Powerpoint to Scorm compliant course

Powerpoint to Scorm compliant course

by uday ramakrishna -
Number of replies: 16

Hi All,

I came across this link in another open source lms which helps users to easily convert a powerpoint to a presentation with a few clicks http://www.dokeos.com/oogie.php . Is there someone who can give some guidance on how we can make such a tool? I mean what expertise do we need, do we need to work with windows registry and stuff? It would be great we can also have some tool like this that fits into moodle so it will be easy for teachers to author and publish content. I am open to do coding for this is someone can give some direction.

Regards

Uday

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In reply to uday ramakrishna

Re: Powerpoint to Scorm compliant course

by David Hicks -

> I came across this link in another open source lms which helps users to
> easily convert a powerpoint to a presentation with a few clicks
> http://www.dokeos.com/oogie.php . Is there someone who can give some
> guidance on how we can make such a tool? I mean what expertise do we
> need, do we need to work with windows registry and stuff? It would be great
> we can also have some tool like this that fits into moodle so it will be easy
> for teachers to author and publish content. I am open to do coding for this is
> someone can give some direction.

Possibilities on how to make a PowerPoint-to-SCORM converter:

- The website you link to uses code based on open-source programs. You might be able to get the author to cough up copies of his code, depending on the licenses involved. The author might be resistant to this.

- Might try integrating the website as a web-service into Moodle. You'd have to figure out stuff like user authentication. I would have thought the people running the website would be quite keen on this - it would drive more traffic to their paid-for service, after all.

 - Use OpenOffice's libraries server-side to help read PowerPoint/Impress files. I assume these libraries are in some compiled language (C or C++?), and would need recompiling for each platform you wished to support (compiled libraries probably already exist). Shouldn't have to have anything to do with Windows registry. This is the approach used by the website you link to.

 - Write a Python/VBA macro for Impress/PowerPoint that exports the contents of the current file as a SCORM file. Has the advantage that it's cross-platform (runs on the application itself), although you would have to do seperate macros for Impress and PowerPoint. You could get the macro to export to a file or use Moodle's shiny new web-services API to export a SCORM object straight to Moodle. It'd also be nice to support any reposatory standards that Moodle supports - export straight to the same reposatory that Moodle uses. It should be possible to connect the macro to a menu bar button - hit one button, choose where to park the SCORM module, and away you go.

 - Mangle a copy of Impress until it turns into a specialised SCORM-writing toolkit. I don't know how flexible Impress is - something like Firefox can be used as a development platform, Impress might not be quite the same.

Last time I looked, Impress didn't handle Flash objects very well - I was thinking this would work better in PowerPoint. I've had this project in the back of my mind for a little while - how were you thinking of approaching it?

--
David Hicks

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Re: Powerpoint to Scorm compliant course

by uday ramakrishna -

Hi David,

Thanks for the detailed explanation of the path and requirements. To give you a background I am a webdeveloper with bits and pieces of knowledge of java, php and asp. I am not too sure what all code it needs to get started hence the discussion. Unfortunately the link I placed above was a paid version of the software. I do need to begin somewhere to first see how I can convert a powerpoint to some flash based object. I think we can use an example from the Breeze method in which they create their own player at run time and convert all the slide text to xml.

On a tangential path I am also wondering if it would be easier to create a flash player which will handle the scorm calls and at the same time provide an xml/text file in which authors can dump their text. By this method we can emphasize on how we want the player to handle the scorm calls and then render the text dumped on the text file, or even better have a simple editor using (java)swing which will help us create a template in which users can dump their code and we can use that to convert it to some suitable form?

What would you think are the skills we will need to get started. I will need to do some good amount of reading if it needs some weapons that are not in my little armoury.

Regards

Uday 

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In reply to uday ramakrishna

Re: Powerpoint to Scorm compliant course

by William Mudge -
If you want an example of turning a powerpoint presentation into a flash file, check openoffice. Their presentation tool can read power points, and export to flash... If that is all people want, a tool already exists.

Cheers,

William.
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Re: Powerpoint to Scorm compliant course

by David Hicks -
> If you want an example of turning a powerpoint presentation into
> a flash file, check openoffice. Their presentation tool can read
> power points, and export to flash... If that is all people want,
> a tool already exists.

