchar(100),
prerequisites_s varchar(200),
type varchar(1000),
maxtimeallowed varchar(1000),
timelimitaction varchar(1000),
datafromlms varchar(200),
masteryscore varchar(255),
isshared boolean default 'f' not null,
sort_order integer

into

-- SCORM extensions (based on SCORM 1.2 specs)
prerequisites_t varchar(100),
prerequisites_s varchar(2000),
type varchar(1000),
maxtimeallowed varchar(1000),
timelimitaction varchar(1000),
datafromlms varchar(200),
masteryscore varchar(255),
isshared boolean default 'f' not null,
sort_order integer

unfortunately, due to dependent constraints, it's very difficult to do this on a running system. or is there a shortcut ?

(PS i've tried:
ALTER TABLE ims_cp_items ALTER pr_old TYPE character varying(2000);
or the column rename copy drop for postgres 7.4
)

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5: Re: LORSm SCORM issues (response to 1)
Posted by Michele Slocovich on
Interesting links which can shed some light on SCORM datamodel, specs and LMS required (and allowed) behaviour, an also fields required type/length:

http://www.adlnet.gov/downloads/AuthNotReqd.aspx?FileName=SCORM_1.2_ConformanceReq.pdf&ID=214

this regards upgrading to scorm 2004:

http://www.adlnet.gov/downloads/AuthNotReqd.aspx?FileName=SCORM_12_To_2004_Changes.pdf&ID=219

if anyone finds a schematic of the required datamodel with lenghts, that could really be appreciated. ;)

just post it below

m

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6: Re: LORSm SCORM issues (response to 5)
Posted by Emmanuelle Raffenne on
Michele,

I just forwarded you and Mario Nima's notes about the required datamodel and length (was easier than paste here).

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7: Re: LORSm SCORM issues (response to 5)
Posted by Michele Slocovich on
some other SCORM overview with more attention to the technical details and to the "extensions":

http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/SCORM_1.2#Prerequisite_scripting_within_the_prerequisites_element

also at the bottom, some useful tools

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8: Re: LORSm SCORM issues (response to 1)
Posted by Michele Slocovich on
an interesting site offering a well implemented scorm compliant delivery for testing content, but we can take it as a benchmark. I think it can be interesting beacause it's free:

http://testtrack.scorm.com