SIM University Annual Teaching-Learning Symposium 2008

Abstract:
This paper explains the different learning paths that can be used to design and develop e-learning content using an international specification known as the SCORM 2004 Specification. With this specification, the instructional designer can enable the tracking of learner’s learning, the sequencing and navigation mechanisms. These mechanisms can be developed so that learners with different abilities can be provided with different learning paths. The author shows that it is advantageous to provide different learning paths. However, the SCORM 2004 specification does have some limitations. The paper discusses some of these limitations and gives examples of domain areas where this approach works well.

Keywords: Sequencing, navigation, instructional strategies, adaptive learning, SCORM 2004 3rd Edition

The current use of the web technology to deliver e-learning courses especially for open and distance education programmes is generally a very passive exercise of uploading many static documents to a learning management system and giving instructions to students. The end result is that many students ended up having to print many documents. Such a delivery mode does not take advantage of the potential of the web technology and e-learning standards to offer innovative ways to making the course materials responsive to the learning abilities of the student.

Students everywhere, especially the mature ones in open and distance education universities, are getting more demanding. For a particular subject matter area, different students have different initial competency levels. Some have much expert knowledge; others have very little or no knowledge at all. Yet there are other students who need to be guided closely in their learning. Learning materials must be designed and developed to cater to these different types of learners. E-learning materials that have been designed and developed for one type of students will not appeal to other types .

Universities are also facing much competition in getting quality students. Professors know that one way to attract quality students is to improve the teaching quality. Inevitably this means better quality course materials. Unlike the conventional classroom-based universities, open and distance education universities need to depend much more on the quality of the course materials as their students do not have much contact time with their professors. Yet, at the same time, developing quality course materials is time consuming and expensive. Hence, the demand is there to reuse content as much as is possible rather than having to design and develop the course materials every time the course is run.

This is where the international e-learning specification known as SCORM [1] comes in.

1. The SCORM 2004 3rd Edition Specification

SCORM is an acronym for Sharable Content Object Reference Model. SCORM is developed by the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative of the US Department of Defence. The purpose of SCORM is to standardize e-learning such that any SCORM conformant content developed by any course developer, on any authoring system, can be delivered to any learner, over the Internet, on any SCORM conformant learning management system.

Since its first release in 2000, SCORM has evolved and improved significantly. It started with SCORM 1.0, then SCORM 1.1, SCORM 1.2 and in 2004, SCORM 1.3 or renamed as SCORM 2004. Perhaps the most useful improvement to SCORM is the addition of Simple Sequencing capabilities in SCORM 2004 [2].

With Simple Sequencing being incorporated into the SCORM 2004 3rd Edition Specification, developers can now design courseware with complex branching to provide individualized instructions to target the learning needs of individual students [3].

2. SCORM Sequencing

The sequencing feature in SCORM 2004 comes from the Simple Sequencing Specification of IMS (IMS Global Learning Consortium). This feature allows for the creation of content with a non-linear path, such as courseware with complex branching options. The content model is mirrored by the Content Organization spelled out in the manifest file (named as “imsmanifest.xml”).

Figure 1 – Relationship between a Content Organization and an Activity Tree [4]

This manifest file is the central document of a SCORM content package. Since a SCORM content package is designed to be used within an LMS, the Content Organization in the manifest file is parsed by the LMS and becomes the "Activity Tree" for that content.

Each item in the Activity Tree corresponds to a learning activity (such as a question or a series of questions). Sequencing rules can be attached to each activity, i.e., to indicate what happens given different responses to activities. Activities can be associated with one or more Learning Objectives. Depending on responses to learning activities, learning objects may be satisfied or not, leading to different branching options.

In any learning environment, there is a "student model", which spells out what the learner knows and progress made toward achieving the learning goals. In SCORM 2004, this is represented by the Activity State and Tracking Models (spelled out in the manifest file). These allow the students' traversal of the learning content to be followed, recorded, and assessed. SCORM 2004 has the Sequencing Definition Model (which is an instructional model) which defines the order in which content is presented, how pre-tests and post-tests are used for sequencing, as well as providing remediation options. This Sequencing Definition Model is designated in the structure of the manifest file. The sequencing model in SCORM 2004 provides for considerable flexibility in how content is presented and how the system interacts with the user. Fundamentally, the model is one of content mastery, established by the learning objectives, and assessed through questions (learning activities). In this sense, computer technology skills such as programming knowledge or object-oriented design comprehension lend themselves quite well to being developed into SCORM-compatible lessons. Such lessons could be set up to provide choices to learners on how to work with the materials; for example, the options to chose a guided flow in which a learning path is pre-determined or an exploratory mode in which the user is provided more choices. This would move in the direction of an adaptive learning environment.