I've just downloaded the latest version of OpenOffice and had a quick play with it. It still has problems dealing with Flash-based content embedded into presentations - they seem to play/run very nicely in design mode, but not in presentation mode (Flash objects are simply replaced with a placeholder bitmap). Exporting to Flash format seemed to cause some problems, too - in the test I tried, both my Flash object and a random JPEG image failed to be rendered. Note: I'm not obsessed with Flash or anything, it's just that there's a bunch of companies now doing ready-made PowerPoint files with embedded Flash objects designed for Interactive Whiteboard teaching. Check out companies like BoardWorks for examples.

So, it would seem that Impress can be used as a very nice designer/importer of slideshows with embedded bits and bobs, but doesn't work very well as an exporter/viewer in a way that would be useful right now. To my mind, there's a couple of approaches to solving this:

- Break out a C++ compiler and pitch in with the OpenOffice project to help write a SCORM export module for Impress.

- Write an OpenOffice macro/utility to export SCORM-compliant files from your presentations. I'm assuming here that Impress exposes all its slide and contained objects in some kind of handy data structure that can be accessed via the built-in macro language. And that someone's documented it. I'll have a bit of a play around and see what is available.

--
David Hicks
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In reply to uday ramakrishna

Re: Powerpoint to Scorm compliant course

by David Hicks -
> Unfortunately the link I placed above was a paid version of the software.

It might be worth asking the authors of that software about code availability / integrations. Depending on the license details of the code they've used, they might legally be required to make copies of it public. Of course, they might not, and I should have thought they'd have checked carefully beforehand! However, they might be amenable to making a Moodle integration of some kind for their service - some way to access their service seamlessly from Moodle.

> I do need to begin somewhere to first see how I can convert a powerpoint
> to some flash based object.

If you just want PowerPoint-to-Flash (without anything SCORM related), then OpenOffice will do that for you right now. Upon investigation, it turns out that there's an ODF Toolkit project (see http://odftoolkit.openoffice.org/) and API documentation (see http://api.openoffice.org/) available for OpenOffice. OpenOffice installs on a whole bunch of platforms (Windows, Linux, Solaris, OS X, FreeBSD), which should cover most any platform likely to be running Moodle. There's API documentation and examples available in C++ and Java, and the API homepage also lists Python, CLI, StarBasic, JavaScript and OLE as working with the API, so I imagine it'd be possible to hook PHP up to it too.

However, someone wishing to use OpenOffice in this way as a PowerPoint-to-Flash/ODF converter would need a server with PHP + Moodle, Java, OpenOffice and OpenOffice API installed. Possibly some changes would need to be made to the PHP config to allow access to the OpenOffice API. This might cause issues for the less technical and those running Moodle on a limited account (PHP is common, Java is but might cost extra, and OpenOffice probably wouldn't be installed on a standard webhost's server).

> I think we can use an example from the Breeze method in which they
> create their own player at run time and convert all the slide
> text to xml.

Well, ODF (i.e. Impress' file format) is XML based - write a runtime player, embedable in a web page, that understands ODF and you're sorted smile MS Office 2007 is moving to support ODF too (ish, kinda, I think - there's some kind of plugin available, anyway), and possibly the new Office 2007 file format is XML based (I forget - I remember it being mentioned, don't know what happened). Some issues:

- ODF files are typically zip compressed archives of XML and binary files, so you'd have to get your ODF documents uncompressed server-side and load each component in client-side. Shouldn't be a problem.

- This is a fair sized undertaking, implementing an ODF document reader in client-side code (i.e. Flash, Java or JavaScript - I would choose Flash, you might choose Java as you know it, JavaSCript would just be... silly). That said, it looks like the exact sort of thing that the ODF Toolkit project might help with. You might be able to get some support from OpenOffice for a client-side reader implemenation. The DENG project might be of some help - a modular XML browser, implemented in Flash. It has an SVG rendering implementation, which ODF uses extensivly. Unfortunatly, it looks like it was last updated in 2004.

