Instructions for Using the Simple Content API

The Simple Content API is designed to make your single HTML page, Microsoft Word document or other static content SCORM compliant. If you would like to convert more complex content that supports rich interactions (such as bookmarking and reporting test results), please consider using the Extended Content API. There are four manual steps necessary to use Simple Content API, if you would like an automated tool to perform these steps for you, please contact us for information about our content packaging tools.

Step 1 – Copy Files:

Copy the two Content API files (imsmanifest.xml and index.html – located in the “APIFiles” directory) into a directory containing the content you wish to make SCORM compliant. This directory will be referred to as CONTENT_DIR throughout this document.

Ideally, CONTENT_DIR will only contain files that are required by the content.

Step 2 – Edit the HTML:

Open the indexSCORM.html file in a text or HTML editor (note that some HTML editors, specifically Dreamweaver, may not display this file accurately in their GUI interface, learn why).

Scroll down to line number 166:

Replace #CONTENT_URL#, with the relative path to the start of the content you wish to display.

Ex: If the main page of your content is named “index.html” and resides in CONTENT_DIR, then insert “index.html”

Ex: If the main page of your content is named “mycontent.doc” and resides in a subdirectory of CONTENT_DIR named “wordfiles”, then insert “wordfiles/mycontent.doc”.

Step 3 – Edit the Manifest File:

Open the imsmanifest.xml file in a text or XML editor (note that some XML editors will not consider this document to be well-formed, learn why).

Scroll down to line number 108 at the end of the document:

Every file that is necessary for your content to play must be listed as a new file element here. At the very least, this will include the main page of your content listed in Step 2. This listing may also need to include images, Flash movies, embedded audio or video or any other type of file. A good rule of thumb is that if CONTENT_DIR contains all the files needed for the content, then you should list every file in every subdirectory of CONTENT_DIR.

To create a new file element, simply copy the current file element and paste it onto the next line:

File Element: <file href="indexSCORM.html"/>

Then replace “indexSCORM.html” with the relative path to the file you wish to add. Repeat this step for every file that is needed for the content.

Step 4 (Optional) – Edit the content’s metadata

The SCORM allows the content author to include some information describing the content he/she is packaging, such as a title, description, etc. The Simple Content API includes generic information in each of these fields by default. If you would like to include your specific information, follow the instructions below.

Open the imsmanifest.xml file in a text or XML editor (note that some XML editors will not consider this document to be well-formed, learn why).

There are ten data elements that can be customized for your content; each is marked by a series of asterisks surrounding a numeric identifier. For example:

A description of each these data elements and instructions for customization is located in the Metadata Customization section.

For an example of a completely converted document, please see the files located in the Example directory. These files represent a converted version of this instruction manual.

To Use the Converted Content

· To send the content to a customer, simply send a copy of all the files in CONTENT_DIR. Alternatively, you can package all of these files into a ZIP file and send just the one file (be sure that the imsmanifest.xml file is located at the root of the ZIP file).

· To import the content into a SCORM compliant LMS, simply use the LMS’s import mechanism to select the imsmanifest.xml file located in CONTENT_DIR.

· To view the content outside of a SCORM compliant LMS, simply copy CONTENT_DIR to a web published directory. Point your browser to

http://yourserver/content directory/indexSCORM.html?StandAlone=true

and the content should play. The querystring parameter StandAlone=true prevents error messages that would otherwise result from the content not being able to communicate with a SCORM compliant LMS.

Metadata Customization

1 – Title

SCORM Description - Name given to this resource. The title can be an already existing one or it may be created by the indexer ad hoc.

English Description – The title of your content

To Customize – Replace “Title” with the title of your content. Note - there are three instances of the Title element, you should replace all three of them.

Max length – 1000 characters

2 – Catalog Entry

SCORM Description - This sub-category defines an entry within a catalog (i.e. a listing identification system) assigned to this resource.

It is intended to describe this resource according to some known cataloging system so that it may be externally searched for and located according to the methodology of the specified system.

English Description – This element is used as a way of categorizing your content. The best analogy would be a university that categorizes its classes into departments (catalogs) and class numbers (entries) – History 101 for example. Most content producers will use their company name as the Catalog and an arbitrary identifier for the Entry.

To Customize – Replace “Catalog” with your catalog name and “1” with your entry.

Max length – 1000 characters for each field

3 – Description

SCORM Description - A textual description of the content of this resource being described

English Description – A description of your content

To Customize – Replace “Description” with a description of your content

Max length – 2000 characters

4 – Keywords

SCORM Description - Keywords or phrases describing this resource.

This element should not be used for characteristics that can be described by other elements.

English Description – Keywords that users might use when searching for the content in a repository of many content modules.

To Customize – You can use up to 10 Keyword elements. Copy the entire Keyword block and replace “Training” with your keyword(s). Each block may more than one keyword if you would like. There is no standard for including more than one keyword in a given block, but many developers will simply separate the keywords with spaces.

Max length – 10 blocks each consisting of 1000 characters

5 – Version

SCORM Description - The edition of this resource

English Description – If you have issues several versions of your content, use this field to distinguish among the versions.

To Customize - Replace “1” with your version number

Max Length – 50 characters

6 – Format

SCORM Description - Technical data type of this resource.

This element shall be used to identify the software needed to access the resource. The string is restricted to be either a MIME type or ‘non-digital’.

English Description – If your content uses any applications other than a standard web browser (such as Flash, Windows media player, Microsoft Word, etc), then it can include a list of those applications here so that users of the content will know what they need in order to play the content. In most cases, if the application you use is fairly common and easy to install, then adding a format element won’t benefit you all that much, but it can’t hurt.

To Customize – Copy the entire format block and replace “text/html” with the MIME type of your plugin. A list of common MIME types can be found on the web at http://www.utoronto.ca/webdocs/HTMLdocs/Book/Book-3ed/appb/mimetype.html.

Max Length – 500 characters

7 – Cost

SCORM Description - Whether use of the resource requires payment.

English Description – Is the content free or do you want to be paid for it?

To Customize – The default for this element is that there is a cost associated with this content. If you would like to indicate that it is free, replace “yes” with “no”.

Max Length – N/A

8 – Copyright and Other Restrictions

SCORM Description - Whether copyright or other restrictions apply to the use of this resource.

English Description – Is the content copyrighted or is it in the public domain?

To Customize – The default for this element is that the content is copyrighted. To indicate that the content is in the public domain, replace “yes” with “no”.

Max Length – N/A

9 & 10 – Classification

SCORM Description - This category describes where this resource is placed within a particular classification system. To define multiple classifications, there may be multiple instances of this category.

English Description – A classification is basically another way of further categorizing your content. In all but the most advanced cases, you should simply copy the Description (#3) and Keywords (#4) from above into these elements.

Why Won’t Dreamweaver Display This Page Properly

The indexSCORM.html page contains a frameset that wrappers your content page. The frameset only exists to provide a single place for the required SCORM code and a place to capture the events of loading and unloading of the content. In most standard web design, a frameset is used to divide the page into multiple sections. In this case we only need one section, so only one frame is used. Dreamweaver apparently was programmed to only recognize framesets that contain more than one frame (as would be expected in most cases) and thus has trouble rendering singe frame framesets. This information is accurate for Dreamweaver 3 and may or may not apply to other versions of Dreamweaver and other HTML editors.

Why Doesn’t the XML Validate in My Parser

The SCORM manifest file was developed using the latest version of the W3C Specification which many XML parsers do not yet support. More information can be found at http://www.w3.org/.