The Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) was designed to allow for maximum reusability and Learning Management System (LMS) platform interoperability of electronic learning objects. At Northern State University, a partner institution of the Academic Co-Lab of The Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative (ADL), I have been involved both in the testing of practical applications of SCORM specifications and in research on issues that may affect the usability of the model in higher education.
Most practical academic research to date has taken a bottom-up approach, developing minimal Sharable Content Objects (SCOs) and using these primarily to test LMS implementation and interoperability. My approach has been top down, first designing the whole course, then breaking that down into reusable independent SCOs and attempting to implement them as an online course offering.
This approach has brought to light a number of issues that the primary bottom up research program has yet to encounter. These issues include the redundancy inherent in stand-alone SCOs, the need for external references and support material such as glossaries and updates, methods of assessment relevant to the course (but not to the individual components) and the sequencing of SCOs to create a cohesive course — preferably one that allows for divergent learning styles.
Three major issues
have developed in the course of my work: the need for a course envelope or
context package, the issue of redundancy in utilizing multiple SCOs, and the use
of external resources (which is illegal within SCOs, but is often necessary
within an SCO-built course). In this article, I will outline some possible best
practices for dealing with these issues. These ideas emerged during one of my
projects at
This article is
organized into three parts because the different sets of issues raised tended
to fall under the oversight of different sets of people, at least here at
Background
In 1997 the
Department of Defense established the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL)
initiative. ADL and its Co-Labs, including
“The Department of Defense (DoD) established the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) initiative in 1997 to develop a DoD-wide strategy for using learning and information technologies to modernize education and training and to promote cooperation between government, academia and business to develop e-learning standardization. The ADL initiative has defined high-level requirements (“-ilities”) for learning content, such as content reusability, accessibility, durability and interoperability to leverage existing practices, promote the use of technology-based learning and provide a sound economic basis for investment.” (SCORM_1.2_Overview Section 3, www.adlnet.org)
“The development of reusable, sharable learning objects is key to ADL’s long-term vision. [O]nce sharable learning objects exist and are commonly available, they can be assembled in real time, on demand and then delivered to learners as needed. Thus the ADL initiative is focused on the design of sharable learning content objects and the development of an instructional object economy.” (SCORM_1.2_Overview Section 3, www.adlnet.org)
The project referred to in this article involved taking a three credit hour college course on art bronze casting practices and reconstructing it in SCOs with the basic ideas behind the SCORM fully in mind. The intention was to try to discover how the overall SCO-built course worked within the higher education setting.
In September, 2002, I began work on this project and discovered that some kind of shell or envelope would be required in order to deliver any lesson, course or program that contained more than one SCO. If this could be done successfully, an additional benefit would be a working model of such a shell or envelope for developers, designers and vendors to use when constructing SCORM compliant lessons, courses and programs.
The effort was ultimately successful. The reconstructed course was built out of eleven SCOs that covered the various lessons or chapters that comprise the course. Since each SCO had to be completely self-contained to allow total reusability, no course-specific data could be included, nor could I as the designer use any references that were not included in the individual SCOs. Each SCO covered between four and twelve key concepts that related to the SCO-specific lesson.
It was important that this working model cover as many options as possible, so the SCOs contained text, images, illustrations, animations, quizzes and audio, and some also contained video and interactive simulations. The envelope contained course-specific information, subject introductions, navigation instructions and options, and a resource section.
The need for an envelope
By definition, Sharable Content Objects (SCOs) must be self-contained; SCOs cannot reference material external to the SCO itself, including material within other SCOs. A designer creates a series of SCOs for a specific course, one for each major topic needed. (See Figure 1.)
FIGURE 1 This collection of “loose” single-concept SCOs was created for the art bronze casting course.
Later, another designer could also use some of those SCOs in a new course, perhaps in ways that the original designer had not envisioned. In order to maximize flexibility in the sequencing and crafting of SCOs into an educational whole, some kind of delivery and access control envelope or package is needed. Individual SCOs do not need this container, and neither do short serial sets of SCOs managed by an LMS. Only the combination SCOs that would make up a robust multi-SCO lesson or a whole course will need such a container. This may be more relevant in education than in military or corporate training, where simple, single concept SCOs are presented in a set sequence over time.
This envelope holds all of the SCOs for the course, and more. Any additional material not found within the specific SCOs used in the course will have to be contained in, or accessed through, the envelope. A course-specific introduction, for example, could be included, outlining course prerequisites and explaining student responsibilities. This information could not be included in any of the component SCOs as it would limit the reusability of the SCO in applications other than this specific course. Any other course-specific components would require an envelope, including glossaries, pretest, links to external resources, an updated bibliography, and course depth assessments. (See Figure 2.)
FIGURE 2 The envelope holds the SCOs for the course together with additional key components.
To take advantage of a selection of SCOs to build a course, the designer still needs to provide context for this collection of stand-alone learning objects. The course as a whole not only needs context, but is also likely to need instructions, sequencing, navigational information or control, assessments and other course-specific material that is not relevant to individual SCOs.
