This article is part of a larger series that reviews the new tracking options available in Macromedia Captivate. To be more specific, these tracking options are not exactly new but the mechanism—or the code behind the tracking options—is new and the functionality has improved.

In this article I focus on the SCORM tracking mechanism—what's new and what you need to know to deploy Captivate content successfully in a SCORM-compliant learning management system (LMS). I do not discuss the specific benefits of using a SCORM-compliant LMS or integrating with any SCORM-compliant LMS. You can find more information about these topics—and general information on the tracking options available, or any other specific tracking mechanisms available in Captivate—in the Captivate Developer Center, including the following:

• Output Options in Captivate – Part 1: An Overview of Tracking Options by Andrew Chemey
• Output Options in Captivate – Part 2: AICC Tracking by Andrew Chemey
• Output Options in Captivate—Part 4: E-Mail Tracking by Andrew Chemey
• Exploring Quizzing in Macromedia Captivate by Mark Fletcher
• Storing Captivate Test Scores in a Database and Exporting Them to Excel with ColdFusion by Tim Mushen
• Using Captivate Simulations in QuestionMark Perception Assessments by Peter Pundans

This article is intended for all types of users. It provides an overview for new users as well as an entry point for any user looking for specific SCORM information and integration issues with Captivate. This article does not describe the SCORM standard or its benefits.

To understand some of the terminology in this document better and view links to other informative sites, you may want to visit the Macromedia eLearning site.

Requirements

To complete this tutorial you will need to install the following software and files:

Captivate (and Captivate-published files)

• Try
• Buy

Flash Player (version 6 or later)

• Download Flash Player

Additional software if you are publishing for AICC, SCORM, Authorware, QuestionMark, or e-mail

Tutorials and sample files:

• captivate_scorm_output.zip (ZIP, 8.2 MB)

Using the Sample Files

Sample files are available for each tracking mechanism in Captivate. They provide you with both source and packaged files for each option. You can view the source code to see how the project was created, and you can also see what is published or distributed for each tracking mechanism. Because the provided content has already been tested in each of the tracking environments, you can test the existing content in your environment(s) before comparing the results of creating and publishing your own Captivate content. The sample content available with this article is specific to the SCORM tracking mechanism (see Parts 1 and 2 in this series to understand and download other tracking mechanism sample files). To use the content, download the sample content from the links above. Extract the contents into a working directory. Additional information can be found in ReadMe.txt documents within the extracted files.

Packaged

This folder contains the packaged files (from the source folder) for both SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004. The Non-PIF folder contains all the files that are used to import or play the Captivate file in a SCORM-compliant environment. These files are uncompressed, according to the SCORM standard. The PIF folder or file is a compressed version of the Non-PIF folder, where imsmanifest.xml has to reside in the root of the ZIP file. Some LMSs allow you to reference just the HTML file of the content, other LMSs allow you to import or reference the IMSManifest.xml file, and some LMSs allow you to import the PIF file. Contact your LMS administrator for more information.

Note: The folder for SCORM 1.2 contains additional (optional but recommended) XSD files.

Publishing Template

Captivate creates SCORM-compliant content (for both SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004 versions). While the manifest that is generated by Captivate was proven to pass the SCORM Test Suites, there were questions regarding its compliancy. To resolve these issues, the publishing templates in this folder are updated to ensure that the manifest generated by Captivate is SCORM-compliant.

Source

This folder contains the source files of Captivate content that is created for SCORM tracking. This gives you an idea of what the source files look like. Please review the packaged folder so that you'll know which packaged files you need to deploy for successful integration with your SCORM-compliant LMS.

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