Blackboard Moodle

Do you need help converting your Blackboard courses to the SCORM eLearning standard or moving your content from Blackboard to Moodle? Contact the guys at LearningDeveloper.com at (866) 501-6897.

If your organization has created courses directly within Blackboard only to discover that you cannot export Blackboard courses to SCORM, you are not alone. Presently there is no “Blackboard Export Course” feature – only an Archive Course option that allows the LMS administrator to backup Blackboard formatted courses. So if your organization is interested in migrating your content from Blackboard to Moodle, you have several options from which to choose.

Convert Blackboard Course to SCORM

The first and best option is to convert your courseware to SCORM. This can quickly and easily be done by experienced SCORM consultants like the folks at LearningDeveloper.com. It is recommended that courses be converted to SCORM because this will not only enable you to import your Blackboard courses into Moodle, it will also allow you to insert your courses into any SCORM-compliant LMS. Moreover, you can take the opportunity to clean up the unnecessary code that Blackboard inevitably adds to the course. The process of migrating Blackboard courses to SCORM is essentially:

1. Archive and save your Blackboard courses as zip packages
2. Clean up the Blackboard course code (HTML) by removing unnecessary tags and correcting badly formatted HTML.
3. Add SCORM Wrapper code to the optimized Blackboard course package

Blackboard Content Conversion Tool

Depending upon the Moodle implementation (version) you will use, there are several tools designed to help you convert your content to Moodle. There is both a Moodle 1.4x Conversion tool and a Moodle 1.5+ conversion tool. From a high-level perspective, the steps are to: 

• Export course from Blackboard
• Export test pools from Blackboard
• Import course to Moodle and re-format your course by hand
• Import test pools to Moodle
• Extract tests from XML
• Import tests to Moodle

While these options may appear more attractive to someone who does not have the programming and other skills to clean up the courses and convert them to SCORM (and absolutely no budget whatsoever to engage a freelance consultant), the downside is that both Blackboard and Moodle add code to the courses automatically that may not be formatted the way that you want. For this reason, it is highly recommended that you simply have your courseware reorganized and laid out correctly from scratch using a SCORM authoring and presentation tool.

So what is a SCORM Wrapper

If you are curious about what exactly a SCORM wrapper is, then you probably need one. Additionally, you most likely could use a helping hand getting your content loaded into a SCORM-compliant Learning Management System. If this sounds like you, then you have come to the right place! This article will give you a good overview. We also invite you to go to the Ask the eLearning Expert page and describe what you are looking to accomplish. Our SCORM experts offer extremely competitive consulting rates and can often have your content SCORM wrapped super fast! What’s more, we already have a fully-functional SCORM-wrapper solution (either HTML or Flash-based) ready to put into place for you. You can also call Stephen “Magic” Johnson at MediaManagers – (866) 501-6897.

SCORM Wrapper Definition

A SCORM Wrapper is a set of files that make it possible for a SCORM-compliant Learning Management System (LMS) and any form of digital content (Word documents, PowerPoint, Flash, etc.) to commnicate back and forth. One can apply a SCORM wrapper to nearly any form of digital content and then upload that content to an LMS for immdiate learner access. Many also refer to this as a SCORM Authoring Tool.

A “SCORM Wrapper” is a essentially a generic term for any set of (correctly programmed and formatted) files that are designed so that the user (usually a trainer/content developer) can load content files (Word, PowerPoint, Flash, PDF, etc.) into a Learning Management System in such a way that it is SCORM compliant and easily deployed to any SCORM compliant LMS.  Generally, this “wrapper” can be thought of as a digital “table of conents” that provides a way in which a learner can navigate through various pages of a “course”, all the while recordging learner page clicks and other ”performance data” back into the LMS database so that the teachers or training professionals can run reports and analyze learner performance.

SCORM Wrapper Example

For example; a training developer can take PowerPoint files, Word documents, PDF files, HTML pages, and all other forms of digital content and combine all of this information into a single folder. A SCORM Wrapper can then be added so that the trainer can just upload digital file package into the LMS and provide learners with instant access to the resources contained therein. What’s more, the LMS can track which learners viewed which pages at what time, etc. Moreover, the SCORM Wrapper is what presents to the learner a cohesive table of contents so that learners can navivate to whatever document, presentation, web page, PDF, or other files that have been grouped together.

The pictures below shows a SCORM Wrapper that has the Table of Contents in the “open” position. The learner uses this course index to naviate the course and can show/hide it as desired. The wrapper also includes next/back buttons, pause/play, and more. This wrapper is also fully customizable to match your organization’s look and feel. Click the image to see a portfolio of various designs built using this SCORM Wrapper.

SCORM Wrapper

At the heart of the SCORM Wrapper is a manifest file. Just as a airline manifest includes a list of all passengers and personnel listed on a plane, the SCORM manifiest file lists all of the files that make up a digital course. Also, just as an airplane manifest may include a listing of assigned seating, so too can the SCORM manifest file record the order in which the digital content is to be presented to the learner. Officially, this file is named imsmanifest.xml.  In addition to the SCORM manifest file, the SCORM Wrapper usually also includes a user interface (often referred to as a player, shell, or player skin) which includes navigation features like next and back buttons, pause/play controls, and other items that the learner uses to navigate through a course.

SCORM Wrapper Example

To see a SCORM wrapper in action, visit www.mediamanagers.net/porfolio and click on any of the course player images. The courses that player are packaged in a Flash-based SCORM wrapper. Note that the wrapper includes the course index (table of contents), pause/play/next/back buttons, etc. All of the user navigation elements are included in the wrapper. If you want to package up your courses in a similarly nice looking course player (SCORM wrapper), then all you have to do is give a call! (866) 501-6897