The envelope as access manager
I was interested in the implications, in a higher education setting, to the design use and reuse of Shareable Content Objects. My project, somewhat like the designing of a textbook, involved breaking a course into chapters and then breaking these chapters down further into topics and procedures. Not only is each chapter a single SCO, designed to be a self-sufficient resource, but each topic is also designed to be a SCO, on a smaller level of aggregation. This subchapter level of SCOs became necessary initially to deal with components that were required in several different SCOs in order to make them each self-sufficient even though that makes the smaller components redundant. It quickly became evident that the reusability of these subchapter SCOs was critical as some were used repeatedly.
One of the 11 chapter-level SCOs in the project course was on foundry furnace usage, others were on types of mold making, still another on pattern and model making. All fall under the umbrella of Art Foundry Practice, but each could be used in other applications, too. The SCO on furnace construction and operation requires an understanding of foundry safety equipment, as does the SCO on metal casting. Because neither unit can reference material on safety equipment that sits within another SCO, each unit must contain all of the information. Since both units require basically the same material it made sense to create a topical SCO on safety equipment and include it in each of the chapter SCOs.
For this project a standard browser (HTML) interface was used for the envelope. This was done because the ADL presumes Web delivery, among other reasons. The widespread use of Internet browsers and the reasonable expectation that users are already familiar with the basic interface, the graphical metaphors, and the common tools allowed a focus on content and organization rather than on the clarity of the interface itself.
The standard browser interface permits users to work within an SCO yet maintain an external connection too, providing access to other external media (additional Web sites, glossaries, etc.), at all times during the course. The use of JavaScript allows for situation ally dependent instructions or information to be displayed. It seems to me that some kind of package will need to be presumed by SCO designers. And since the ADL mission encompasses Web delivery as the primary delivery method, it is probably safe to assume, at least for now, that JavaScript will be an acceptable way for an SCO to trigger an envelope. It follows then that JavaScript would also be the way for the envelope to control access to outside information, and also to additional SCOs in any of a series of possible orders. (Please see Sidebar 2 for an important note.)
Many of the components designed and built for this project may not test as SCORM compliant. The author’s focus was not on the details of SCORM compliancy per se, but on the theory behind it. This project did not use a Learning Management System (LMS). At this stage it did not seem relevant to the primary research, and many others in the field are working on SCO to LMS communication.
The project envelope is not to be confused with the ADL’s content packaging, which refers to the metadata tagging shell or package that must be included with any SCO to make it SCORM compliant and provide for text based search ability.
When utilizing the SCOs created by a number of different designers, issues will undoubtedly arise concerning the look and feel of SCOs as well as potential differences in navigational schemes within the individual SCOs. The envelope can provide relevant explanatory content to aid users in working through the different components. My HTML interface used framesets to achieve consistent user access to both the current SCO and the envelope content. (See Figure 3.) This is, however, just one of many ways this might be accomplished.
FIGURE 3 The HTML interface for the project used framesets to manage user access.
On a related note,
during the ADL Academic Co-Lab meeting held in
The envelope as a sequencing tool
Educators often want to pretest incoming students. This can allow the experienced students to advance quickly, perhaps even test out of parts of the course with which they are already quite familiar. It can also identify students who might need extra help or additional background in order to keep up with the course. This could be taken a step further, and an assessment might be built that could actually organize the structure of the course, allowing or restricting access to specific SCOs and other materials until the student was prepared for them. (See Figure 4.)
FIGURE 4 An entry assessment might be used inside the envelope to organize the course.
There is another way in which a pretest could be used. A designer’s attention to diverse learning styles can have a large impact on user learning. Some people respond well to textual explanations, others learn better with visuals, still others learn best by doing. The envelope, with the addition of a learning style assessment and based on its outcome, could serve to actually arrange or order the component SCOs as well as other material included within it. (See Figure 5.) While my specific course did not take advantage of this possibility, this is an important component and research is continuing. We hope to be able not only to order SCOs in sequential steps, the order being determined by a pretest, but also to determine when a totally global approach is appropriate.
FIGURE 5 A learning style assessment used to determine the learner’s experience
A learning-style assessment would determine what methods an individual learner can best utilize to learn quickly and efficiently. Different educational theorists divide learners by different criteria but one common model, for example, identifies auditory, visual, and tactile learning styles — another identifies readers, talkers, listeners and interactors (touchers). A different “score” or value ascertained by this style assessment could influence the sequencing of the course and could result in the addition of materials. For example, a hands-on learner might benefit from a simulation that would not be appropriate, or could even be distracting, for a theoretical learner. (See Figure 6.) A hands-on learner would most benefit from the simulation and the practice quiz, whereas a technical learner might benefit most from technical explanations, technical data, and charts and tables. The idea is built on educational theories of scaffolding — that all knowledge is built upon previous knowledge and that we each learn how to learn.
FIGURE 6 Resources can be included in the envelope to support different learning styles.
To illustrate, I’m definitely a visual learner. This does not mean that I cannot use technical data, but it does help me to first have a conceptual framework to hang that data on, and diagrams and animations often lead me to those conceptual understandings the quickest. Offering me the technical data before I understand the context and application would be frustrating, and would not lead me to understanding in the most straightforward way.
