Moodle to SCORM

How to export a Moodle course as SCORM

Moodle can’t do it on its own. It imports SCORM packages, but it has never exported one. The request to add it was closed as will not work on in 2008, and it is still closed.

What Moodle can give you is a course backup: an .mbz file. mbz2scorm turns that backup into a SCORM 1.2 package that runs in any LMS, usually in a few minutes. You can play the whole converted course, free, before you download it.

Convert a course Check your backup first, free

Your three options

Every way of getting a Moodle course into SCORM comes down to one of these. Which is right depends on whether you want the same course in a new place, or a new course.

1. Rebuild it in an authoring tool

Recreate the course in Articulate Storyline or Rise, Adobe Captivate or iSpring, then publish it as SCORM.

You get full control over the design. You also redo every page and every quiz by hand, course by course: often weeks of work for a large course.

2. Have someone rebuild it for you

An e-learning developer or agency rebuilds the course in one of those tools.

The right answer when you want the course redesigned, not just moved. It takes longer and costs more, and you wait on someone else’s schedule.

3. Convert the backup you already have

mbz2scorm reads your .mbz and builds a SCORM 1.2 package from it: your pages, files, videos and quizzes, in the same order, with quiz scores reported to your LMS.

Minutes, not weeks. Converting and previewing are free; you pay only to download the package you have already seen running.

When converting is not the answer. If most of your course is forums, assignments and group work, very little of it can become SCORM, by anyone: those need a server and other people, and a SCORM package has neither. And if you want the course to look and work differently, that is a rebuild, not a conversion.

How to do it, step by step

Back up the course in Moodle

In your course, open Course reuse and choose Backup. Two settings matter: include activities, resources and files, and leave Include enrolled users unticked. The export guide walks through every screen.

Download the `.mbz` file

When the backup finishes, Moodle lists it with a Download link. That file is everything a conversion needs.

Drop it into mbz2scorm

It is read on your own computer first. A file that is not a course backup is caught before it uploads, and a backup with learner records in it is flagged, so you can decide before anything is sent.

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.

Play the finished course

In a stand-in LMS, free. Click through it, take the quiz, watch the score report. This is the whole course, not a sample.

Download it and upload it to your LMS

A SCORM 1.2 zip. Upload the zip as it is, without unzipping it, and choose SCORM or SCORM 1.2 as the content type.

Moving several courses? The batch converter takes up to 10 at once, for $19 per course.

What comes across, and what can’t

SCORM is a package for one learner with no server behind it. Moodle is a multi-user platform. Some of a course cannot survive that gap, and no converter can change it.

Comes across

Pages, and books chapter by chapter
Files and folders: workbooks, PDFs, images
Video and audio stored in your course, bundled into the package
Embedded Vimeo and YouTube videos, which stay embedded
Links
Quizzes, marked the way Moodle marks them, with the score reported to your LMS

Cannot come across

Forums, chats and wikis
Assignments, workshops and peer assessment
Choices, feedback and surveys
Live sessions such as BigBlueButton
Anything that needs a server, a teacher or another learner

Not yet

Lessons, glossaries and H5P are skipped for now and listed in your report, like everything else.

Every activity and question type, in full →

How long does it take?

A few minutes for most courses. A large one takes longer to upload than to convert. There is no queue for a person to get to it and nothing to book: you can have the SCORM package the same day you decide to move the course.

What does it cost?

Reading your backup, converting it and previewing it: free.
$29 to download a course as it is.
$49 customised: your own title and colour, activities left out, and which quiz counts toward completion.
$19 per course when you convert several at once.

No credits, no subscription.

Which LMS will it run in?

Any that accepts SCORM 1.2, which is essentially all of them: Canvas, Cornerstone OnDemand, Docebo, TalentLMS, D2L Brightspace, Blackboard Learn, SAP SuccessFactors, Workday Learning, Absorb, LearnUpon, Totara, and Moodle itself.

What will the LMS see?

A SCORM 1.2 package reports one status and one score for the whole course, plus where the learner stopped. Not a mark per activity and not a gradebook: SCORM has nowhere to put them. What a package can tell your LMS →