Lesson/Quiz vs SCORM

Lesson/Quiz vs SCORM

by KirK Chapman -
Number of replies: 13

Hello,

Moodle 3.0+

Could you tell me why (from a technical standpoint) the Lesson/Quiz is more reliable and reports better within Moodle than SCORM.  I have an increasing interest in using Lesson/Quiz native features. I'm trying to draw some comparisons (reliability, responsiveness, edit-ability, offline etc...) in hopes of  leveling the mix of modules I currently use (SCORM vs Quiz). This is especially relevant as the Moodle Lesson/Quiz module has become more sophisticated and aesthetically pleasing- hats off to the developers! And,  I love H5P!

Thanks,

Peace


(Edited by Howard Miller - original submission Thursday, 29 December 2016, 2:43 PM)

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In reply to KirK Chapman

Re: Lesson/Quiz vs SCORM

by Howard Miller -
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Lesson and Quiz are native Moodle applications and SCORM isn't?  Although I'm not sure how you quantify 'reliable' or 'better'. All are reliable and meet the needs they set out to more or less. 

Sorry... I don't know what H5P is.

In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Lesson/Quiz vs SCORM

by Joost Elshoff -
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H5P is an activity module that was introduced for Moodle earlier this year. It enables teachers and course creators to build interactive content within their courses with a large variety of possible content types. It's not just 1 activity, but a creation/editting tool for close to 30 content types by now, most of which will become xAPI / TinCan compliant so they can work with both Gradebook and Learning Record Store applications.

Check www.h5p.org if you would like to give it a shot. 

(and no, I don't work for H5P, but it's probably the best addition to Moodle activities in years).

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In reply to Joost Elshoff

Re: Lesson/Quiz vs SCORM

by Howard Miller -
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That one passed me by. I don't do content creation but I know lots of people who do smile

In reply to KirK Chapman

Re: Lesson/Quiz vs SCORM

by Dan Marsden -
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where do I start...

SCORM is over 16 years old - before Ipads/smart-phones/mobile-learning/ wide adoption of WiFi and the design of the spec does not support mobile devices/offline capabilities - when you lose a connection (WiFi drops out/go through a tunnel) you will often lose data during communication with the LMS - some SCORM packaging tools try to support this but there is only so far you can go due to the design of the spec.

Native apps will always provide better reporting - the adoption of the SCORM spec varies between authoring tools, and there is only a limited amount of information passed to the LMS - native apps will have "all" the data and will report it in the same way each time.

The SCORM standards body provides a testing suite to allow you to check if your LMS complies with the specification. This testing suite requires a version of Java that is no longer supported, a browser version that is no longer supported and neither of those are officially supported by the latest release of Moodle either.

SCORM will be here for a while, but if you aren't using it now, don't start - it's like going to the cell phone store and asking to purchase an Ericsson R380 but what you really should be getting is a Samsung Galaxy S8

There are a lot of alternatives to SCORM, including native authoring tools within the LMS and external tools if you are looking for something that isn't provided by your LMS.

I could go on a lot more but a google search will provide you with plenty of other background info.

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In reply to Dan Marsden

Re: Lesson/Quiz vs SCORM

by KirK Chapman -

Thanks for the feedback folks, 

That was helpful.

In terms of reliability, I'm searching for the way Moodle Lesson/Quiz handles a dropped connection. We recently did compliance training for 7,000 folks. We had some buildings with intermittent Wi-Fi signals that caused about 1% of the participants to loose data. So, knowing how Moodle handles data when connections fail would be helpful.


Thanks

In reply to KirK Chapman

Re: Lesson/Quiz vs SCORM

by KirK Chapman -

That training was with SCORM.

In reply to KirK Chapman

Re: Lesson/Quiz vs SCORM

by Melanie Scott -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

If it is likely your students will experience intermittent network drops, Quiz or Lesson will be more reliable than SCORM.  I'll use Dan's initial phone example.  Quiz or Lesson are a lot like being in the same room.  If the connection drops, when it comes back up (unless you've left), both you and your stuff are still there.  SCORM is like a VOIP phone call.  If the signal drops, the connection is gone.  You have to close up and restart.  If this could happen three or four times an hour, SCORM is not worth the trouble.

SCORM is nice for making things more attractive, interactive and blending.  Quiz quizzes...all the questions are graded.  Lesson gives content and checks knowledge and all the questions are graded.  Feedback asks for opinions and nothing is graded.  SCORM allows you to do all these things with lovely media and color all together in one module (which, I suspect H5P can do--haven't tried it yet, but I've asked to have it installed on my development site!).  SCORM can (if you are able) provide software tutorials, with either demos or hands on practice or both that nothing native to Moodle can.  But not everyone needs that (I do, from time to time.  Really, we need a lot of it, we just haven't provided it yet.wink)

Personally, I like SCORM, but my users generally have stable network/wifi connection.  I use Lectora and Captivate, which are both pricey and can publish in different ways (I think Lectora can publish to tincan now, Captivate also publishes to SWF as well, one day they'll realize flash is dying a brutal death and who knows what will happen then, and pdf-badly).  They tend to be pretty good.  I've heard Articulate is good (again, pricey).  I liked the convenience of iSpring Free a few years ago, but it only opened at the beginning of a module (couldn't remember where you left off, if you didn't finish) and was very sensitive to network glitches.  And it isn't very good in the 508 compliance realm for the US (might not be relevant to you).  That said, I get that SCORM is a dinosaur (gotta love 'em) but it isn't extinct yet.

