How SCORM works
What is SCORM?
SCORM is a standard format for e-learning content. A SCORM package is a zip file that almost any learning platform (LMS) can upload, play and track, whichever tool made it.
The course runs in the learner’s browser, and it tells the LMS a few simple things: whether the learner finished, what they scored, and where they stopped. That small, fixed conversation is what makes it portable, and also what limits what it can hold.
What is inside a SCORM package
Open one and you find ordinary web files: HTML pages, images, video,
documents and some JavaScript. At the top sits
imsmanifest.xml, which tells the LMS what the package
contains and which page to open first. That is the whole of it: a
small website in a zip, with a label on the front.
How it talks to the LMS
When a learner opens the course, the LMS provides a small programming interface in the browser, and the course calls it. In SCORM 1.2 it says, in effect: I have started, here is the learner’s status, here is their score, remember where they were, and I have finished. The LMS stores those values for that one learner.
- Status: one word for the whole course, such as passed, failed, completed or incomplete.
- Score: a number from 0 to 100.
- Bookmark: where the learner stopped, so they resume in the right place.
- A small scratchpad: up to 4,096 characters the course can use to remember progress between visits.
That is the entire contract. There is no place for a forum post, an uploaded essay, or another learner’s answer.
SCORM 1.2 or SCORM 2004?
Both are still in use. SCORM 1.2, from 2001, is the version the widest range of LMSs support. SCORM 2004 adds sequencing rules (what a learner may open next) and a richer data model, but support for its extras varies from one LMS to another. mbz2scorm produces SCORM 1.2, because it plays in the most places.
Moodle and SCORM are different kinds of thing
Moodle is a platform
A website with a database and a server behind it, shared by many people: teachers, learners, groups. It can store what anyone posts and show it to everyone else.
A SCORM package is content
Files for one learner at a time, with no server of its own. All it can keep is the handful of values the LMS stores for that learner.
Moodle can play SCORM packages. It has never been able to make one from a course. And not everything in a Moodle course could fit into one, for reasons no converter can change.
Why can’t a forum become SCORM?
A forum is a conversation. When a learner posts, the post has to be stored somewhere and shown to other learners, and their replies shown back. A SCORM package has nowhere to store a post and nobody to show it to: it is one learner, their own files, and a status and a score. So there is nothing to convert a forum into. The same reasoning covers every activity that needs a server, a teacher or other people:
| Moodle activity | What it needs that SCORM doesn’t have |
|---|---|
| Forum, chat, wiki | A server holding what a group of people write, shown to all of them |
| Assignment | Somewhere to submit work, and someone to grade it |
| Workshop | Other learners to assess each other’s work |
| Choice, feedback, survey | Responses collected and added up across everyone |
| Database | A shared set of records that participants add to and search |
| BigBlueButton | A live session, not content |
| External tool (LTI) | A third-party service, launched with credentials your LMS holds |
A few others are a different answer: not yet rather than never. A Lesson’s content can convert, but its branching paths cannot, because SCORM 1.2 has no sequencing. Glossaries could become a static list of terms, and H5P runs in a browser but reports to Moodle rather than to your LMS.
What does come across
Everything a learner uses on their own: pages, books, files and folders, video and audio, links, and quizzes. A quiz can be marked in the learner’s browser, the way Moodle would mark it, and the score sent to the LMS. Every activity and question type, in full →
What this means if you are leaving Moodle
The self-paced part of a course, which is usually most of it, can move as a SCORM package. The collaborative part is rebuilt in the new LMS’s own forums and assignments, which every LMS has. The MBZ Check shows you, in seconds and without uploading anything, which activities in your course fall on each side.