Digital Workshop

What is the current status of SCORM support with Opus publications. I am very interested in this support and would like to know the status.

Hi Joe,

The current status is that Opus can produce SCORM 1.2 complient Plexus and Flex based publications and if you caught the eariler DW posting - this is something that they are looking at.

Mack

The last posting from DW in this thread was 2 years ago, and the first post was 3 years ago.

Paul

... sad enough.

T.

I think we have commented on SCORM support on other threads more recently. However, I can confirm an update to SCORM support is in final testing. This adds support for SCORM 2004 and allows creation of manifest files, resource IDs and an upload packet. It works both with Plexus and Flex and should be available around the end of the month. It will also include new templates and examples.

In addition, for our education users, I'm working with Monmouth School to develop specifically education templates for integration with LMS such as moodle etc.

Hope this helps.

Paul Harris

Excellent news -looks like I can finally retire Authorware.
Any idea how this will be made available?

Paul,

This is great news.
I'm just starting a second big project with SCORM.
My first project with SCORM I had to use another product.
So let me know if you need someone to do some tests.

Brilliant news,

Especially as Moodle now have Jennifer Brooks from ADL working to ensure that the SCORM module for the LMS is 100% functional for both 1.2 & 2004.

Mack

Good to know that Moodle is going to improve their SCORM integration.
SCORM has always promised much, but has never been as easy to use as it should be.
It's great to see that DW is moving forward as well.

Paul

Paul,

thanks for this information. I am glad to hear that something is going on at the SCORM front.

Do you have any idea when this will be available for us users?

T.

Sadly, if I don't see something positive soon -- I am moving on to other ways of doing this.

Paul

I also would suggest to make up the announced features soon because another vendor of click & go authoring tools (the company with "M" which I don't want to mention here) has done that already recently with success.

To be honest I don't understand why DW delays the SCORM features again and again.

T.

The reason we keep delaying is because I'm not happy yet. Opus has always been able to provide SCORM support in theory (just as many of our competitors do) but customers were reporting problems in practice. So we have been working on real world scenarios with real world customers and have found that different LMS solutions often have different ways of accommodating SCORM. And one of the most popular in education circles isn't really SCORM compatible at all. Perhaps we have been unlucky in the systems we have tested against and there are more generic systems out there but I'm still hoping for a real solution.

Our problem is that existing LMS providers also provide authoring tools and are reluctant to accommodate other authoring tools unless customers insist.

We have asked for customers with testing and have had only three responses so far. Anyone else with v6 who wants to assist with real world trials please email me with details of what they are doing and the LMS they expect to connect to.

We will release the new features when they genuinely solve real problems and not merely look good on marketing materials.

We are also looking at providing our own LMS/moodle solution (perhaps in assocation with other users on this forum) to ensure compatibility between Opus and the LMS.

For future reference - anyone who has an urgent need for a feature we've mentioned should contact us directly in case we have a trial we're not announcing in a public forum.

Paul

Paul,

I can understand these problems. We have experienced similar problems in the past. Among our clients are some major companies which use different LMSs. I found that it is not only difficult to find out if the SCORM-applications work but to find a competent contact person in the companies too.

What I can offer to you is to give you some informations about which LMS are used by our customers. And - if a test version of Opus with SCORM-export is available - I can create some test movies and try to find someone who can test the results within the different LMSs.

T.