Tools for creating SCORM content
Template:Scorm Here is a list of tools to create SCORM packages, both open source and commercial. Moodle is a modular authoring tool for courses but at this time does not create SCORM packages.
Free OpenSource
eXe OPEN SOURCE SCORM Development Package
The eXe project is developing a freely available Open Source authoring application to assist teachers and academics in the publishing of web content without the need to become proficient in HTML or XML markup. Resources authored in eXe can be exported in IMS Content Package, SCORM 1.2, or IMS Common Cartridge formats or as simple self-contained web pages.
Xerte OPEN SOURCE SCORM Development Package
The Xerte Project provides a full suite of open source tools for elearning developers and content authors producing interactive learning materials.
Standalone tool: Xerte http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/xerte/
Online tool: Toolkits http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/xerte/toolkits.htm
ScenariChain Opale / OpaleSup
Website and community : http://scenari-platform.org/projects/scenari/en/pres/co/
Freeware not OpenSource
MyUdutu
Free software for creating elearning courses with flash interactivity. Website here: http://www.udutu.com/ and an explanatory video here: http://www.udutu.com/my_udutu_video.html It is free to sign up and make the courses - there are many customisable templates enabling users to import images/video/audio/etc and incorporate them into scored questions of varying formats. The finished course can be exported as SCORM 2004 or SCORM 1.2 compliant -again for free and then hosted on a Moodle or other site. (The courses can also be hosted on the udutu site, either for free but with a watermark or for a fee) Quite intuitive to use and offering many features, it is however dependent on good connection to the site as it is created online. Also doesn't seem to like working in Opera.
MOS Solo
SCORM 2004 authoring tool. Entirely free.
Reload
Reusable eLearning Object Authoring and Delivery - NB it is rather technical and may only be suitable for those with an understanding of HTML and the underlying SCORM specification.
Courselab
CourseLab is a free program but is not open source. Feb 2009 current version is 2.4. Received an eLearnings Best of 2007 award.
CourseLab version 2.4 has a few bugs. First is with audio. Sometimes (for some reason not known to CourseLab) the audio will restart, creating an echo effect. You will need to un-check the "autostart" mark of the Video object (vidoe object is used to insert audio too)and then define an action on some event that fits the case (for example on the slide's afterdisplay event) choose METHOD (yourvideoobject, PLAY. this will play the audio after the slide is displayed.
Another issue is with FireFox browsers displaying graphics with CourseLab. It is stated in user's manual that some objects utilize Explorer-specific features and author should avoid using them, if he wants to use the course in multi-browser environment. These are: Gradient Box and all AutoShapes. AutoShapes are VML-objects and VML (Vector Markup Language) is not supported by FireFox. SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics - another vector format) could be the good alternative, but there are still problems with displaying inline SVG-objects in both Gecko-family and IE. (from CourseLab Support)
If these FireFox/Image display problems are not an issue then be sure to install the latest browser plug-ins.
There are some problems with Moodle configuration see http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=96338#p425335
Commercial
ActivePresenter
ActivePresenter is a useful tool supports for IT training operation, software demonstration, creating software manual. Notable outputs are Ajax Simulation and Flash Simulation. ActivePresenter supports both SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004. More information can be found at http://www.atomisystems.com.
Articulate
Articulate Presenter '09, coupled with Articulate Quizmaker '09, is a great solution in developing SCORM content for Moodle. Both Articulate Presenter '09 and Articulate Quizmaker '09 are SCORM certified by an independent ADL certification expert (both SCORM 1.2 AND SCORM 2004). This means that Articulate Presenter '09 and Quizmaker '09 will seamlessly report results to Moodle by uploading the published project as a SCORM package. With the complete suite of products from Articulate, you'll be able to quickly create e-learning courses from PowerPoint and develop interactive content, quizzes, assessments, and surveys.
To learn more about the products from Articulate, go to http://www.articulate.com and download a 30 day trial of any of the products including: Articulate Presenter '09, Articulate Quizmaker '09, Articulate Engage '09, and Articulate Video Encoder '09.
