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Chapter 8
Building Online Courses

The BookEditor includes a module for preparing online courses compatible with the ADL™ SCORM® standard. The process of preparation and deployment is described in this chapter.

8.1 About SCORM

SCORM is an abbreviation of Sharable Content Object Reference Model. According to its authors, it is “a collection of standards and specifications adapted from multiple sources to provide a comprehensive suite of e-learning capabilities that enable interoperability, accessibility and reusability of Web-based learning content.” It enables to deliver web-based courses in standard form, so that they can be easily imported to various conforming Learning Management Systems (LMS).

The top-level structure of a course is called an organization. It is a hierarchical system of activities, which may include one or more content objects, see example in Figure 8.1.

Figure 8.1 SCORM Course Structure

Content object is the actual media that is delivered to the learner. It is basically a web page or series of web pages. The learning management system provides facilities for navigation between content objects, or its individual pages.

The BookEditor supports creating documents conforming to the SCORM structure, and can export them directly to the SCORM format. However, note that not all SCORM features are supported by the BookEditor yet, namely

• Editing of metadata about the course.
• Changing navigation strategy from simple back-and-forth flow navigation.
• Communication with the LMS, such as in self-assessment tests.
• Alternative organization structures for single course.

8.2 Creating SCORM Course Document

To create new SCORM document, simply use the File→New... command from the pulldown menu, and select the SCORM Course document class. Then fill the document path and title as usual. Then use the global document pane to create new activities, content objects, and pages. Activities are denoted with the icon. Activities may contain either pages (), representing single-page content objects, or multipage content objects (). The multipage objects then may contain pages. Nodes denoted with and icons are mere containers of other nodes, and thus have no associated documents. Page nodes denoted with icon have associated documents, but may not contain child nodes.

Figure 8.2 Creating and Structuring a Course Document

Next: Chapter 9  Language Support Up: Part I  User's Guide Previous: Chapter 7  Version Management and Localization