More than 10,000 plugins available for WordPress and we’re your first, best and only option for using SCORM. Which we should be. This is kind of our spot, after all.

All that to point out that SCORM Cloud is officially in the WordPress plugin directory, which makes it just that much easier to install and get going. Just search for SCORM and … well, it’s in a class by itself there. College class, instructional design portfolio, sales training – all easy to execute now.

We’ve heard from lots of you who are excited about using this plugin. But we want to hear more about how you’re using it and what other plugins make it more valuable. Do you tie it to BuddyPress? Have you figured out a clever connection to [some related posts]? Making money with a tie to Aweber?

I’m compiling a list to be part of our WordPress section to show off your sites and the smart ways you’re putting our plugin to use. If you’ve deployed the SCORM Cloud plugin, let me know and I’ll add you to the list.

This year, he came back to camp, and the coach wanted him to prove that he was in shape. He failed.

So yesterday, we caught wind of a couple of folks who had tried the challenge themselves. Mike Golic of “Mike & Mike in the Morning” on ESPN tried it… but he’s a former NFL player. Some of the employees at The Virginian-Pilot tried it with varying degrees of success.

Frankly, this struck me as just my kind of stupid. And so I brought the stopwatch to work today. And invited all comers to join in the fun. And the smack talk.

From one David Ells:

And so the fun begins:

• David Ells, 27 years young: Shuttle 1: 66 seconds, Shuttle 2: 83 seconds. #fail
• Troy Foster, 34 years: Shuttle 1: 64 seconds, Shuttle 2: 68 seconds. #pass
• Joe Donnelly, 37 years: Shuttle 1: 75 seconds, Shuttle 2: 77 seconds. #fail, but Joe could keep up this pace forever
• Mike Rustici, 33 years: Shuttle 1: 70 seconds, Shuttle 2: 73 seconds. #pass. And let me tell you, I have respect for someone who does just the right amount.
• Tim Martin, 35 years: Shuttle 1: 64 seconds, Shuttle 2: 69 seconds. #pass

I came away for the experience with two conclusions.

1. That Ells kid got what he deserved.
2. This is exactly the kind of thing every single workplace needs more of.

Truthfully, Rustici Software is pretty good at doing fun stuff. We play disc golf, we have a ping pong table, our office environment is exceptionally casual. But we often fall into the same trap that so many offices do. One day simply can’t be distinguished from another.

Today is a day of work that I’ll remember. I’ll remember it because what we did was stupid (no, really, the heat index was over 100… the HR department is not happy.) I’ll remember it because it was different. I’ll remember it because we abused ourselves and each other.

Note to self: Do more of this kind of stuff. Give yourself and others a way to mark the days at work… not just wander through them. Work is way too big a part of our lives to plod through day after day.

So now’s your chance. We’re hiring. Developer types. All sizes. Bonus points if you can beat Tim at ping pong.

• Why you want to work here. (Well most of why. It doesn’t mention the cookies.)
• How to make it happen
• Some background on how we look at hiring.

While it’s not officially part of “SCORM”, LETSI has produced an exceptionally useful enhancement…and guess what, it’s ready and available to be implemented now!

The current SCORM communication framework (based on JavaScript) has served us well. It is simple, easy-to-understand, and straight-forward to implement. But, it’s getting a little long in the tooth. Technology has evolved and there are better ways to do things.

Enter LETSI’s Run-Time Web-Services (RTWS) project. Over the past year, the RTWS group has worked to create a complete and implementable web services communication protocol that is compatible with SCORM. This project addresses some of the most notable and frustrating limitations of the current SCORM model, including:

• Enabling “out of browser” experiences, such as training delivered in simulations, games, virtual worlds
• Facilitating offline or occasionally connected use
• Removing the cross domain security restriction
• Enabling deliver on alternative devices, such as mobile phones
• Allowing for more secure system communication

(there are a few other goodies thrown in as well…such has historical attempt tracking)

LETSI has published an RTWS Developer’s Guide and there are a number of prototype implementations either already available or in development (from vendors such as Meridian, Booz Allen, OutStart, Boeing…and of course Rustici Software). One of the core tenants of LETSI is that implementation should drive specifications….standards need to be vetted through actual use. To that end, LETSI is actively looking for additional prototype developers and implementers. Let us know if you are interested.

As for Rustici Software, we currently have a version of RTWS implemented in a development version of the SCORM Engine. We expect to publish a production quality version with our next SCORM Engine release later this year. At that point, RTWS will be available in SCORM Cloud and it will start to be available in the LMSs of our 100+ SCORM Engine clients as they proceed through their upgrade cycles.

