Once upon a time, well, that’s not exactly how this starts. This story actually started about 7 months ago when Chris and I first started working here, at Rustici Software. We were hired to embark on a journey together to find all of the eLearning companies and highlight them in a neutral environment, so you all could find one another. This was the birth of the eLearning Atlas, a comprehensive map of the eLearning industry and all the products available on the market. The genius of our pairing is that we complement each other. Chris is level headed, pensive, deliberate, and I’m just…not. We found thousands of possible companies, supporting a wide variety of standards. So off we went and these are our stories… Jena’s Journey:   Photo from Wikipedia The Atlas is my Jabberwocky and I am Alice. During my journey through the Atlas, I learned more about myself, about the companies listed, and the eLearning industry as a whole. At the beginning, I was terrified of the companies put in front of me. There were over 3,000 companies to reach out to, with the list growing everyday. Chris and I split up the list and I went to tackling these companies, one by one. The Atlas was still a creature looming in the distance, one day I would have to face it, but for the time being, I was only learning. Learning about how the industry is moving, changing, evolving. Companies moving into the unknown to push the boundaries of what learning is and how it was accomplished. The list began to shrink, albeit very slowly, and I became more comfortable speaking about complex concepts, standards and the companies themselves. In a sense, I grew stronger, more capable. All of the learning, conversations, and time, have been leading up to this. The moment I slay my Jabberwocky. And I am proud to say that finally, the Atlas is ready. Well, at least Phase 1. The Atlas is an ever-evolving project, we will add companies as we find them. So if you are out there and not on the Atlas, please let us know. Chris’s Take: To translate, we’ve mapped all the companies on our radar. We’ve discovered some interesting trends and noted the use of the various standards. Completion of the eLearning Atlas is a moving target, there’s plenty of work left to do.  If we’ve missed a product, let us know.  If you see something we could have done better, tell us. If you are a talent management tool, you’re up next. I’m currently looking into the patterns we’ve collected, exploring what standards are used throughout the industry, comparing adoption rates and analyzing trends among products. The Atlas is designed to be a useful way to find products that compliment one another, or fit a specific need. We’re building a community that is focused on helping eLearning companies work together, sharing courses and systems. We’re keeping it free, because free is good. I hope you’ll get involved and join the conversation. We’ve built a commenting tool into each product in the eLearning Atlas. So go ahead, comment away, tell our community about your experience using the products we’ve found. Have some ideas on how we can help the eLearning industry play nicely with one another? Interested in the trends the Atlas shows? Have questions about eLearning products or standards? Want to join Jena and fight imaginary creatures? Drop us a line, we’ll be happy to help. Check out our Press Release for more information.

  My Atlas Haiku   How to use Atlas Enter search criteria, browse, select, repeat. Not the world’s greatest haiku, but you get the picture. Sure, you can search and find what you are looking for no problem, but you can do so much MORE. The great thing about the eLearning Atlas is you can tailor it to fit your needs. If you are looking for career development content, chances are we have quite a few to choose from. If you are looking for something a little more obscure, like cat noises, well, that’s precisely why we integrated Google Site Search. Here are some of our favorite things to do with the eLearning Atlas. Search Criteria We think variety is the spice of life, (well that and attacking the net in ping pong), so we’ve given you some options when it comes to how you search. Whether users type in products, vendor names or keywords, their search will pull up the most relevant entries for them. Keywords can be any number of things, ranging from specific to extremely vague. For example, say a user is looking for K-12 content, their search would look something like this:   If you’re more like Chris and decide "cat noises" is what you’re into, type it in and it will look like this…   (Someone please ask Chris why he is always typing this in the Search bar.) It amazes me every time that we even have search results for the most obscure keywords! This is where Google Site Search becomes a great tool. If we don’t have a tool that offers exactly what you are looking for, we bring in Google results that mention whatever you are seeking. Users can also change how the results are displayed, depending on the types of entries they are looking for, making each search a unique experience. Each search can be sorted by Relevancy, Product Name or Description as well as Vendor Name or Description or Powered by Scorm.com (that’s us!) Pretty cool, huh? We think so too. Filter Options Who has time to search through the thousands of entries we have available on the Atlas? For the more discriminating Atlas user, have we got news for you. You can filter the results for exactly what you are looking for. Just select the options that are most important to you, anything from Product Type, Installation or even by tags, we have over 100 to choose from. You really can have it your way, so give it a whirl! This ain’t your Grandma’s map We have been saying since before we started the Atlas, that we were going to ‘map’ the eLearning industry and we’ve done just that. Literally, we made a map. You can now see that eLearning isn’t just concentrated in one region, it is spread across the entire globe. We have companies representing every corner of the world, minus Antarctica of course. So take a look, see who is in your neck of the woods. Just click Browse the Map on the Atlas homepage.