Coral Presenter
With Coral Presenter, a plugin for PowerPoint, users can easily add audio and video files, as well as quizzes to create more engaging and interactive e-learning presentations. A ribbon menu, slide-level call-outs, attachments and links, custom tabs and one-click publishing are just some of the unique features of Coral Presenter. Coral will convert your content to Flash format and bundle all neccessary files and data for publishing to Moodle or any other SCORM 1.2 compliant LMS. Completion tracking can be set either by number of slides viewed or by quiz scores.
Coral Presenter was developed to work with Microsoft PowerPoint 2007, PowerPoint XP and PowerPoint 2003. Download a free trial at http://www.bermuda-scientific.com/downloads.php.
Camtasia
This is a commercial screen-recording product for producing demonstrations and tutorials. It has SCORM compliant output as an option, and permits quizzing and branching. The SCORM output option creates a single .zip file that is appropriate for uploading into a SCORM activity for Moodle. Retail price for Camtasia is US$299, but non-profit educational discounts of about 50% are offered. 30 day trials are also available.
More information can be found at http://www.techsmith.com/products.asp
Captivate
Adobe's Captivate software allows you to create fully functioning interactive lessons with quizzes, scoring, and integration (via SCORM) with Moodle. You can create anything from a simple slide show, to a complete branching software simulation or evaluation, all delivered via Flash without learning any code. It is the most straight-forward package and makes it a lot of fun to work with - even adding closed-captioning is really easy! Adobe have a page on Captivate here: [1] - the latest version is Captivate 4.
ContentGenerator.net SCORM functionality
Software was successfully used at the CambsMoodle.org conference on July 10th 2008 - every teacher at the workshop was able to get their SCORM game uploaded and working. The software doesn't create extensive courses, but instead trackable interactive Flash games such as Fling the Teacher and Teacher Invaders.
- Free software (+ some pay for) at http://www.contentgenerator.net/ - need to register on forum, but downloads free from there.
- Select SCORM option within software
- Generates single .zip file
- Select 'Add SCORM / AICC' from add resource option in your course
- Edit SCORM settings - copy settings from http://www.contentgenerator.net/images/scorm/16_settings_mostimportant.png
- Some overly detailed instructions available here: http://www.contentgenerator.net/scorm/
iSpring PRESENTER
iSpring PRESENTER works as a PowerPoint addin and transforms your regular PowerPoint presentation into SCORM compliant Flash course ready for publishing to LMSs. It also provides you with a QuizBuilder to enhance your presentation or course with engaging interactive quizzes. So you can create a winning course, and also vivify it with video narrations. Generated Flash movies provide ActionScript API, so you have total programmatic control of presentation navigation and playback.
http://www.ispringsolutions.com/products/presenter_master.html
Learning Essentials 2.0 for Microsoft Office
Works with licensed Microsoft Office and is a free add on, last upgraded 2007.
"With Learning Essentials, educators and students can get started, stay organized, and successfully complete high-quality work. Educators can create effective instructional resources, complete administrative tasks, and implement new teaching strategies. Using the Content Development Kit, educators can create additional templates and tutorials that integrate with familiar Microsoft Office applications. And students can use templates with project assistance to coach them through a variety of assignments.
"The English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, and Spanish versions of Learning Essentials also support SCORM standards. SCORM Tools seamlessly convert Microsoft Office documents into standards-based e-learning content that can be managed and reused by any SCORM-conformant learning management system.
"Learning Essentials is a free download for schools that license Microsoft Office."
- Note, someone with personal experience should update the overview to explain how this tool really works)
Microsoft's Learning Essentials homepage
Microsoft Learning Development System
Free tool from Microsoft that allows you to create SCORM resources using drag and drop.
"The LCDS is a free tool that enables the Microsoft Learning community to create high-quality, interactive, online courses. The LCDS allows anyone in the Microsoft Learning community to publish e-learning courses by completing the easy-to-use LCDS forms that seamlessly generate highly customized content, interactive activities, quizzes, games, assessments, animations, demos, and other multimedia."
This is an internal Microsoft tool. Has a few bugs and can crash.
NOTE READ the Help info. To upload to Moodle you will need to zip up your working directory then upload using the 'Add SCORM / AICC' from add resource option in your course
Microsoft's page for LCDS updated to 2.2 on Jan 2009
QuizCreator
QuizCreator is a powerful Flash quiz maker that enables trainers and educators to easily create SCORM compliant Flash quizzes with images, sounds, narrations and Flash animations to engage learners through the learning process and offers flexible results tracking and score reporting toolkit.
