Testing SCORM?

Report · Nov 14, 2007

Hi,
I need to be able to test Captivate's SCOs locally to figure out the SCORM API and calls, but no luck so far. I'm not using an LMS yet, it is in late stages of development, and I need to be able to test captivate SCORM before I can communicate with the LMS developers about it.
I've not dealt much with SCORM before, so I need to have a testing environment to figure it out. The testing environments I've looked at: Test Track from Rustici and SCORM 2004 Wrapper by Claude Ostyn don't seem to work with captivate files? Maybe I'm just using them wrong?
Anyway, when I pubslish a captivate file with a quiz as scorm, then launch it with SCORM 2004 Wrapper, or upload it ot Test Track and launch, I get no communication with the API. Both test environments tell me that the API is not communicating.
I'm using Captivate 2, publishing a quiz as SCORM 1.2. The LMS developers are dubious about Captivate's SCORM capability as it does not communicate with their API either. I'm not sure what I'm missing here.
Any help or links of reference would be greatly appreciated. Thanks,
Ari

Report · Nov 14, 2007

Does anyone have any suggestions about this?
I downloaded the captivate_scorm_output.zip from Andrew Chemey's article "Output Options in Captivate - Part 3: SCORM Tracking". I've tried the 1.2 version in the Rustici TestTrack application. It will work only if I set the "Wrap SCO Window with API" option. OK, so I guess the API from Captivate isn't getting used here?
I tried my own SCO in the Rustici TestTrack and, sure enough, it also only started tracking scores if I set the "Wrap SCO Window with API" setting. (the setting's tool-tip explains: "When a SCO is launched in a new window, some poorly implemented SCORM content can have trouble finding the SCORM API. This setting will wrap an empty frameset around the SCO window which presents an API that relays calls back to the real SCORM Player API.")
Does this mean that any LMS has to similarly wrap a Captivate SCO for it to work?
Thanks,
Ari

Report · Nov 14, 2007

Hey Ari,

Try looking at this thread to see if the suggested changes fix your problem:

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview.cfm?forumid=67&catid=469&threadid=1235585

Specifically, the references to changing how Captivate looks for the SCORM API by setting the g_intAPIOrder and/or g_nAPI variables to 1.

Hopefully, changing one or both of those values will fix the issue you're having.

I'd start with g_intAPIOrder, since that one only changes how Captivate looks for the API. I believe the second one is a hardcode that overrides the result of that search.

Report · Jun 25, 2014

I know you posted this in 2007, but I hope you're still here and can address this.

Having same problem, but for HTML5 in Rustici SCORM Cloud. I don't see these variables exported in js. Is there something else I can do?

Thank you,

Mark

mark1@uky.edu

Report · Jun 27, 2014

I think it would be best if you could explain exactly what your issue is. Which version of CP and any other information.

As you stated, this is an old thread and was addressing CP2.

Report · Jun 27, 2014

Hi. As you stated, it was an old thread. But my problem seems identical.

I am running Captivate 8. It generates HTML5, similar to Captivate 7 (no major changes there). I placed this content on my SAP/LSO LMS, and it generated an API LMS error for Android Devices or possibly Chrome and Firefox browsers. iPads using Safari (NOT using private browsing) worked fine.

To be sure this was not just isolated to one LMS, I used SCORM Cloud as a test. The error generated was,

“An error has occurred: Error—unable to acquire LMS API, content may not play properly and results may not be recorded. Please contact technical support. Press OK to view debug information to send to technical support.”

After pressing OKAY, the debug failed to load, but the course eventually played.

SCORM Cloud suggested selecting the option on their site, "Wrap SCO Window with API". This worked like a charm. However, this would not resolve my problem with other LMSs.

Another person on this thread stated, "Yes, changing the javascript variable g_intAPIType to be "1" (it defaults to "0") does get the Captivate SCOs to work in Rustici."

However, in the current version of Captivate, I don't see a JavaScript file generated with this variable. And I'm not even sure with *.js this would fall under.

Appreciate any help you can provide. Please let me know if you need additional information. Thanks.

Mark

Report · Nov 14, 2007

Agreed with jbradley's suggestion as the first thing to try.

When an LMS launches a SCO, the spec dicates that the SCO should work
it's way up the browser windows to find the API. So first it will check
the browser window containing the SCO itself. If it's not there, it'll
check the browser window which launched the SCO, and continue to go up
the parent tree until there's nothing left to check.

As far as I know, Captivate does this properly. More often then not, the
problem lies with the LMS not exposing the API correctly...though I
can't give any specific situations/examples.

The SCO does not contain the API. The SCO contains functions (generally
javascript) which looks for the API as mentioned above. The LMS *must*
provide the API to handle communication to and from the SCO itself.

If you're finding that you must wrap the SCO in an API, which then can
find the LMS (or test product's) API, then something is wonky - that's
not how it should work. Hopefully jbradley's suggestion is the easy
answer. If that doesn't work, I'd ask the LMS vendor how their API is
exposed and why Captivate can't find it by the standard tree walk.

The ADL Test Suite;
http://www.adlnet.gov/downloads/downloadpage.aspx?ID=155
Is probably the best tool to use to test such things, since ADL authors
the SCORM spec. If you're spec'ing SCORM 1.2, or want to look at other
possible tools, check ADL's product download page:
http://www.adlnet.gov/downloads/DownloadsSearchResults.aspx?Category=Products

The LMS we use does not do anything to the SCO it presents. I can't
imagine that any LMS forcing a wrapper over the content would be a good
idea...
Erik

adoucette wrote:
> Hi,
> I need to be able to test Captivate's SCOs locally to figure out the SCORM API
> and calls, but no luck so far.
--
Erik Lord
http://www.capemedia.net
Adobe Community Expert - Authorware
http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/
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Report · Nov 15, 2007

Yes, changing the javascript variable g_intAPIType to be "1" (it defaults to "0") does get the Captivate SCOs to work in Rustici Test Track - and without the extra frameset and API thing. I've read about this before, so I'm not sure why I didn't try this before.
Thanks!
I haven't tried it in the LMS yet, but this is promising.

Ari

Report · Nov 22, 2007

Some LMS (notice for SABA) expose both API (SCORM 1.2) and API_1484_11 (SCORM 2004) at the same time, when launching SCORM 1.2 or SCORM 2004 courses.
So, suppose you publish with Captivate to SCORM 1.2, then import to the LMS. When the Captivate SCO is launched, it begins to find API_1484_11, and it find it. But it is a SCORM 1.2 SCO, so it causes some errors, for exemple, SCORM 1.2 session_time format is sent to the SCORM 2004 API.

Franck.