One of the goals of SCORM is that SCORM-compatible content be portable to different learning systems and be able to be combined in different ways depending on the needs of the user. For this reason, SCORM learning objects (called SCOs for Sharable Content Object) are designed to be small units, or “chunks”, with flexibility to be used in different contexts. However, the granularity of SCOs is something that cannot be defined strictly. It depends on the project nature and its projected use. Fortunately, by now there are some software tools (e.g. eXe [6] and RELOAD [7]) which can be used to design and develop such SCOs quickly.

3. Instructional Strategies of SCORM Sequencing

We will use some examples from a course on teaching the Ruby on Rails [8] Web Application Framework. These examples can be used to illustrate some instructional strategies that can be deployed by using the SCORM 2004 3rd Edition Specification.

The following are 9 different instructional strategies (or learning paths) that can be used on the same contents [9]:

In this instructional strategy, the learner is free to choose lear ning activities at will, in any order and without any restrictions on the number of attempts. No sequencing information is specified in this strategy. This learning mode might appeal to the learner who has some programming experience and who is able to learn by himself. However, beginners who need guidance will not find this mode useful.

In this mode, the learner must progress through the contents in a pre-determined order. The learner will start with the introduction first, then do all the modules and lessons in a linear order, directed by the LMS. The learner cannot proceed forward with the lessons until he has completed the current lesson. Each module is complete when he has finished all lessons in the module. The student will be presented with a comprehensive exam after he has completed all the modules.

This mode is similar to the Linear model. However the content is structured differently. Individual lessons are not part of the content aggregation. They are embedded in various Module SCOs (or lessons in Figure 3). The LMS does not provide navigation controls (i.e. of moving from lesson to lesson within a module); the Module SCOs provide them. Lesson to Lesson (intra-SCO) navigation is handled by the Module SCOs. Module to Module (inter-SCO) navigation is handled by the LMS through the navigation data model.

In this mode, the learner must go through and complete the introduction first. He is then presented with a menu of module choices – the learner must select a module. After selecting a module, the module’s lessons are presented in a predefined order; the learner cannot ‘jump’ (Choice = false) (select) individual lessons, specific modules, or specific module exams. After selecting or ‘flowing’ into a module exam (Flow = true), the learner must attempt each question in order. While experiencing a module exam, the learner cannot choose to exit the module exam before completing it (ChoiceExit = false). Before completing the module the learner must attempt and complete the module’s exam. The learner is not permitted to attempt any module more than once. The course is complete after the learner attempts all the modules (Exit if completed).

In this mode, the learner must go through and complete the introduction first. He is then presented with a menu of module and lesson choices – the learner must select a module or a lesson. The learner can ‘jump’ (select) individual lessons and specific modules within the range of the constrained choice – only one module before and after the current module. After selecting a module or a lesson, the module’s lessons are presented in a predefined order; however, the learner can also ‘jump’ to (select) other lessons in any order. Every module has a module exam at the end. The student cannot select the module exams. After selecting or ‘flowing’ into a module exam, the learner must attempt each question in order. While experiencing a module exam, the learner cannot choose to exit the module exam before completing it. He must attempt to complete the module exam before he is deemed to have completed the module. The course is complete after the learner attempts all the modules.

In this mode, the learner must go through and complete the introduction first. After that he may proceed to the module 1 pre-test, select another module pre-test, or select a lesson. The learner may ‘jump’ between modules, selecting pre-tests or lessons in any order. The learner cannot select the Module post-tests. These are only encountered after the learner ‘flows’ through the modules lessons.

After selecting or ‘flowing’ into an exam (pre- or post-), the learner must attempt each question in order. While going through a module exam, the learner cannot choose to exit the module exam before completing it. If the learner passes an exam (pre- or post-), the module’s learning objective has been satisfied and the module’s post-test becomes disabled.

The learner may continue to select individual lessons for the duration of the course, even after a module’s objective has been satisfied. If the learner does not pass the exam, the learner is directed to that module’s instructional content, and once completed, must retake the module exam (post-test). A summary of the learner’s results is presented after all of the modules have been attempted. The learner is deemed to have completed the course after he reviews the course summary (i.e. cmi.completion_status = “completed”).

This strategy has the same sequencing strategy as Knowledge Paced, but sequencing information is reused. This means that the learner cannot jump between modules nor select another module pre-test or lesson.

In this mode, the learner must go through and complete the introduction, and then follow a ‘linear’ approach. If the learner passes (i.e. meets all of the module objectives) the comprehensive exam, the course is completed. For each section of the exam (module objective) that is “not satisfied”, the learner is directed to that associated Module(s) of instructional content, and once completed, must retake the Module Exam(s).

This learning strategy is a variation of remediation. The learner is first presented with the introduction. He is then presented with an assessment SCO that internally evaluates the learner’s mastery of each of the Ruby on Rails module objectives. The assessment SCO reports the satisfaction status of the module objectives through the SCORM Run-time Data Model (i.e. cmi.objectives.n.success_status = “passed” & cmi.objectives.n.completion_status = “completed”). The learner is presented with the instructional material (modules) related to unsatisfied objectives. After the learner has completed all the required instructional materials, an exam is presented that re-tests the objectives the learner has not satisfied.

