mbz2scorm

Moodle course backup → SCORM 1.2

Moodle can’t export SCORM.
This does.

Upload the standard .mbz backup Moodle already knows how to make, and download that same course as a standards-compliant SCORM package — one that runs wherever your client’s LMS happens to live.

Everything SCORM can carry is converted. Anything it can’t is skipped — and we tell you exactly what, and why, before you pay.

Drop your .mbz here Up to 4 GB. Converting and previewing are free — you only pay to download the package. Choose a backup file I don’t have my .mbz yet →
  • Deleted after 7 days
  • Never trained on
  • A failed conversion costs nothing

Moodle imports SCORM. It has never exported it — the request was closed will not work on in 2008, and it is still closed.

And this is what comes back

Every activity in your course, with the reason for every loss and every skip — before you spend anything.

intro-to-accounting.mbz
  • Week 1 — Reading the balance sheet Page · converts intact OK
  • Depreciation walkthrough Video file, 214 MB · bundled into the package, so it plays with no internet at all OK
  • Unit 2 assessment Quiz · asks 12 slots from a 40-question bank · scores reported to your LMS OK
  • Cohort B handbook Restricted to one group in Moodle — will be visible to everyone LOSS
  • Week 3 discussion Forum — needs a server holding state for a group of people SKIP
38 items · 31 intact · 4 with losses · 3 skipped Then play the whole course, free, before paying →

An illustration of the report’s shape, not a real course. Yours is built from your own backup.

  1. 01 Upload your backup Straight from your browser. Optionally leave an email and we will tell you when it is done — a large course takes a few minutes and the job URL keeps working whether or not you do.
  2. 02 Read the report Every activity, listed: what converts intact, what converts with something lost, and what cannot come across at all — with the reason for each.
  3. 03 Play the finished course In a stand-in LMS, free, before paying. Click through it, take the quiz, watch the score report. This is the whole thing, not a sample.
  4. 04 Download the package A SCORM 1.2 zip, validated against the specification, ready to upload to your LMS.

Which LMS does this work in?

Any that accepts SCORM 1.2 — which is essentially all of them. The format predates most of the platforms that read it, and support for it is table stakes. Among them:

  • Cornerstone OnDemand
  • Docebo
  • TalentLMS
  • Canvas
  • D2L Brightspace
  • Blackboard Learn
  • SAP SuccessFactors
  • SAP Litmos
  • Workday Learning
  • Absorb LMS
  • LearnUpon
  • Adobe Learning Manager
  • Totara
  • Schoology
  • Moodle itself

If none of those words are familiar, you are in the right place anyway. The file Moodle gives you when you back up a course is an .mbz. The file your new platform wants is a SCORM package — a zip it knows how to play, track and score. Turning the first into the second is the whole job here.

What converts, and what doesn’t

SCORM is a package for one learner with no server behind it. Moodle is a multi-user platform. Some of your course cannot survive that gap, and no converter can change it — so the honest thing is to tell you which parts, before you pay rather than after.

Every activity and resource in standard Moodle 5.
MoodleIn your package
PageConvertsA web page; becomes a page
BookConvertsOne page per chapter, in order
FileConvertsBundled — including video and audio files
FolderConvertsBecomes a list of its files
URLConvertsStays a link
Text and media areaConvertsBecomes a heading in the course menu (Moodle used to call this a Label)
QuizConvertsMultiple choice and true/false, scored and reported to your LMS
LessonNot yetThe content can convert; branching paths cannot — SCORM 1.2 has no sequencing
GlossaryNot yetNothing stops it becoming a static list of terms
IMS content packageNot yetAlready a content package; should pass straight through
SubsectionNot yetNew in Moodle 5. Should become nesting in the menu
H5PNot yetRuns in a browser, but reports to Moodle rather than to your LMS
ForumCan’tThese need a server holding state for a group of people. A SCORM package has one learner and no server — there is nothing to convert them into
WikiCan’t
ChatCan’t
WorkshopCan’t
AssignmentCan’tNeeds somewhere to submit to and someone to grade it
ChoiceCan’tCollect responses to a server and aggregate them across participants
FeedbackCan’t
DatabaseCan’t
BigBlueButtonCan’tA live session, not content
External tool (LTI)Can’tLaunches a third-party service with credentials your LMS holds
SCORM packageCan’tA SCORM package cannot meaningfully contain another one

“Can’t” and “not yet” are different answers. The first is a limit of the format and no converter will ever get past it. The second is work we have not done — if your course leans on one of those, tell us, because that is how it gets prioritised.