The best company you can have, in a strange place, is a map. -MacGyver I’ve seen every episode of MacGyver… most more than twice. When thinking about the best way for users to get what they want out of our eLearning Atlas, MacGyver’s advice came to mind. As each of you will undoubtedly recall in "The Gauntlet," the opening sequence has Mac stealing the bad-guy’s evil-plan-map. Without a weapon at hand, he fashions the map into various tools to aid his escape. He finds no fewer than five ways to use the map, getting away unscathed and saving the day. I’ll never skip an opportunity to watch MacGyver, here’s the clip: [sniplet macguyver]   While escaping, Mac explains, The great thing about a map, it can get you in and out of places in a lot of different ways. That’s the great thing about the eLearning Atlas, it can get you to the right solution, in a lot of different ways. In no real order, here are some quick ways to fashion our map into a useful tool: Moodle: There are plenty of products and services built around the platform. This is a good example of how our tags quickly point towards a group of products. Rustici customers: We often get asked to provide a list of our customers. Until now, we really didn’t have a list to point people to. While not all the products using our software behind the scenes want to be known, this search gives you a good look at the many places you can find our stuff. You can find our stuff in all sorts of places, here are the commercially available products that fit in the Atlas. Use any of these knowing you have the best SCORM support available (That’s my biased opinion… I’m a paid representative). LMS products powered by SCORM Engine: SCORM Engine is behind the scenes of LMSs everywhere. Products that use SCORM Driver to create content: Some of the best content out there is made with SCORM Driver. Products running SCORM Cloud: Our API allows companies to use our scalable SaaS product to handle the deployment of courses. iOS: Check out all the entries that are taking learning to the iPad and iPhone. By selecting a tag and adding keywords, you can find specific products quickly. Cloud-based solutions: We’re not the only ones building learning solutions in the cloud. Facebook: I’ve discussed it before, Facebook is a cool place to learn. Here’s a place to start seeing how others have begun to use the tool for learning. Collaborative Authoring: Want to work together to create a course? This list combines a tag with a product type to display Authoring Tools that can be used in a team environment. Have you MacGyver-ed the Atlas in ways I haven’t thought of? Leave a comment and share. As we point out at the bottom of every page on the eLearning Atlas, we mess up sometimes. If we’ve mixed up some tags or need to optimize a few entries to make sure they land on the right custom search, let me know. As any fan knows, MacGyver episodes always end with a parting piece of advice. In this sequence Mac concludes with, Just goes to show ya, a good map will always get you where you want to go. I couldn’t agree more.

