SCORM Completion Settings

Owned by Luc Richard
Last updated: Jan 10, 2024
2 min read

This article applies to the following products: Standard, Express, Workplace

This check verifies if any of the SCORMs in visible courses have the sole criteria of “Student must view this activity to complete it”. (This check skips courses that are hidden / archived.) If so, the check generates a warning.

Issue

SCORM packages have the ability to send the data back to the learning environment. This includes the ability to specify whether or not the user has completed or passed the SCORM file.

The criteria for completing / passing the SCORM activity is determined by the author of the SCORM in the tool used to design the SCORM (e.g. Articulate Rise, Articulate Storyline, Adobe Captivate, etc.).

If the Instructor in the learning environment simply selects the activity completion criteria of “Student must view this activity to complete it”, then essentially the instructor is ignoring the criteria intended by the author of the SCORM file. This means that a learner will be issued a learning record simply for clicking the link that opens the SCORM file. You could therefore have learners never complete or fail the SCORM module, yet receive a learning record for it.

Best Practice

As a best practice, the activity completion criteria for the SCORM should line up with the intent that the author had whenever they designed the SCORM module. In other words, if the author intended for learners to pass the module, then the “Require status: passed” should be selected in the activity completion criteria section in the learning environment, NOT “Student must view this activity to complete it”.

If you’re not sure what status the SCORM package sends to the learning environment, you have two options:

  1. Ask its author. The author of the SCORM package should be able to tell you what status the SCORM file will send back to the learning environment. Generally speaking, the options are “passed”, “completed”, “failed”, “incomplete”, but there could be others.

  2. Verify for yourself. If you’re not in communication with the author, log in as a learner and complete the SCORM activity as you would expect a learner to successfully complete it, then go to the “Interactions” report for the SCORM in question, which can be found in the Administration block under SCORM Package Administration > Reports. Click on your successful attempt in the “Attempts” column and look at the status. The status tells you what to select under the activity completion settings for the SCORM in question.