Anything skipped is listed in your report with the reason, before you pay. Nothing is dropped quietly.

Comes across intact

  • Pages
  • Books, chapter by chapter
  • Files and folders — workbooks, PDFs, images
  • Video and audio files stored in your course — bundled into the package, same as any other file
  • Embedded video from Vimeo or YouTube — stays embedded, exactly as it was in Moodle
  • Links
  • Lessons
  • Glossaries
  • Quizzes, with scoring reported to your LMS

Converts, with something lost

  • Access restrictions. A page limited to one group in Moodle becomes visible to everyone — SCORM has no concept of groups, cohorts or dates.
  • Completion rules more elaborate than finishing the pages or passing the quiz.

Both appear in your report, with the Moodle setting that caused them.

Cannot come across

  • Forums, chats, wikis
  • Assignments
  • Workshops and peer assessment
  • Choices and feedback surveys
  • Gradebook logic
  • Anything with more than one person in it

These all need a server holding state for a group of people. A SCORM package has neither. We list every one we skip, and why.

It will not look like your Moodle. Nothing can make it. What you see when you open your course is your Moodle theme — site-wide styling that lives in your Moodle installation. A backup carries the course: its pages, files, quizzes, structure. Not one stylesheet travels with it. We checked a real backup rather than assuming: there is no CSS in it at all.

So a converted course arrives in a clean, standards-compliant player instead. Your content, your structure, your wording, your images — in different clothes. Worth knowing before you open it and wonder what happened, and worth telling anyone who signs off on it.

A word on video, since it is the usual worry. Both kinds come across. A video file sitting in your course is packaged with everything else, so it plays with no internet at all. A video embed — a Vimeo or YouTube player dropped into a page — stays an embed and behaves exactly as it did in Moodle: the learner streams it from the same place they always did.

The one thing to check: some hosts restrict which domains may embed a video, and your LMS is a different domain from your Moodle. If you use Vimeo’s “where can this be embedded” setting, add the new domain. We list every embedded video we find so you know which ones to check.

Two free tools, no account

These work on any SCORM package from any authoring tool — Storyline, Rise, Captivate, iSpring. Nothing to do with Moodle, and nothing to sign up for.

Live now

SCORM Preview

Play a package in a stand-in LMS and watch the data model update live — every value a real LMS would be told, and every API call as it happens.

Runs in your browser. Nothing uploads.

Open a package →
Coming

SCORM Validator

Check a package against the specification: archive integrity, manifest schema, identifier resolution, whether every declared file is really there, and whether the launched content reaches for the SCORM API at all.

Written against the spec, not against our own packager.

These answer different questions. The preview proves a package behaves. The validator proves it is built correctly. A package can pass one and fail the other, so we will never tell you one result means the other.

Awarding CPE, CLE or CME credit?

Then the number that matters is how many questions a learner is asked — not how many sit in the question bank behind the quiz. A twelve-slot quiz drawing at random from a forty-question bank asks twelve.

We carry the whole bank so retakes differ, present exactly the slot count Moodle defines, and report that figure twice from independent sources. If the two ever disagree, the package does not ship.

Only the assessment you mark as earning the credit sets the score your LMS records. Review questions stay review questions.

CPE for accounting CLE for legal CME for medical

Pricing

Per course, by size, because that is what it actually costs us to run. No seats, no per-learner fee, nothing to cancel.

  • Converting and previewing is free. Always, every course. You pay to download the package.
  • Credits never expire. Buy what a project needs and stop.
  • Migration pack for moving a whole catalogue at once.
  • A failed conversion never costs a credit.

Final numbers are still being set. For scale: agencies quote $20,000–$50,000 for an expedited legacy course conversion project.

About your course files

A Moodle backup taken with user data included carries real learner information — enrolments, grades, issued certificates. None of it ever reaches the SCORM package. But the best way to protect it is for it never to leave your Moodle at all, so our export guide has you switch it off, and we say so loudly if we find it anyway.