Brought to you by SCORM.com, the e-learning standards experts.It’s the start of a new year and almost impossible to escape the idea of resolving to do something different (travel more!), better (exercise everyday!), or not at all (no more pizza!). Given our love of cookies and ice cream, chances are slim that diets are high on anyone’s list around here. So rather than focus on deleting things from our daily lives, we’ll take the ‘do something better’ angle. First up in 2012 is adding some new features to SCORM Cloud. SCORM Cloud does many things, but at its core, it delivers training. Until now, you could import courses, share them with learners and track the results. SCORM Cloud even lets you send your content to another LMS (but that’s another story). We thought it would be kind of cool to include a couple of tools that let you add SCORM content within SCORM Cloud. Check out what we came up with: ScoTube- -Want to use video in your training? ScoTube automagically wraps your video with all of the SCORMy stuff needed. You can use a video from YouTube, or upload your own video file. Either way, one click delivers a SCORM course that’s ready to play in SCORM Cloud. We’ll even let you export it to use outside of SCORM Cloud, if you really want to. Quizzage- Need an easy-to-use tool that creates simple quizzes and surveys? Quizzage is just that. Create your questions (there are 5 types to pick from), set your scoring and learner feedback options, and you’re ready to go. You can deliver your quizzes right from SCORM Cloud. Or even export them from SCORM Cloud if you must. So far, I have created quite a training curriculum for my friends and family- "How to Wash a Cat", "Cha Cha Slide 101", "Playing the Ukelele" and "Mastering Flip Turns". Feel free to check them- just click on any of the titles, to go right to the training. I also thought it might be fun to build a quiz to test your knowledge on some of the cool things SCORM Cloud can do. Try it here and see what you know. Want to give it a try? Just go over to SCORM Cloud. In less than 5 minutes you can build your courses and even share them with your learners. And since it’s through SCORM Cloud, you can even build your own and try it out for free. Brought to you by SCORM.com, the e-learning standards experts.

When SCORM Cloud outages happen, we drop everything until service is restored. A few of us go into "let the world know that we’re working on it" mode, and the SCORM Cloud developers glue their eyes to their screens and wrists to their desks until the outage is resolved. That’s what happened yesterday. SCORM Cloud relies on a few third-party systems to do what it does. Yesterday, a problem was exposed by an outage of one of these systems and SCORM Cloud services were unreliable for about an hour. Typically if a server is unavailable, it will send a "server unavailable" message that we handle appropriately and with no SCORM Cloud outages. Yesterday, the server wasn’t sending anything to SCORM Cloud, not even a "server unavailable" message. We didn’t have anything in place to handle this particular instance, so SCORM Cloud kept trying to connect to the server, opening too many connections and causing failures. We now have code in place so that if the server ever stops responding again, SCORM Cloud will handle it as a "server unavailable" situation — one that we can handle with no problems at all. Our developers don’t have any direct control over how others handle their servers and systems so we can’t directly prevent errors. What we can do (and what we’ve done) is make it so that SCORM Cloud is able to handle a wider range of errors. This translates to more SCORM Cloud up time. If you ever need to see the status of SCORM Cloud (including up time data,) check out our Cloud Status page. You can also follow @SCORMCloud on Twitter for SCORM Cloud news and updates.

We’re hiring a Juggler. No, we don’t need circus skills, but we do need somebody who can keep a lot of balls in the air. Project Tin Can is generating an enormous amount of opportunity and we need somebody to help us keep moving it forward. The job involves bits of product management, project management, sales, marketing and entrepreneurship. We’re also looking for one or two more developers. Start here if you’re interested.