> On a tangential path I am also wondering if it would be easier
> to create a flash player which will handle the scorm calls and
> at the same time provide an xml/text file in which authors can
> dump their text. By this method we can emphasize on how we want
> the player to handle the scorm calls and then render the text
> dumped on the text file, or even better have a simple editor
> using (java)swing which will help us create a template in which
> users can dump their code and we can use that to convert it to
> some suitable form?

Do you mean a Flash-based "presentation player" that uses its own file format? Might be more practical, size-wise, than implementing an ODF reader client-side! You'd need something server-side to import/export existing file formats, though - no one's going to use a player they can't use their existing content in. Moodle already has a slide show module that displays PowerPoint-like slide shows on the screen - maybe adding some code to that to help convert between their file format and PPT/ODF might be most appropriate?

> What would you think are the skills we will need to get started.

Probably Flash, if you want to do client-side stuff (seems to be more prevalent than Java these days).

--
David Hicks
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Re: Powerpoint to Scorm compliant course

by uday ramakrishna -

Hi David,

Inspite of all your lengthy mails with great detail to matter I am perplexed where to begin. We use macromedia/adobe presenter which does the job for us but the problems are that it does not really open out details of how it handles scorm and i am sure if does not completely support all the calls as it should. It is a great tool in the sense that it permits users to record their voice and embed to the presentation and easily convert to a zip file which is scorm/aicc compliant. I would like to mimic this feature and i agree with you totally that building a flash based tool will entail support for existing content that can be exported and consumed in this new module.

I would want to avoid too much work for any non tech consumers. So it should be something like a standalone tool which can generate the htmls and bundle it with a standard player and finally make it compliant. This was the reason I was thinking of a custom swf player which would handle the scorm calls and at the same time make it easy for the content authors to publish their contnet.

Regards

Uday

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In reply to uday ramakrishna

Re: Powerpoint to Scorm compliant course

by David Hicks -
> Inspite of all your lengthy mails with great detail
> to matter I am perplexed where to begin.

Either write a desktop application or a web-based one. If writing a desktop application, the sensible place to begin would seem to be OpenOffice - modify/extend their existing Impress to export to SCORM.

> I was thinking of a custom swf player which would handle the
> scorm calls and at the same time make it easy for the content
> authors to publish their contnet.

It looks as though you're maybe thinking of a web-based application - by the sounds of it, something Flash based that lets the user drag stuff around on slides, arrange slides in order, etc. In this case, you could use OpenOffice (or its associated ODF Toolkit) server-side to convert existing PowerPoint / ODF files into whatever format you want to use (you /could/ write your client application to directly load ODF documents, of course).

I've got the above part-written - I originally intended to create an Interactive Whiteboard application to allow a teacher to scribble with a pen over slides. The scribbling bit is done, but no slide creation or navigation. Or SCORM interface.

Would it be easier to talk about this via Skype or similar (yay! chance to try out new broadband connection!). I've got a Skype account floating around someplace, I'm pretty sure.

--
David Hicks
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Re: Powerpoint to Scorm compliant course

by uday ramakrishna -

Sure you can ping my skype id which is udayramakrishna. Please be aware of the other id which is floating around but not used by me which is uday.ramakrishna. Kindly note that I am a novice with code smile.

Best Regards

Uday

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In reply to uday ramakrishna

Re: Powerpoint to Scorm compliant course

by David Hicks -
Sorry, but I dodn't get around to contacting you by Skype - I'll try again this coming week. I'm Skype ID dhicks6345789.

I've been trying to figure out the OpenOffice API. It seems that it is indeed very comprehensive, and that most objects and attributes that you'd expect are exposed in the API, but it's fairly big so I've not quite got a handle on how it works (or how it's documented!).

So far, I've created a test presentation with two slides, a text box on each slide and a Flash file embedded on one slide and a JPEG image embedded on the other.

I've written (after much swearing and muttering) an OpenOffice Basic macro that tries to list all the information it can about the objects it finds in the file. The test file is attached to this message. Running the macro embedded in the file will create a file called c:\data.csv, a simple dump of each slide object's attributes and supported interfaces. From what I can make out from this information:

- The text boxes can be identified as supporting the com.sun.star.text.XText interface. Hopefully somewhere there's a method to actually cough up the text string.

