Creating E-learning Content > Tracking to AICC- or SCORM-compliant learning management systems (LMS's) > Overview of the communication for AICC- and SCORM-compliant content

 

Overview of the communication for AICC- and SCORM-compliant content

The following provides a brief overview of what a student experiences when completing a quiz, along with hidden steps that are not exposed to the student.

 
AICC communication overview

When a student takes an AICC-compliant quiz, the following events occur:

1

The LMS is launched.

2

The student logs in to the LMS.

3

The student navigates through the course structure to find an assignable unit (AU). In this case, assume it's a Flash quiz, built using a Flash quiz template.

4

The student launches the Flash content (the quiz).

5

The content is located on a web server, for example, http://myserver/flashcontent.htm. To track properly, the Flash file needs to be embedded in the Flash/AICC tracking frameset. See Preparing AICC-compliant files.

Note: Communication with the LMS, and data tracking, is not exposed to your user.

6

The LMS creates two parameters that are appended to the end of the URL: AICC_URL and AICC_SID. The final URL when the content is launched looks something like the following:

http://myserver/flashcontent.htm?AICC_URL=http://mylmsserver/trackingurl.asp&AICC_SID=12345 

7

The student progresses through the quiz.

8

The Flash movie sends the tracking data to the LMS through the HTML/JavaScript tracking files. The tracking data is sent when the student answers a question and/or progresses to the next page.

 
SCORM communication overview

When a student takes an SCORM-compliant quiz, the following events occur:

1

The LMS is launched.

2

The student logs in to the LMS.

3

The student launches a quiz built using a Flash quiz template.

4

The content is embedded in the Flash/SCORM HTML template, which is launched in a SCORM-compliant frameset.

Note: This is not exposed to the user.

The LMS is responsible for creating the SCORM-compliant frameset, which includes all the necessary functions to communicate back to the LMS.

5

The student progresses through the quiz.

6

The Flash file sends the tracking data to the LMS through the HTML/JavaScript tracking files.