Supported Standards
Four standards are supported, and the choice affects what you can report on.
Where to find it
Architect Panel → eLearning:
- Courses & Assignments — the course console — courses, units, assignments
- Learner Records — a learner’s registration against a package
- Course Attempts — each attempt at a package
- Course Sessions — individual launches
- Learning Objectives — objective-level results
SCORM 1.2
The oldest and still the most common. Every authoring tool produces it and it works everywhere.
Its limits are real: a simple pass/fail and score model, limited objective support, and a single completion status. For "did they finish the module" it is entirely adequate.
SCORM 2004
Separates completion from success — a learner can finish a module and fail it, which SCORM 1.2 conflates. It also handles objectives properly and supports a scaled score.
If your content tool offers it and you care about pass rates rather than completion rates, prefer it.
xAPI
Statements rather than a session — an actor, a verb and an object, recorded as things happen. It can record learning that is not a course at all: a document read, a task performed, an event attended.
More flexible and correspondingly less structured. What you can report depends entirely on what the content chooses to send.
cmi5
xAPI with the structure put back — a defined launch, defined verbs and a course structure the platform understands. In principle the best of both.
Support in authoring tools is thinner than for SCORM, so it is worth confirming your supplier actually produces it before standardising on it.
Which to ask for
- SCORM 1.2 if you just need completion and it must work.
- SCORM 2004 if pass and fail are different things to you.
- cmi5 if your supplier genuinely supports it.
- xAPI for learning that is not a packaged course.
Do not mix without a reason
Reporting across standards is harder than reporting within one, because the same idea is expressed differently. Pick one for your main catalogue and use the others where they earn it.
Ask before you buy
Content suppliers state the standard, and it is much easier to specify it in a purchase than to convert afterwards. Ask for the standard and version, and test one package before committing to a library.
Worked example
An organisation standardised on SCORM 2004 for its compliance catalogue, because it needed to distinguish learners who completed a module from those who passed the assessment. One supplier could only produce SCORM 1.2, which was accepted for two non-assessed modules.
Recommendations
- SCORM 2004 where pass and fail differ.
- Confirm cmi5 support with your supplier before standardising.
- One standard for the main catalogue.
- Test a package before buying a library.