- Flash objects are reported as com.sun.star.drawing.XShape objects with a PluginMimeType attribute of "application/x-shockwave-flash".

I think the simple macro contained in my test file could be extended to do a file conversion (quick pseduo-code listing):

for each slide
make HTML page with SCORM API bindings
for each objectOnSlide
if objectOnSlide supports XText, it's a text object
place text item at objectOnSlide.boundingBoxX and Y on HTML page
set text value to objectOnSlide.getTextValue()
end if
if objectOnSlide has MimeType of shockwave-flash, it's a Flash object
place Flash item at objectOnSlide.boundingBoxX and Y on HTML page
set Flash item URL to objectOnSlide.PluginURL value
end if
more objects types...
next objectOnSlide
next slide

So, either using OpenOffice client-side (with a macro as a plugin to export to a SCORM file) or server side (to automactically convert any imported PPT or ODP files) should work, just needs the details worked out smile

--
David Hicks
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Re: Powerpoint to Scorm compliant course

by Francisco Acasuso -

Hi:

Im working out some solutions to import from ppt to powepoint documents i already developed the video conference solutios so as is in Dokeos, but its a great combination what they do with ppt files, have you done any progress in ppt importing???

my msn is farserve@hotmail.com contact me so we can collaborate in this issue. 

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Re: Powerpoint to Scorm compliant course

by uday ramakrishna -

Hi David,

My apologies for being away from this discussion and not being available on skype. This last two weeks have been hell on me at work and expect nothing better this coming week. i will however run a test of your attached sample and see how I can help you make this more comprehensive.

Best Regards

Uday

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In reply to uday ramakrishna

Re: Powerpoint to Scorm compliant course

by David Hicks -

> This last two weeks have been hell on me at work and expect nothing
> better this coming week. i will however run a test of your attached
> sample and see how I can help you make this more comprehensive.

I'm busy at work too - I'm actually employed at a school that is very keen on getting Moodle up and running, but there's the basic network infrastructure to set up first.

I haven't had much experience with how the OpenOffice API works, so that macro I wrote in that Impress file might be the completly wrong way of going about things - if you figure out a better way of wroking with Impress files, please tell me!

--
David Hicks

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In reply to uday ramakrishna

Re: Powerpoint to Scorm compliant course

by joe mc-h -

Hi I don't think that anyone has mentioned Microsoft "Learning Essentials"

This is a microsoft plug-in that uses a bacis version of Hunterstone's Thesis. It really is basic! (Assesment, or the ability to combine any other content) BUT if all you want to do is create a SCORM package of a presentaion then it is quick and easy to use AND FREE! (as long as you have MS Office)

For ppt --> swf I have used FlashSpring Lite (simple, stable and quick)

and Speechi! I really like Speechi, It allows the creation of SWF and SCORM and has some nice quiz functionality, also .... (I'll let you look at their website for the sales pitchsmile ) I use the free version which has quite a bit of functionality turns off or has a watermark behind.

Hope this helps

Joe

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In reply to uday ramakrishna

Re: Powerpoint to Scorm compliant course

by king marsh -

You can do the conversion from powerpoint to flash manyally

http://www.sameshow.com/other/powerpoint-to-flash5.html

Or you may download a SDK to convert PowerPoint to flash.

The  powerpoint to flash feature can be integrated in a new application.

http://www.sameshow.com/powerpoint-to-flash-sdk.html 


But to turn powerpoint to flash-based SCORM content, converting powerpoint to flash is not enough. Actually, a standard -compliant SCORM course should have the following

1. a manifest

2. files to run the course

3. a SCO or more

You can see this application for reference: PPT2Flash Professional turns powerpoint presentations to SCORM course. And the course can be imported to the SCORM moulde in Moodle.

http://www.sameshow.com/powerpoint-to-flash-pro.php?sid=5

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Re: Powerpoint to Scorm compliant course

by Anil Sharma -
There are applications like Articulate or http://www.elicitus.com/ that are paid for, but can easily convert ppt to scorm with many options. It would be great to have a free tool do that, though.
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