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In reply to Melanie Scott

Re: Lesson/Quiz vs SCORM

by KirK Chapman -

Thanks Melanie, 

Your analogy reinforces my understanding of how I perceived Moodle functions; viop being a perfect example related to SCORM. Very nice!   However, you mentioned:

 "If the connection drops, when it comes back up (unless you've left), both you and your stuff are still there."

I guess I'm looking for direction to a technical answer as to how this information is stored and retrieved on re-connection (browser, client/server side) in the case of Lesson/Quiz.

Since I have a nice handle on Captivate (yep, they also have an xAPI Tin Can publishing output) I'm going to start experimenting with xAPI (Tin Can) this spring term. Because SCORM has performed nicely within Moodle I've just not made xAPI a priority. I've totally abandoned SWF so I'm thinking that it's time to invest some sweat in SCORM alternatives. 

Thanks for your comment, you're always so thoughtful.cool

Peace

In reply to KirK Chapman

Re: Lesson/Quiz vs SCORM

by Derek Chirnside -

Kirk: quick question.

You say:

Because SCORM has performed nicely within Moodle I've just not made xAPI a priority. 

Have you got SCORM + Moodle working in a smart phone well?  Using iFrames the Moodle way has broken the responsiveness for me on some SCORMS made from Adapt and Evolve.  https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=339451

-Derek


In reply to Derek Chirnside

Re: Lesson/Quiz vs SCORM

by KirK Chapman -

Hello Derek,

I'm in Moodle 3.0.2+.

I had never tried until now. However I get similar results for the SCORM player on my iPhone 5s- 'broken responsiveness.' I used a responsive project from Captivate. Tablet is fine. I have a media query (break point) set at 414 px for mobile portrait. iPhone 5s portrait width is 320px. In all fairness to the Moodle SCORM player I should experiment more but I've never had a request for SCORM and Moodle smaller than iPad dimensions. I did test in scormcloud ; no issues with responsiveness.

Gonna upgrade to 3.2 next week. Maybe I'll see if the Moodle SCORM player has any other results.

Keep us informed on your journey... we'll tag alongcool

Peace


In reply to KirK Chapman

Re: Lesson/Quiz vs SCORM

by Dan Marsden -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Plugins guardians Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

when you turn a page/submit some answers in a lesson/quiz - Moodle stores that information immediately and then presents the next page.

With SCORM - all the information is "stored" on the client side in Javascript - Moodle doesn't "know" where you are in the SCORM package or what you have done. It's up to the SCORM package itself to track that and eventually report some completion information back to the LMS - and many scorm packages don't do this until the last slide. So if anything happens to break that communication before it gets to the last slide you can lose all that data and nothing will be reported to the LMS.

Also - I forgot to mention the lack of security within SCORM - it's all browser based javascript - it's quite straightforward for an end-user to use "developer-mode" tools within the browser to submit their own lesson_status or raw_score values and not even bother with actually completing or viewing the SCORM package.

Average of ratings: Useful (5)
In reply to Dan Marsden

Re: Lesson/Quiz vs SCORM

by KirK Chapman -

Thanks Dan,

So, I get the idea that "when you turn a page/submit some answers in a lesson/quiz - Moodle stores that information immediately and then presents the next page." I'm going to test what happens when I break the connection in a Quiz. I'm assuming that in a Quiz you won't get that next page if the connection breaks (Ha!)  vs the SCORM module continuing to play in the browser; likely with the checknet warning.  If that's the case, I'll have a working answer.

Yeah, I remember reading about the SCORM bookmarklet  some years ago as it related to high-stakes testing. I never looked into that "little secret." Your "developer-mode" note is going to make me revisit that bit of controversy.

As always- great stuff to think about. Thanks a bunch.

Peace




In reply to KirK Chapman

Re: Lesson/Quiz vs SCORM

by Mary Cooch -
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Just checking you are aware that there is an autosave feature with the Quiz that the administrator can specify, so that quiz answers are saved automatically after certain periods of time so nothing is lost if a connection is lost. You do get an alert message if your connection goes down though. (Also, the mobile app allows quizzes to be done offline and then sent back to Moodle when back online) You could ask in the Quiz forum for specifics about how the quiz handles dropped connections.

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