Using PENS with Adobe Captivate 2

In the old days, content authors and e-learning developers needed to perform many independent manual steps in order to package, stage, transfer, and import e-learning content packages into an LMS. Luckily, Adobe Captivate 2 automates this entire process, including the PENS notification, which fills the last "gap" between the e-learning authoring environment and the LMS.

Using PENS with Adobe Captivate 2 involves the following steps:

1. Configure e-learning output (also known as e-learning "reporting") for your Adobe Captivate project.
2. Configure PENS settings for your Adobe Captivate project.
3. Configure publish settings for your Adobe Captivate project.
4. Publish your Adobe Captivate project.

Step 1: Configure e-learning output (also known as e-learning reporting) for your Adobe Captivate project

1. Open Adobe Captivate 2, and then open an existing Adobe Captivate project, or create a new one.
2. When you're ready to deploy this project to your LMS, select File > Publish (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. The Adobe Captivate 2 publish dialog box.

3. Select the Flash (SWF) or FTP publishing format.

4. In the Project information section, click eLearning output:.

   The Quiz Manager dialog box opens (see Figure 2). Configure the eLearning output (also known as eLearning reporting) for your project.

Figure 2. The Adobe Captivate 2 Quiz Manager dialog box

5. Select the option Enable reporting for this project in the Reporting tab. (Without your project reporting to an LMS, Adobe Captivate won't support sending a PENS notification.) Leave the Quiz Manager dialog box open, you will add PENS settings in the next step.

   Note: Currently, PENS is an AICC/SCORM standard, so it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to use PENS with any of the other LMS standards, but because other software (such as Adobe Acrobat Connect Enterprise, formerly known as Macromedia Breeze) might support PENS in the future, Adobe Captivate doesn't restrict PENS to any specific LMS standard. Its only requirement is that your project reports to an LMS (in other words, at a very minimum, you must select the "enable reporting for this project" option).

Step 2: Configure PENS settings for your Adobe Captivate project

First, you need to provide information about your content package:

1. Select the PENS tab in the Quiz Manager dialog box. By default, the Package subtab appears (see Figure 3). This tab describes the content package.

   

   Figure 3. PENS settings: The Package subtab, which describes the content package

   The following describes the PENS settings in the Package subtab.

   Source URL

   The Source URL is the location of the content package (in other words, it is the ZIP archive that Adobe Captivate has published) ready for transfer. Basically, the Source URL contains the location from where the LMS can retrieve (or download) your content package. This can either be a URL, an FTP site, or a network share. Of course, the LMS should be able to retrieve (or download) your content package from this location. Therefore, you're responsible for giving your LMS access to this location. In theory, you can publish your content package to a network share or FTP site, and then provide an HTTP location to your LMS (or vice versa). That is why the source URL that is announced to the LMS as part of the PENS notification isn't necessarily identical to the (network share or FTP site) publish directory you specify in the Adobe Captivate publish settings. It is important to realize that Adobe Captivate may publish to a network share or a FTP site, yet announce to the LMS an HTTP URL equivalent for retrieval. There is no requirement that the retrieval protocol must match the method used to publish the content. For example, content published or staged through an FTP could be retrieved through an HTTP.

   User ID/Password

   The UserID/Password is the log-on credentials (user ID and password) the LMS needs to log on to the source location (for example, FTP authentication or basic HTTP authentication).

   Important: Unfortunately, encryption and security issues are out of the scope of the PENS specification. Because authentication information is sent to the LMS as plain text, using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is strongly recommended if you are sending the PENS notification over the Internet.

   URL Expiry

   The content package is expected to be available for processing until at least the date and time specified. The LMS assumes the content package is available until the expiration data/time is reached.

   That's all you need to specify about your content package! Other information relevant to the PENS notification (such as package type: AICC or SCORM, or package version: 1.2 or 2004) is retrieved from Quiz Manager reporting settings.

2. Click the LMS subtab (see Figure 4). This tab describes where and how the PENS notification should be sent.

   

   Figure 4. PENS settings: The LMS tab, which describes where and how the PENS notification should be sent.

   The following describes the settings in the LMS tab.

   Target URL

   The Target URL setting is the destination for the PENS notification. You're supposed to enter a fully qualified URI to the LMS that will perform processing. This is always assumed to be an HTTP URL. Because the URL is typically determined by the LMS/LCMS, you must contact your LMS/LCMS administrator for this information.

   Send using

   The Send using setting is either HTTP-GET or HTTP-POST, depending on which the LMS expects to receive. (A fully-compliant LMS should accept both.)

