What is SCORM?

In a nutshell being SCORM certified means that you can use the same SCORM published content in Litmos or any other LMS.

SCORM stands for “Sharable Content Object Reference Model” and it is a set of technical standards developed for eLearning software products. In its essence, SCORM enables interoperability between eLearning software products. Specifically, the model determines how online learning content and Learning Management Systems (LMS) communicate with each other.

How did SCORM come about?

Back in the nineties, the US government was doing a lot of online training across all of their different departments. Each department operated autonomously developing their own training courses and delivering them via the LMS of their choice. As you can imagine, this led to a lot of content duplication and results located all over the place. Without any standards, there was no interoperability between the various departments’ content and all of the proprietary LMSs being used. Therefore, in 1999 the Department of Defense tasked a research group called Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) with the job of developing a set of standards which later became known as SCORM.

Why do I need to know about SCORM?

The main benefit of SCORM is interoperability between eLearning software products. For example, if you design eLearning content using tools like Articulate, Captivate, Camtasia or Raptivity and you want to upload that content in to an LMS like Litmos, SCORM enables you to do that.

The way it works is that content can be created in an eLearning authoring tool like those mentioned above, and then published by the tool in a SCORM conformant way. To the user it just looks like a Zip file when published to SCORM. However, that Zip package contains all of the files needed to make that eLearning content run and because it’s been packaged up in line with SCORM standards, it’s ready to be uploaded in to any SCORM-compliant LMS and then delivered out to learners.

What does it mean when it says Litmos is SCORM 1.2 Certified?

SCORM 1.2 is one version of the eLearning software standards that have evolved over time. There are currently 3 versions and the latest one has a few different editions. Released in October 2001, SCORM 1.2 is the most common and widely adopted version that will be around for a good, long while to come. When we say we’re SCORM 1.2 Certified, this means that we have sent our product to ADL, it has passed the SCORM 1.2 Edition LMS certification process and ADL has confirmed that we have implemented the SCORM 1.2 standards correctly.