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E
eLearningDeveloper
Inspiring
February 4, 2008
Question

SCORM data in captivate swf files

  • February 4, 2008
  • 2 replies
  • 925 views
My project involves loading Captivate swf files into a custom SCORM compliant player, which in turn plays in an (SCORM 1.2) LMS. Reporting data needs to be captured by the player before reporting to the LMS.

One approach is to capture LMS calls from the loaded Captivate swf files in the player wrapped around it, however, this would require the Capativate file to be aware of an API, which is presently handled by the player. In other words, I can watch/track LMS-related fscommands when I load the Captivate independently in the LMS, however, when the Captivate swf is loaded into my player, the only fscommands I am intercepting from it are related to the skin and slide advancing.

How can I make the loaded swf file "think" there is an API present so that it makes fsCommand calls to the LMS which can then be intercepted and processed? I have seen that the variables SCORM_API and SCORM_TYPE are "passed into" the captivate swf through embed using the URL string. Is there another way to set these variables from within my Flash program, after the Captivate swf is loaded, and would this work? Is there some other technique out there I should consider?

Alternatively, if anyone has information on how I can directly access Captivate reporting variables in the same way one accesses control functions (rdcmndRewindAndStop, etc), please share it. I have chased down some leads, but really need a good source.

(Using the reporting-summary-email-intercept trick is not a solution for this project for technical reasons.)

Thank you in advance!
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2 replies

E
eLearningDeveloperAuthor
Inspiring
February 6, 2008
My latest thought is indeed to take this approach - catching the DoFS LMS calls from Captivate swf's (catching them as they go out) and then parsing the data out, and using EI or direct assignment (ie swfPlayerID.varname = score) in javascript to return the data into the wrapper - the wrapper being the custome player.

It would be easier to access the percent score property you mention. I have not decompiled but have looped though the mc object in my wrapper which has the Captivate loaded, and unfortunately, I cannot access the percent score variable I saw in your post; though many properties display, all are undefined (perhaps they are all objects). In Cap, I am using SCORM 1.2, and instructing the movie to report the score only. Any ideas? Did you find that the end-of-quiz data is located on the final slide of a captivate movie that has reporting on? Did you determine that variable through decompilation, as I you seemed to be suggesting in that post?

Thanks for the help.
J
jbradley88
Participating Frequently
February 7, 2008
Not sure if this helps you, but Andrew Chemey, the guy who wrote the SCORM code for Captivate, has made available a generic version that you might find helpful.

Assuming you are willing to pass data from Javascript back to your custom Flash wrapper, it might just work.

You can download Andrew's generic tracking files here:

http://www.learningconsulting.com/Content/Macromedia/Captivate/Captivate_GenericTracking.zip

In a previous post, Andrew noted that the files were originally written for Captivate 1 but he saw no reason why they wouldn't still work.
A
Anonymous
February 5, 2008
Since your LMS/Wrapper are already SCORM compliant, could you edit your javascript to pass the variables back into flash once they hit SCORM? It might be easier to bypass your flash file and then hand the information back to it once you get it into a (relatively) sane environment.

This is probably useless because you said that it needs to be tracked ''before reporting to the LMS,''but least I didn't give you a link to the email intercept trick. haha

What sort of information are you trying to track? Just what's reported on the end-of-quiz screen?

(on a side note, Adobe's inability to handle a quotation mark on their forums is annoying)
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