Being able to provide different learning paths for the same content has many implications in e-learning and e-training programmes. Firstly, as our students can choose how they want to learn the content, they will find that their understanding, comprehension and application abilities progress smoothly or according to how they want to progress. In addition, for different modules, they can choose different learning strategies. For example, for students who want to jump into trying out the Ruby on Rails software, they can choose the Knowledge Paced or the Competency Assessment mode.

The second advantage is that by incorporating such sequencing modes, we can preempt the questions students will ask. This will allow the tutor to have more time to attend to answering online questions on the more difficult aspects of the subject matter. When an online course has been well planned, designed, sequenced and developed, the need for tutor-student interactions can be reduced. This becomes important in our educational programmes where both the students and tutors are busy working and studying at the same time.

The third advantage is that using the SCORM 2004 3rd Edition Specification allows the student to focus on the leaf activities in the activity tree. Consequently, the student will be able to zero in on the various leaf activities. For example, one leaf activity might be to create a user authentication controller for the website. If the student is not able to do this, he will be directed (by the LMS) to the relevant module to re-do the activities related to the user authentication.

Many people have regarded the SCORM specification to be very complex and too technology oriented. In fact, the four SCORM manuals (Overview, Content Aggregation Model, Sequencing and Navigation and Run-Time Environment) are highly technical and are meant more for the technical programmer rather than for the pedagogically trained instructional designer even though the ADL have stated that the specification is pedagogically neutral. Other than the complexity, there are some other limitations.

One limitation is that the SCORM 2004 3rd Edition specification is limited to the content mastery and the acquisition of skills and knowledge in a particular subject matter area. The typical domain areas that are highly applicable are engineering/computer science, mathematics/science, management and related areas, military and corporate training. The content has to be granularised properly and planned for reusability. Granularizing content is no trivial matter. The learning strategies most suitable for use are the directed, self-guided and adaptive learning strategies. Collaborative learning is out of scope in a SCORM 2004 learning environment [10]. The number of high level design and authoring software tools and systems is rather limited. There are very few books and instructional materials on how to design e-learning courses using the SCORM 2004 3rd Edition Specification. Instructional design courses usually do not include any training on using this specification.

Fortunately, the situation is improving. For example, the Academic ADL Co-Lab has recently launched a 4-week online course on Content Sequencing (from 28 April 2008 to 23 May 2008). The ADLNET.org website listed 31 vendor companies which have e-learning systems certified to the SCORM 2004 3rd Edition Specification.

Yet another healthy indication is that an international non-profit organization called LETSI (Learning, Education and Training System Interoperability) has been set up to take over the good work done by the ADLNET.org. Recently, the UK’s National Body submitted a proposal to the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36 Committee to have the SCORM 2004 3rd Edition Specification voted as a Technical Report. In addition, steps have been taken to introduce the CoreSCORM specification to make it an ISO/IEC JTC1 standard.

Using the SCORM 2004 3rd Edition Specification to design and develop e-learning courses brings a step closer to adaptive learning. Where previously educational technologists were trying out Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs) for narrowly defined areas of technical training, They now have the option to use the SCORM 2004 3rd Edition Specification to develop different sequencing paths for learners. Because all three critical components for ITS (Expert Knowledge Model, Novice Knowledge Model and the Instructional Model) are present in the SCORM 2004 3rd Edition sequencing capabilities, intelligent model-based instruction is possible [11].

[1] ADL (November 16, 2006), SCORM 2004 3 rd Edition Overview - Sharable Content Object Reference Model. Available at http://www.adlnet.gov.

[2] Mackenzie, Gord (August 3, 2004). SCORM 2004 Primer – A (Mostly) Painless Introduction to SCORM Version 1.0. p. 8. .

[3] Godwin-Jones , Robert. (2007). Emerging Technologies - Tools and Trends in Self-Paced Language Instruction. Language Learning & Technology , Vol. 11, No. 2, June 2007, pp. 10-17. http://llt.msu.edu/vol11num2/emerging/default.html accessed on 23 May 2008.

[4] ADL (November 16, 2006), SCORM 2004 3 rd Edition - Sequencing and Navigation – Sharable Content Object Reference Model, Figure 2.1.1a .

[7] Reusable eLearning Object Authoring and Delivery (RELOAD). RELOAD Project Home Page. http://www.reload.ac.uk.

[9] SCORM Photoshop Examples from the Advanced Distributed Learning, Version 1.1.

[10] IMS Simple Sequencing Best Practice and Implementation Guide Version 1.0 (03 March 2003) . Section 3.1.1 Scope, Figure 3.1 – Problem Space.

[11] Anthony, Michael M.S. , Ashworth, Alan . Mapping Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) Constructs to SCORM 2004 Data Structures . The I/ITSEC Volume 2006.