AICC and SCORM Compliance: The Benefits for Your e-Learning

Written by Stephanie Ivec | May 20, 2014 8:00:24 AM

The Benefits of Making Your e-Learning AICC and SCORM Compliant

Remember the battle between Blu-ray Discs and DVDs? The frustration of accidentally buying a Blu-ray movie and realizing it won’t play in your DVD player? That’s a bit like what was happening in the e-Learning community before SCORM was established.

In the late 1990s, each learning management system had its own proprietary content format, which encouraged vendor lock-in. You had to use that vendor’s tools to create e-Learning that worked with that LMS, or your content wouldn’t play. To solve this problem, in 1999 the government tasked a small research laboratory, ADL, to “develop common specifications and standards for e-learning.” The lab combined the work of existing standards organizations like the AICC, IMS and the IEEE LTSC into a cohesive reference model. SCORM was released in 2001 and was quickly adopted by both government and industry. Today, SCORM is the de facto standard for e-Learning interoperability.

SCORM versus AICC

By making your e-Learning SCORM compliant, you ensure that it will work with any learning management system that is also SCORM compliant. Another standard you may come across is AICC, although SCORM is much more predominant in the industry today. One of the biggest differences between AICC and SCORM is the way that each communicates with your LMS. AICC sends HTTP messages to your LMS, while SCORM communicates with JavaScript.

AICC: Aviation Industry CBT (Computer-Based Training) Committee. Established in 1993, these standards only focused on CD-ROM based training until 1998, when web-based training was also included. AICC communicates with the LMS by sending HTTP messages and then interpreting responses from the LMS. Uploading content to an LMS using AICC is typically a multiple step process.

SCORM: Sharable Content Object Reference Model. SCORM works with a convenient package procedure, so uploading courses to the LMS is often as simple as uploading a .zip file. SCORM-conformant courses to communicate with an LMS by calling methods of a JavaScript object called the API adapter. There are several versions of SCORM, however, the most widely used are SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004.

Without these standards, integrating e-Learning content between vendors and tools would be a costly and time-consuming process. SCORM compliant e-Learning makes your organization more efficient. In addition, following the requirements of SCORM is a good idea when:

Creating a large library of learning objects
Using an LMS to deliver and manage learning content
Designing learning content that might be reused in other contexts
Designing learning content that tracks learner performance

Lectora is compliant with SCORM and AICC. Start creating graded e-Learning now with a free trial.

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