Well, to date, we’ve still been connecting to LMSs with modules for open source learning management systems like Moodle and Sakai. But now we’ve taken that first step away from the LMS with a WordPress plug-in that allows you to offer a SCORM course right from a post or page or sidebar list.

We’re still testing it out, writing up instructions and so forth, but by next week (maybe sooner?), we fully expect to have all our ducklings in neat rows and ready to go for full release. To tide you over until then, here’s a look at how I used it on a test blog. Just by pushing a button and picking my course, I was able to add a course directly into a blog post and registered learners can click the button and launch the course right from the post.

Now, if you just can’t wait and want to try out the beta version, you can go ahead and download it to check it out. Screencasts to walk you through some of it are on the way available in our YouTube playlist. We’d love to hear what you think about the direction we’ve taken with this.

Moodle

We totally understand that SCORM 2004 is irrelevant for a lot of Moodle users. But we also understand that it’s crucial for others. As Moodle partners like Moodlerooms and others attempt to sell their solution to government agencies, they frequently run into the federal government’s requirements around SCORM 2004. As sophisticated content authors look to apply their SCORM 2004 content in Moodle, they are stopped in their tracks.

For people and companies looking for next level of SCORM capability, SCORM Cloud lets them push Moodle miles forward … in about five minutes.

In fact, we’ve got big, huge, gargantuan news regarding SCORM Engine, still the player of choice for great e-learning applications. And now, it’s the choice of Odijoo, which is on the verge of releasing with SCORM Engine in place.

Not familiar with Odijoo? They’re a free web-based eLearning platform (soon to be SCORM 2004 and 1.2 conformant!) that allows users to have their own personalized online space from which to create, publish, share and monetize online courses. It’s a pretty cool service for people who don’t need their own installed LMS, want an easy way to create a course or look to make money distributing content.

Odijoo just launched back in October and quickly discovered a need for people to be able to import previously created content. And … well, since part of the point of using SCORM is to be able to easily play content across systems, SCORM moved up the to-do list to become the next step in Odijoo’s evolution.

The big bonus in this scenario for Odijoo is the tolerance we build into our players. Fewer headaches as people begin bringing in content created in a wide variety of tools and for a wide variety of LMSs.

Welcome to the Rustici Software family, Odijoo!

Which browsers are we going to support?

This question is a little different for us than most companies in that we have two distinct audiences: the companies that embed our software and those that use it directly.

In supporting companies like we do via SCORM Engine and SCORM Driver, we have an obligation to provide them with the support they need. And let me tell you, many of our clients still support IE5.5 (the bane of a designer’s existence).

So, we’ve got a particular responsibility to support the lowest common denominator (or something close to it). It is not our place to drag our customers’ customers forward in the browser evolution… We don’t get to make that decision for them, and so we won’t. This decision applies to the following products:

• SCORM Engine
• SCORM Driver
• Embed-able components of SCORM Cloud, accessed via the API

For our embed-able, compatibility based products, we support and will continue to support the following browsers.

• Firefox 1.0+
• Internet Explorer 5.5+
• Safari 1.0+
• Chrome (we’re still phasing this in, but all appears to be working nicely)

Our World

For our customers and their customers … we have a certain obligation … . But when it comes to the products we offer directly to the customer, we get to make our own choices. And I don’t feel bad about eliminating a potential customer by virtue of an informed decision if it affects only Rustici Software.

In designing and implementing SCORM Cloud’s new UI, we went to our usage metrics. In looking at Google Analytics, we’re seeing that just 7% of our total visitors are using IE6. For us, that number is low enough that we’re willing to ask those users to upgrade if they want to fully experience SCORM Cloud (and its Test Track functionality). Our apologies go out to those of you locked into old browsers by your situation or employer, but we’re going to drop our support of IE5.5 and IE6 for our customer facing products.

If you’ve got a piece of training that you want to share, how are you going to do it? What’s the easiest way to share something online?

The Public URL

When I go to share a map with someone, I turn to the “Link” button in Google Maps. I set up my map just how I want it, click the link button, and grab the URL. From there, I can do what I need to with it… I can include it in an email, put it on my blog, whatever… URLs have got to be the simplest sharing mechanism on the web.

SCORM Cloud’s Public Invitation

Now, you can share any course in your library via a public URL. We call this a public invitation, and creating them is pretty simple.

The result, too, is powerful. Consider this your invitation to watch my daughter sing “5 Little Pumpkins” via a public invitation.