   Command

   The Command setting is the action you're asking the LMS system to perform. Valid commands are "Collect", "Delete", and "Revise," but to be honest, at this time PENS supports only the "Collect" command. "Collect" tells the LMS to retrieve the content package from the specified source URL. The PENS data model may be extended in the future to include more commands.

   User ID/Password

   The User ID/Password is the basic HTTP authentication information needed for the Target URL.

   Receipt URL

   When the LMS has received the PENS notification, the LMS sends an acknowledgement to the setting you specify for the Receipt URL. Most of the time, this will be a "mailto:" URL. It may include more than one address, with addresses separated by commas. It is recommended that you specify at least one e-mail address, because it enables the LMS to contact the person who has sent the PENS notification, but please remember that PENS does not prescribe a specific workflow for processing the content package. Whether or not the LMS is actually going to send any responses to this receipt URL is up to the LMS; of course, different LMS systems will behave differently.

   Receive alerts while...

   If you select the Receive alerts while... option, the LMS will send alerts to the receipt URL while processing the package. This is optional, and multiple messages may be sent to the receipt URL over an extended period, as the content package is processed through the LMS workflow. Because various problems can occur between the LMS and the Adobe Captivate instance that offers the content package, alerts provide the LMS with a means of acknowledgement and communication of processing errors.

Step 3: Configure publish settings for your Adobe Captivate project

Finally, return to the Publish dialog box to complete the settings for publishing your package.

1. Close the Quiz Manager dialog box. The Publish dialog box reappears (see Figure 5).

Figure 5. The Adobe Captivate 2 Publish dialog box, after you have configured eLearning output.

2. In the Output Options section, select the Zip files option.

   When you have enabled eLearning output, and you decide to have Adobe Captivate ZIP your project during the publishing process, Adobe Captivate produces a content package.

   A content package includes interoperability with LMS systems (provided these LMS support the same e-learning reporting standard—such as AICC or SCORM—as your Adobe Captivate project does). A content package typically contains one or more documents that list all of the resources included in the package, data describing the content package structure (also known as the "manifest"), data describing prerequisite or sequencing rules, descriptive metadata, and the supporting documents that constitute the e-learning material.

3. Select the send PENS notification option.
4. (Optional) In the project information section, click the "PENS: Preview..." hyperlink. Adobe Captivate reacts by displaying a text representation of the PENS notification in a message box. This text representation is merely informative for those who are interested in seeing the HTTP request Adobe Captivate will send to your LMS.

Step 4: Publish your Adobe Captivate project

When you click Publish, Adobe Captivate creates and publishes your content package (either to a network share or an FTP site), and then sends the PENS notification to your LMS.

If the PENS notification cannot be delivered to the LMS (for example, a network connection is unavailable, or an LMS doesn't exist at the specified URL, or the LMS responds with an error), an error is reported during the publish process (analogous to what happens if an FTP error occurs), and then the Publish dialog box will not close. If an error occurs after the PENS notification is delivered (during the LMS workflow that has been kicked off by the PENS notification), the Publish dialog box will close, and the error is reported to the receipt URL.

Assuming the notification sends successfully, the content package is available for retrieval at a specific URL (either an HTTP or HTTPS or FTP site, not necessarily the same as the network share or FTP site to which you published your project). The PENS notification announces the availability and location of the content package, and represents the first step in initiating the LMS workflow to transfer and import the content package. The publishing process has completed.

The LMS may send alerts to the specified receipt URL about the status of the content package as it progresses through the LMS (for example, an alert may be sent to give notice that the retrieved content package is being cataloged, deployed, or otherwise processed). Processing could take a while, and whatever happens from here on is up to the LMS; but when everything processes successfully, the LMS deploys your content package and your content appears.

Don't have a LMS? Use the free online PENS test suite

If you don't have access to a PENS-compliant LMS, you can use the free online diagnostic tools for PENS. Send your PENS notification to the test suite hosted at http://pens.lmstesting.com/collect/ (copy and paste this URL into the "Target URL" field, as described in "Using PENS with Adobe Captivate 2"). The PENS test suite will validate the PENS notification (presence of all required PENS command elements, proper formatting of PENS data elements, and so on), but that is all. It won't actually retrieve or download your content package, let alone deploy it anywhere. Also, it won't send any alerts to your receipt URL.

Where to Go from Here

If you'd like to read or learn more about PENS, take a look at the following resources:

• Official overview document: The AICC recommendation document describing the need and rationale for the PENS specification.
• Technical specification: For the complete technical specification for the PENS protocol.
• PENS test harness: HTML form with a JavaScript implementation of PENS

Attributions

This article would not have been possible without the help and support from the following people and resources:

• Official technical specification for PENS
• Tom King's independent PENS resources and information

 

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