Dealing with SCORM Standard in a Virtual Communities Environment

Many Learning Management Systems (LMSs) are available nowadays to accommodate synchronous and asynchronous distance learning. LMSs can play an important role in the evolution from traditional education to distance learning. There are also relevant needs for compatibility and reusability of educational contents exchanged among different LMSs. An attempt of responding to these needs is the “Shareable Content Object Reference Model” (SCORM) standard, which gives a framework for content producers consumers in order to create, distribute and use educational contents. However, creating (or adapting) a learning platform in order to be SCORM-compliant is a complex task, that introduces some rigidities inside the platform itself and (most of all) in the way users can interact with the platform and add content to the platform, following modern approaches to learning. The paper presents these problems, and the solutions adopted in our virtual communities platform to solve the issues deriving from being fully SCORM-compliant.