Step 1 :: Upload a course to SCORM Cloud and click “Invite”

Step 2 :: Create a public invitation

For now, creating a public invitation requires one email address… If you want to send this to a distribution list, for example, you could certainly do that here. In my case, I’m just sending the URL to myself, because then I can post it anywhere I want… You know, like on Facebook? ‘Cause then everyone could see how cool SCORM is, right?

What happens for the learner?

With a public invitation, we want the process to be so simple for the learner. We need something by which to identify them, so we ask for their email address… From there? Straight into the learning material.

What happened?

For some people, knowing how their learners are doing is fundamental. Well, for you folks, you dig right into all of the details about the invitations and who has accepted them and completed them.

For those of you who don’t care to know these things, just avert your eyes.

A word of caution

Lastly, a word of caution. We’ve given you 10 free registrations (well, for the beta, it’s actually unlimited). That means that if 10 folks accept your invite, you’ll be all out… unless you put in your credit card information. We hope you find the public invitations so useful that you sign up for a paying SCORM Cloud account.

Do you remember the old phone switchboards? They connected a caller to a receiver, and it required some handholding on the part of the operator, right?

As much as we’d like for SCORM to work perfectly every time, and without intervention, that just isn’t reality. Some LMSs are great, but others aren’t. Some LMSs support SCORM 2004, but many don’t.

One constant is that connections made by our products have always been strong. And so we’re now offering the ability to create a “Dispatch”, or a connection, between a piece of content and any LMS that goes through SCORM Cloud.

If you have ever found that your content worked in Test Track, but not in your LMS, now is your chance to fix that problem. Upload the course into SCORM Cloud, download a Dispatch, and put that in your LMS. We’re betting that your problems will be solved.

Follow along below for step-by-step instructions, we’ll save the technical details for another day.

Creating a Dispatch in SCORM Cloud

Step 1: Import a SCORM course

First of all, you have to have a package that works in SCORM Cloud. Theoretically, this includes any SCORM or AICC course, but it’s definitely worth importing it and testing it via the Launch button in the SCORM Test Track Sandbox.

Once you’ve done that, though, you can move on to creating your Dispatch package.

Step 2: Push the “Dispatch” button

Step 3: Choose or create a Destination

We’d like to help keep you organized. Some people will be using Dispatch to protect and track their content by creating Dispatches for their customers (that’s another blog post).

If you’re just creating a Dispatch to get around some limitation of your LMS, then you can simply create a single Destination and select it each time. (If you don’t already have a Destination created, you’ll need to bounce over and create it.)

The tags and notes sections of this page are completely optional. Skip them your first time through, if you like.

When you’re content with your Dispatch, hit create.

Step 4: Find your Dispatch

OK, we know this step is kind of lame. Rather than taking you to your newly created Dispatch, we’re taking you back to a list of them. (Trust me, we’ll fix this before our final release.)

For now, though, pick your recently created Dispatch and click on it.

Step 5: Export your Dispatch

Now that you’re back on your precious Dispatch screen, you can click the Export button. This is the payoff for all of your work. When you push Export, you’ll be given… wait for it… a SCORM zip file!

That’s right… you put your SCORM zip file into the Dispatch box, and out the other end comes… a SCORM zip file! I know, it seems like we aren’t doing much, but there’s a little magic going on behind the scenes. Your new zip file will be smaller, and oh so much better.

Step 6: Deliver your well-dressed SCORM package to your LMS

The rest of this process will depend largely on your LMS. Take the new package and import it into your LMS just like any other piece of content. Your LMS won’t even know the difference.

From this point, the experience will vary based on the LMS into which the course is imported. But that’s the beauty of it… it should work in any LMS. (Now, as this is a beta at this point, we’d love to hear your feedback on how well it works. Going out into the wild, as we all know, is a different thing than testing yourself.)

Step 7: Report on the course’s usage

The real power of Dispatches, other than the fact that they just work, is that you can then report on the usage of your content anywhere. Each LMS will point back to SCORM Cloud to deliver the training, and that means that you can see details about who is using your content and when.

Further, you have the ability to disable Dispatches. This means that if someone doesn’t pay, or is mean to your mom, or whatever, you can prevent them from launching that content again. This is a massive change for the SCORM world in which most content is delivered complete with all its assets to the LMS server… This gives you something we all like… control.

Enough.

I know this article is long. Seriously, I do. So I’m going to stop here. There’s a lot of technical detail behind Dispatch. If you care, let me know that in the comments and we can dig into that detail. For now, though, experiment. Give it a shot.