Captivate 4/SCORM/LMS

Question

Adobe E-Learning Suite CS4 w/
Captivate 4
Flash CS4
etc...
I'm pretty sure everyone looking at that subject is sighing and rolling the eyes. lol.
In any event I really need some help, as soon as possible.
Let's go with that I have NO experience with SCORM compliance or LMS.
I had created a Software Simulation CBT, basically used for employees to learn how to use an application that my client uses.
I had originally done this all in one, and it ended up being around 150 slided.
The opening slide has a 16 second Flash produce introduction with 16 second audio.
Only other audio is produced from clicking the "Next" button
Only other Flash is from FMR demonstrating the software (very minimal)
It seemed that publishing such a large file produced very inconsistant files - sometimes very buggy in sections - back button not working properly, getting stuck on quiz slides, etc.
So I broke up the large file in 8 separate files. Intro, Modules 1 - 6, Conclusion.
Now... Here comes my next problem. I set up all the SCORM/Quiz reporting.  Each of the modules has a quiz associated with it for reporting. Intro and Conclusion have reporting on the last "NEXT" button.
What I am asked from our client, is that the employee will log onto the LMS - click on the Course Name - and it will launch the intro.  Now to the user, the rest of the course should be seamless.  It's for the most part (except for one section in Module 1) completely linear.  When the user gets to the last slide of the Intro section, when they click next it should go to the first slide of Module 1.  It should have the built in TOC that I built in the flash files.  I did all the SCORM 2004 reporting options, manifest file, etc.  I used the SCORM Packager provided (the aggregator) and sucessfully created a .ZIP to upload to the LMS.
I downloaded Moodle, full package, to use as a sandbox LMS on my local system.
When I upload the .zip file produced from the SCORM packager, and run it in the LMS the TOC does not show all of the modules.
Also, when I get to the last slide of Intro and click "NEXT" it just goes to a blank screen.
How do I make this a seamless transaction with proper LMS reporting - which is NOT pass/fail it's just completion.
Anybody still reading yet??
Please let me know if you need anymore information, it's very vital that I get this figured out by this weekend as our client is requesting a final product by Monday/Tuesday.  I really really appreciate any help that can be provided, thank you all very much in advance.
I fear I may be in over my head here...  which is not an option.

Answer 1

Imagine that a SCORM course is a book. This book has separate chapters - each chapter is a SCO. If you have a SCORM course that consists of 7 SCO's you would still only have one course in the LMS. Depending on how the SCORM communication is set up YOU define how the course should work.
Example of a SCORM manifest (NOT correct - only an example)
Title: Course title
SCO1: Chapter 1 - Introduction - introduction.html (the HTML files which has the apiwrapper and loads your swf)
SCO2: Chapter title - resource link
SCO3: Chapter title - resource link
Okay, so I guess my question is this then.  Is it MY responsibility as the programmer to link the SCOs together within Captivate? or is that done within the SCORM manifest? Or does the LMS handle this?
I would say that it is your responsibility. The programmer / developer would need to put in the SCORM calls in the chapters/SCO's for it to work. This cannot be done afterwards.
In other words, lol, does the next button on the last slide of each module have to "Open File/URL" or can it simply say "Continue" as it does now and the LMS, via the manifest, will know to open the next module and start that slide annnnd will it report as one final score?? That's the other thing, I would like it to report one score for the overall course (it's actually not a score, it's just a complete/incomplete)
No you would need to do two things at the end of each module.
1 - Set the particular module as "Completed" in the LMS by using a SCORM command
2 - Close the particular module in the LMS by using a SCORM command.
Once these two are done then the LMS will unload the current module and automatically fetch the next module in the SCORM manifest and run that.
If you are only interested in reporting complete/incomplete then this is enough. Just call the SCORM commands to set each module as completed and then the SCORM command to unload the module. Once they go through the last module all is completed and the course is "passed".
As for the TOC I am a bit confused.
Do you have a TOC for each of the modules created in Captivate? If so then this will work just fine in an LMS.
If you have a TOC using the Aggregator then you would of course need to use Captivate to make the SCORM package. Another option could be to check if the LMS has a "TOC" of it's own. Many LMS' build their own TOC based on the SCORM imsmanifest.
One suggestion I have for you.. Make a testfile for your client. This file should basically be what you tried to upload to Moodle first. Completely done in Captivate and Aggregator. Then ask them to load this in their LMS and see if they encounter any problems first. As I said Moodle isn't the best choice for troubleshooting LMS / SCORM issues ;o) Perhaps everything works perfectly well in their corporate LMS.
/Michael
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