It supports 9 question types:True/ False, Multiple Choice, Multiple Response,Fill in the Blank, Drag and Drop-Matching,Drag and Drop-Sequences,Word Bank,Click Map and Essay. You could publish you quiz for Flash, Word, Excel or LMS.
ToolBook
[Moodle 1.9 / ToolBook Instructor 9.01] Tracking and bookmarking work well. The content should be exported using the SCORM 1.2 option; AICC and SCORM 2004 do not seem to work properly. Scoring works and is viewable within the tracking details, but does not transfer correctly into the Gradebook. see http://www.toolbook.com
TutorAuthor NG
TutorPro's TutorAuthor NG is a professional software application for quickly creating interactive lessons, training, demonstrations, and simulations. Anyone who needs to develop online product demonstrations, software simulations for e-learning, or online tutorials for user support will find TutorAuthor NG an ideal solution. TutorAuthor NG includes everything you need to capture actions in any application and instantly create a 3D life like simulation. The application is equally at home creating 'soft-skill' tutorials such as new employee introductions, company policy, in fact anything that can be taught electronically.
If you use TutorAuthor NG to create e-learning content, you can add realistic, fully interactive question slides, buttons, click boxes, and text entry boxes, and much more. TutorAuthor NG is SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004, and AICC compliant, allowing effortless integration with any compliant Learning Management System (LMS).
More information can be found at http://www.tutorpro.com/Products/TutorAuthor_Next_Generation_
Wimba Create (formerly Course Genie)
A commercial tool allowing you to convert Word documents into CMS ready content. It's particularly suited for non-technical teachers who have large documents to display on Moodle and allows embedding of video, sound etc. When downloaded to your computer it generates a toolbar in Word giving options to enable easy conversion of the file to clean html pages which include navigation and interactive features. It claims to work on Windows 2000, Windows XP or Windows Vista Word 2000, XP, 2003 or 2007 and the official site is: http://www.wimba.com/products/wimbacreate/ This link gives information about integration with Moodle: http://www.wimba.com/products/integration_moodle.php Although this is a paid-for option, you can download a free trial from the above site.
Convert PowerPoint to Flash and upload the courses to Moodle. Note that this is not a free tool, rather there is a free trial version of the full software. Output from the trial version has a watermark on it.
- Download the trial version of the software from http://www.sameshow.com/powerpoint-to-flash-pro.html
- There is a plug-in menu in PowerPoint, click "Publish" button and select "LMS"
- Select "SCORM 1.2" or "SCORM 2004"
- Click "Convert" button
- Select "Open output folder" after conversion is completed
- Choose the output .zip file and upload to Moodle
- Done!
Some overly detailed instructions available here: http://www.sameshow.com/powerpoint-to-flash/howto3.html
QuizForce
QuizForce is a MS Windows program that provides a comprehensive but easy-to-use set of tools for creating highly customized Flash-based quizzes and surveys for non-programmers. SCORM 1.2 or 2004 compatible. Free 14 days trial, tutorials, examples are available from site: http://www.elearningforce.biz/e-learning-software/quizforce/quizforce.html
WordForce
WordForce is a MS Windows program. The main feature of the program is the conversion of MS Word (2007/2003) documents into web sites. SCORM 1.2 or 2004 compatible. Free 14 days trial, tutorials, examples are available from site: http://www.elearningforce.biz/e-learning-software/wordforce/wordforce.html
PowerPointForce
PowerpointForce is a MS windows program, which converts PowerPoint(2003/2007) slides into flash with different additional features and brings to you professional rapid flash-based presentations in the matter of minutes. SCORM 1.2 or 2004 compatible. Free 14 days trial, tutorials, examples are available from site: http://www.elearningforce.biz/e-learning-software/powerpointforce/powerpointforce.html
PointeCast
PointeCast Publisher is a PowerPoint plug-in that automatically converts your PowerPoint XP/2002, 2003 and 2007 presentations into a highly compressed Flash presentation. The Pro version allows you to import and edit audio, import video, and create quizzes and surveys. It's SCORM 1.2 or 2004 compatible. It seems close to Articulate Presenter in terms of functionality but at considerably less cost. Free 15 day trial available from site: http://www.pointecast.com/products/publisher-overview.html
