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If you use the current release of Captivate 2 to make elearning intended for an LMS, then do not use the built-in FTP. Likewise, do not use the current Captivate 2 release with FTP and PENS.

When the FTP box is checked, Captivate 2 makes invalid SCORM 1.2 and invalid SCORM 2004 packages. Under these conditions Captivate 2 puts the required zip-archive root-level files like "imsmanifest.xml" down in a directory structure 4-5 levels deep.

   Captivate 2 Elearning Output published with FTP


   Captivate 2 Elearning Output published locally

This means that when FTP is used, the resulting zip file that gets transferred to the server is NOT valid, whether it is SCORM 1.2 or SCORM 2004. Adobe was notified of this issue last Fall and confirmed the problem. At the time of this post I can not find a tech note about this issue.

The workaround is to not use the built-in FTP. Instead, use the Publish Dialog to publish for Flash (SWF), select the "Output Options" to Zip files and under "Project Information" select the desired eLearning output format for your package. Finally, after Captivate publishes the zip package locally, use a third party FTP tool or other LMS import capabilities to transfer the valid SCORM package to the LMS. This will give you a better shot at having the package import into your LMS (or LCMS).

   Captivate 2 Publish Dialog settings for local publishing of packages

Two final notes on this topic. First, this bug means PENS doesn't really work. The work around there is to "trick" Captivate 2 by publishing to one FTP address, and then configuring the Captivate PENS settings to use an alternate URL that has a valid package staged by other means. For anything other than testing the capabilities of an LMS server, I wouldn't bother with this approach-- it sort of defeats the intended simplicity of PENS to manually FTP and publish twice to order to get a single package to an LCMS/LMS.

The second note is that there may be other issues with Captivate content communicating to an LMS. I've received private email from one content developer about some issues and heard from another contact that other settings may not work as intended/advertised. I've yet to verify these, but will post more information once this can be confirmed or denied.

Labels: Captivate, LMS, PENS, SCORM

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Late last year the ADL reached agreements with several other elearning standards organizations, including AICC, IEEE and IMS. The agreements allow the relevant work of those groups to move forward with SCORM as this portion of the ADL effort transitions to a new stewardship organization.

This is a significant achievement. It indicates the maturity and stability of SCORM, yet also recognizes the criticality of on-going maintenance and refinement. The SCORM 2004 specification is also being formally submitted to ISO, where the technical committees will review it and allow member nations to vote on it. In 2007 we will see more SCORM work being done within other standards work groups and organizations.

The February IMS meeting in San Francisco is an important transition as SCORM moves into this new phase. On February 7 there will be a workshop that is open to the public for discussion of IMS-related work with SCORM. ADL representatives will be presenting and facilitating discussions on how the groups can work together, and on content packaging, a key technical component shared between the organizations. Content packaging includes the organizational and metadata "wrappers" for shareable content objects and is a critical feature for supporting reusable learning object strategies. The ADL will also present information on CORDRA, an architecture for structuring searches and sharing across repositories, and Simple Sequencing and Navigation within courses. See the IMS website for the agenda information, IMS membership is not required, but there is a meeting fee for attendees.

During March there will be a kick-off meeting for a new stewardship organization to coordinate SCORM evolution and maintenances. The meeting will be held in conjunction with the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36 meetings in London. This meeting about the stewardship organization is preliminary. An official charter and transition is likely to take until the Spring of 2008. Those interested in participating in this meeting or the stewardship organization committee in general can directly contact the ADL or request that I forward information.

Labels: LMS, SCORM

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Is getting an LMS accepted and running already so much of a challenge that training managers and departments won't even consider an open-source LMS? There are quite a few open-source LMS projects going on in the academic world. I'm not sure how many of these have significant commercial implementations. There is of course, Moodle, and also OLAT. A few other systems of interest are reviewed in English at the LMS News site originating in Germany, and LMS Talk also has a list of open source LMS resources. I picked up on on the Paris-based ANEMALAB which offers the Ganesha LMS. This LMS seems to support PENS and was demonstrated last month at the LIFE Fest 2006 in Paris.

