SCORM

Hi Ted, the guide to changing things in the database is "don't, unless you really have to". It's not that easy to figure out where to look either. Why is editing data your only option? There's no "dummies" guide for the Moodle database because to understand how the data hangs together you generally need to read the code of the activity then figure out why things hook up where and the way they do. And then keep a backup of the database for when it all goes haywire.

But just in case I haven't scared you off, here's how the scorm data lives in the database and how to track it down.

First start where you launch your package (the scorm activity page with the Enter button) to grab its activity id. This will look something like http://your-server-name/mod/scorm/view.php?id=651.

In the database, "651" represents a record in the mdl_course_module table, and from that record you need to grab the "instance" of the activity. You find that out using some sql

select instance from mdl_course_module where id = 651

this will give you some value - lets say 128. You then need to find out the recorded scorm data for a user. So you need to know the id of the user you want to examine the data for. I find it's easiest to go into the scorm reports page and find the user, then mouse-over their name and look at the link - on Chrome this appears on the bottom-left of the browser window, and looks something like http://your-server-name/user/view.php?id=3564&course=120. To find all that users scorm data you can now do another query:

select * from mdl_scorm_scoes_track where userid = 3564 and scormid = 128

You'll then get some results - some values will probably be pretty unreadable depending on the type of package you have. Lets say these are the results (this is a scorm 1.2 package):

If I wanted to complete this users package on their behalf just by editing data values, here's what sql I'd have to do in three sql statements, using the values we calculated above:

insert into mdl_scorm_scoes_track (userid, scormid, scoid, attempt, element, value, timemodified) values (3564, 128, 390, 1, 'cmi.core.score.raw', '100', unix_timestamp()), (3564, 128, 390, 1, 'cmi.core.score.min', '0', unix_timestamp()), (3564, 128, 390, 1, 'cmi.core.score.max', '100', unix_timestamp());

update mdl_scorm_scoes_track set value = '' where userid = 3564 and scormid = 128 and attempt = 1 and element = 'cmi.core.lesson_status';

update mdl_scorm_scoes_track set value = 'completed' where userid = 3564 and scormid = 128 and attempt = 1 and element = 'cmi.core.exit';

This would make the scorm record think that it was in a completed state, with a score set, and a lesson status of completed. But depending on how your course is set up and if there are any triggers or calculations that take place once a package is completed such as conditionally releasing subsequent course activities, you might need to do some more steps. I'm not entirely sure which of these are absolutely necessary but when I've had to edit like this, this is what worked for me. To perform these steps I'm usually logged on as an admin account.

1. Force or let the cron to run - this might be as simple as running http://your-server-name/admin/cron.php, or waiting 5, 10 or 15 minutes (whatever it is set at on your server).

2. Edit the grade if need be. One thing is that the score of the scorm package might be linked to the grade. To edit it, find the user in the grading tool, and then turn editing on on the page. This will change the grades into editable fields. You then copy the score you set in the package into the grade for that user, then save.

3. Purge the cache (site administration > development > purge all caches). Don't know why, but this has to happen.

4. Force or let the cron to run again. 

At this point any completion rules, or conditional releases will see that the package is in fact completed, the grade is set and updated, and needs to be triggered / updated.

Now, editing the mdl_scorm_scoes_track data can be tricky and depends heavily on your knowledge of both the scorm package and the standard version it is built to - so the example above is for a fairly simple single sco package built for scorm 1.2 within a package that was set to complete upon a certain grade condition. If you need to edit data that is stored in the cmi.suspend_data you might find its significantly more tricky unless you know the ins-and-outs of the package you are trying to examine. For instance, a Articulate scorm package will compress its suspend data using its own compression algorithm based on triplets of alphanumeric values, whereas a Coursesuite scorm package compresses using LZString - either way both are almost impossible to change by hand unless you're particularly technically minded.

You might like to upgrade to 3.4 on a clone of your site and see if the new editing abilities can fix your problem before you go down the data-editing route.

As with any database hacking your mileage may vary, as the saying goes.

Good luck!