Birthdays are fun around Rustici Software. We all get ice cream- and not just a scoop from a big bucket of vanilla or chocolate. Each person gets to order their very own combination from Cold Stone Creamery (shameless product placement for free ice cream). Given the choice, we each end up with a cup custom made just for each of us. Whether it’s Mike’s Cookie Doughn’t You Want Some™ with Cake Batter ice cream, or Jena’s choice (which usually entails her picking out some of the toppings she ordered), it’s a personalized cup that has the flavors and toppings for each taste. We like to offer the same choices to our customers too. We understand that one platform does not suit everyone. That’s why we built many SCORM Cloud integrations- to meet different tastes and needs. Some flavors we offer include WordPress, Google Apps, Moodle, and now Drupal. The newest addition to the line up, the SCORM Cloud Drupal integration, is one that we are particularly excited about. The module is the result of a collaborative effort between a driven client, a knowledgeable developer within the Drupal community, and our own SCORM Cloud experts. Much like Cold Stone, Drupal offers endless customization options with over 2,000 modules to pick from, letting you build a site that meets all of your needs. You have probably seen Drupal in action as it runs millions of sites, including my favorite, The Onion. Looking for a way to sell access to your courses hosted on SCORM Cloud? The Ubercart module in Drupal offers shopping cart capabilities that now make this a reality. Want to customize the SCORM Cloud player? You can apply your own style sheet through the Content Creation Kit (CCK). Don’t see what you’re looking for? Reach out to the active Drupal community to develop even more functionality. Since we can’t share our ice cream tradition with you (as much as we’d love to), we can offer more flavors of SCORM Cloud. Don’t see your flavor listed here? Just ask us- the combinations are endless.

Over a year ago, we started working with ADL to figure out where SCORM should go next. There were many roads that ADL could have gone down, and they’ve chosen ours — Project Tin Can. We’ve been building and refining the Tin Can spec and our prototypes for a while now, and it’s time for you to see what we’ve been doing. It’s also time for you to share your thoughts on Project Tin Can with ADL and find out how you can contribute. You’re all invited to join ADL on Thursday, April 5 at 2:30pm ET for the Project Tin Can kick off meeting. You can join right from your computer. Sign up here. You can count on hearing our voices there, too. ADL will be sharing details about Tin Can, the schedule for release, and many other things as well. If you want to get started before then (or just want to talk shop,) email us at tincan@scorm.com. We’re happy to help you become an early adopter of Project Tin Can.

When it comes to getting something for free, I’ll do just about anything. Last summer, we had a new ice cream store open in East Nashville. The night before they "officially" opened, they were offering free ice cream. I stood in line for close to 2 hours in 90 plus degree weather in June for two scoops of ice cream. It was by far the most delectable ice cream I had ever eaten, but ice cream none the less. You may think that’s a bit extreme but I like to think of it as getting a good deal. Helps me sleep at night, anyways. We really like you, so we’ve decided to give you something pretty awesome for FREE and you don’t have to stand in line or do anything crazy for it. All you have to do is agree not to make money from it. Deal? We’ve recently released SCORM Driver, free for non-commercial use. You heard right! You can now convert your courses to SCORM and AICC for free. That means there will be more really conformant SCORM and AICC content packages in the world, which makes us really happy. Put simply, SCORM Driver wraps your content in SCORM (or AICC) and allows it to work in practically any LMS. The only thing that we ask of you in return is that you only use the free version of SCORM Driver for non-commercial purposes. Wondering what we mean by non-commercial? Check this out. To get started, check out the Quickstart Guide, and download SCORM Driver from the Add Content page in SCORM Cloud. Then you are on your way making some awesome SCORM conformant courses. If you have questions along the way, let us know. We’ll do our best to answer them. Want to use your courses commercially? No problem, we’ll just need to talk about licensing.

There are so many super cool EdTech startups right now. The list goes on and on, and nearly every one of them is making a tragic mistake, a mistake that corporate LMSs and content vendors made about 15 years ago. Nearly every EdTech company seems to believe that they can live in isolation. EdTech companies must find a way to share data and experiences and content and workflows. APIs are great, and most of this new breed do have an API, but it’s completely impractical to expect that these companies will build to suit each and every distinct API for sharing experiences and data, etc. When Aspen goes from 5th grade to 6th grade, will her experiences in elementary school follow her? When Amelia dominates Princess Math on Saturday morning, will her teacher know that she’s mastered single digit addition on Monday morning? Will the state of California be able to take their students’ history and granular experiences with them when they’re forced to buy a less expensive student management system? It’s time for EdTech to embrace a shared language for communicating these experiences, and you better believe I have the right answer for them. The post EdTech’s Big Mistake appeared first on SCORM - .