I started with a rhetorical question about the enterprise, but now I have questions about open-source LMS and academia. Are there just too many open source LMS offerings without a clear leader? Is the open source segment facing the same challenges that the "pre-consolidation wave" commercial LMS market faced? Or is this segment driven by the lack of viable commercial alternatives in academia (eg, WebCT-Blackboard merger, and the Bb lawsuit cloud hanging over commercial implementations in that segment)?

Labels: LMS

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Businesswire shows that OutStart Announces PENS Support. I'll update the link to point to the OutStart site, as soon as it is available there.

Great to have another vendor on-board, and I look forward to seeing their implementation working with others at the plugfest that starts tomorrow. The interoperability labs run Tuesday afternoon, with vendor presentations the following morning on Wednesday. I'll post a wrap-up on Wednesday night to document how things went.

Labels: AICC, LMS, PENS

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Congratulations to Oracle for achieving AICC certification of Peoplesoft Enterprise Learning Management 9.0. Likewise,, kudos to Saba for achieving AICC certification of Saba Enterprise Learning Suite Version 5 on September 6, 2006. Back in the Spring of 2006 I questioned the commitment of some LMS vendors to standards. It is great to see two major players like Saba and Oracle stepping up to the task. Saba is now certified for both AICC and SCORM 2004.

We're still waiting for either a SCORM 1.2 or SCORM 2004 or an AICC certification for the SumTotal LMS that was first released in December 2004. In the same time frame, many major competitors have achieved two or more certifications, as have some smaller firms with solid LMS offerings. Since Claude Ostyn left SumTotal I haven't really seen much corporate participation in ADL or AICC activities from SumTotal. Hopefully, they are still keeping an eye on LMS fundamentals as they move towards performance-management.

Labels: AICC, LMS

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It seems like there is so much going on right now. Rather than doing 3 posts I'll do one quick post and hit 3-4 topics.

Blackboard Lawsuit- Disappointing to read about Blackboard filing patent-based lawsuits against other LMS companies. Others have followed this more closely and written about it more clearly than I can, like Stephen Downes has on his blog- see posts like: Blackboard Patent.

LMS CEOs-The Masie Center has podcast (MP3) interviews and PDF transcripts of brief interviews with most of the major LMS/LCM companies CEO or CTO. Free downloads are available off of the Learning 2006 site. There are 15+ short MP3 files (~5MB) to choose from here LMS Panelist Podcasts. Masie Consortium members can also visit that site for a focused podcast with the Blackboard legal counsel on the pending litigation.

PENS- I was busy updating the PENS validation suite PHP for the AICC. The PENS validation code is available on the AICC site, and I am hosting it myself for online testing at the PENS LMS Testing site. The changes to the sample code and server-side validation are described on the AICC blog; PENS Validation Suite Updates. If anyone is interested in collaboration on further updates to the test suite and a certification process, please contact me. I've also been working on a PENS Plugfest to be held in Vancouver September 19-20, see the press release here AICC PENS Plugfest.

SCORM 2004 3rd Edition Public Draft posted Monday If you didn't catch it, the ADL posted a "Final Draft" on Monday, with beta versions of the test suite and sample run-time environment. It seems like a lot of clarifications and some decent clean-up/clarification of Simple Sequencing & Navigation without a major overhaul that would break a lot of things. See the ADL web site (now a .gov domain) for info and downloads ADL site downloads for SCORM 3rd Edition ADL Releases SCORM 2004 3rd Edition Public Draft. The next 30 days is your chance to get feedback to them before it becomes an official, non-draft document.

Labels: AICC, LMS, PENS

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In the March edition of Communications of the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery), Robert C. Beatty and Craig D. Williams write:

One of the most important IT-enabled business innovations during the decade has been the emergence of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Lured by guarantees of improved business productivity, streamlined business operations and, and increased cost savings, organizations worldwide have launched initiatives to integrate ERP systems into their existing business environments.

I was struck by the similarity between the ERP systems and LMS (learning management system). A quick substitution of LMS for ERP and "learning" for a few instances of "business" and it could be the beginning of an LMS white paper. The goal of their article was to give ERP teams proven and practical recommendations for successful ERP upgrades. I think it just may apply to LMS upgrades too. Here are their 8 top-level findings:

1. Build your business case on new functionality.
2. Treat the upgrade like a new project.
3. Keep the (original implementation team) team together.
4. This is a business project, not an IT project. [emphasis added]
5. Watch for hidden infrastructure costs.
6. Un-customize customizations.
7. Test like your organization's future sucess depends on it.
8. Don't skimp on the training.

Of course we've got to like #8. But what about #6? It is so tempting to request customizations, ostensibly to improve the learning experience, but how detrimental are delays or additional costs to the learning experience? Beatty and Williams note that for ERP projects "Dealing with customizations requires approximately 80% of a software developer's and 60% of a business analyst's time and effort.". They recommend that customizations be evaluated and considered for elimination during the upgrade process.

This article is definitely worth reading for any training manager or IT staff involved in an enterprise LMS upgrade.

Labels: LMS

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Some other good SCORM news is that Rustici Software is working on a testing tool that will help clarify/visualize Simple Sequencing and Navigation Rules and the resulting activity tree. Beta testing should begin soon, so look for an announcement or contact them if you are interested.

Last month, I bashed a few LMS vendors about not caring about certification for SCORM and AICC (or the glaring lack of certification).

Kudos to Saba for stepping up and getting Saba Enterprise Learning Suite 5.3 certified for SCORM 2004 2nd Edition (Test Suite 1.3.3) in April. Now all Saba is missing is a current AICC certification.

Hopefully, we'll see some other vendors step up to the plate soon for AICC, and/or at least announce a position regarding SCORM 2004 certification (e.g., are they waiting for 3rd Edition?). I'd still love to see a current certification for Oracle, SAP, or SumTotal.

Labels: LMS, SCORM

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I just got back from last week's SCORM 2004 Technical Work Group meetings, and it seems like there will be some great clarifications in SCORM 2004 3rd Edition, particularly for Simple Sequencing and Navigation. That is the good news. The bad news is that it Simple Sequencing isn't all that simple and can be quite confusing for your average trainer or instructional designer (including me). Also, note that it could be a few months before the final docs and then the test suite are available for SCORM 2004 3rd Edition. Although the public review period just ended, you can still get an impacts summary online.

Labels: LMS, SCORM

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I noticed that only 1of leading LMS vendor has their current product certified by AICC. Only one major LMS has a current SCORM 2004 Certification. Read on to find out who IS certified. Curious who isn't certified right now for either standard? As of this writing I don't see Oracle, Saba, SAP, or SumTotal when I look on the AICC site (AICC Certified Products), nor do I see any of those products on the ADL SCORM 2004 Certified Products list.

Hmm, sorta makes you wonder why companies have problems integrating their content with their LMS.

Not that the issue is entirely on the LMS side. I don't see many content vendors with current AICC Certification either though. No current AICC certification for Articulate, DazzlerMax, Lectora Publisher, and ToolBook to name a few. There are quite a few I didn't name too.

Content tools fare much better with SCORM 2004 certification , where you will see that Adobe Breeze, Adobe Captivate, Articulate Presenter, EEDO ForceTen, OutStart Evolution and ToolBook are all listed.

Time to run off to Masie's LMS 2006 Users Group that is running right now. It is no wonder that this event sold out.

PS- Plateau has both AICC certification and SCORM 2004 certification currently. The only one out there as far as I can tell.

Labels: LMS, SCORM

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Just noticed this in the new Brandon Hall Research Newsletter; they've created "LMS Central" to consolidate all their reports, vendor profiles, comparison lists and LMS-related workshops. Very handy if you need to shop or just keep current.

Labels: LMS

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