We want creating applications with the SCORM Cloud to be exceptionally easy for you. Without further ado, I’d like to introduce you to the SCORM Cloud .NET Demonstration Application! (What a great name.) Head on over to our support portal and download the sample application (complete with the .NET client library). While you won’t be able to interact with the cloud until you request an app_id, you can at least check out how simple the code is. And from there, I trust, you’ll go ahead and request an app_id and start messing around with them. (Trust me, the cost for a developer app_id is very low right now…)

SCORM used to be binary, either you had it or you didn’t. But that’s not right. Let’s face it, in reality there are some good SCORM implementations and some, well, really bad SCORM implementations. Our new e-book will help you decide which is which. ADL avoided overly specifying exactly how developers should implement SCORM. This was a wise decision. It led to innovation and wide-spread adoption. But when this freedom was abused, it also led to incompatibilities, headaches and it even led some people to proclaim that SCORM sucks. We are, quite frankly, getting a little tired of people blaming the standard instead of holding their vendors accountable. ADL can’t and shouldn’t recommend specific vendors. Its position is that the market will reward the good and punish the bad. Free markets are great, but they are most effective when coupled with information. For a market to reward the good and punish the bad, its participants need the be able to effectively distinguish between what is good and what is bad. Up until now, there has been very little information to help purchasers distinguish between good SCORM and bad SCORM. That’s where "SCORM for RFPs" comes in. This new e-book provides at least 27 questions you can ask your LMS vendor about their SCORM implementation. It covers everything from the basics ("Are you actually SCORM certified?") to the technically advanced ("How is SCORM data exchanged between the client and server?"). This paper is meant to be a stake in the ground, a starting point to the discussion. It is our opinion of what constitutes a robust SCORM LMS implementation. We hope that others will have additional thoughts to add and we welcome debate about the points we have made. We have enabled comments on the e-book download page, please post your thoughts there for everybody to see. Don’t feel like reading the 33 page e-book, skim over our one page summary, or watch Susan cover the highlights: 7 critical questions to ask your LMS vendor about SCORM from Rustici Software on Vimeo.

We talk about living our company’s life publicly a fair amount… so we’re going to take another step in that regard here. We’re in the early stages of creating an add-on product… something that could sit on top of the SCORM Engine and/or the SCORM Cloud. Mike and I have heard too many times that reporting on SCORM data is "impossible" or "way too hard" or "useless". We don’t believe it for a second. Well, OK, we do acknowledge that it’s pretty difficult, but it seems to be a problem worth solving, so we’ve been putting our collective energies into it for the last couple of months. For the first "arc" of development on it, we’ve been entirely focused on the user experience. We want to be sure we’re creating something that is notably different from LMSs that disappoint and profoundly useful. Short of that, there’s not a lot of reason to commit the energy this will inevitably require. Without further adieu, we’d like to ask you to click around in our completely mocked up "reportage". (You’ll notice that the data doesn’t change and that many of the things that look clickable really aren’t. We’ll ask you for some contact information on the way in, but nothing more. We would love for you to dig into the reports and give us any and all feedback. If it sucks, tell us that. If it would be endlessly valuable to you, tell us that too. What are we missing? Are there views of the suggested data that would be more useful? Should we arrange the data differently? Is there something you want to know that isn’t there? If you’d like to check it out, check it out here.

(I’ve posted this in several places, but I really want all of our customers to see it. My apologies if you’ve already read it.) If you’re having any performance problems with the SCORM Engine, we have good solutions for you. This article in particular gives the details. These fixes are easy, fast, and reliable. And they have a substantial impact on performance for SQL Server customers in particular. Lastly, you may all feel free to mock me for the fact that our "optimized" option is, in fact, slower than our "non-optimized" option in many circumstances. (Whereas the "Ask us anything" invitation on the website is sincere, please be so kind as to restrict your mocking of me to this particular topic. I don’t like to be seen crying at the office.)

Product evolution is a great thing. All of our products evolve, of course, but it takes an effort for our customers to include those evolutions. Yes, we make it very easy. But, successive releases of the SCORM Engine require that our customers download the new version, understand the release notes, apply it to their software, and deploy it to their customers. In reality, this means that some of our customers’ customers are just now seeing the benefit of our SCORM Engine 2008.1 release. It just takes time. The SCORM Cloud, of course, is a different beast. It’s run on a set of servers we control, and we’re able to very quickly evolve the product and release those changes into the wild. Today, we’ve introduced a couple of changes that might be useful for you. (For more specific details, visit our forums.) Skins: If you want the player to look like your own, now you can provide a CSS reference to control the look and feel. Redirection options: You’ve always been able to specify the destination on exit, now you can use a few built in options (like "close the window") Data Export: This is a big one. Your data is, well, your data. We’ve known that all along, we’ve just made it a lot easier for you to export that data. Lastly, we’ve introduced the SCORM Cloud console. As of this moment, you can create your own app_id (FREE for a trial), check on your usage, export your data, just about anything necessary to manage a Cloud account. We hope that you find the SCORM Cloud so useful that the paid accounts are appealing!

We’ve made a couple of changes to the SCORM Cloud Click Through Agreement. Basically, they couldn’t be less interesting, but we feel it’s important to be overt with these sorts of things. If you’re bored already, move right along. If not, the changes are as follows: PAYMENT 2. You will be billed on the day you elect to move to a paid account and subsequently on that day of each month. Why? Well, we didn’t want to charge you for Oct 1 - 27 if you opened your account on Oct 27. So, we just keep up with "your month" instead of "calendar months". 4. Overages will be charged for each registration over your chosen price plan tier in accordance with our pricing set forth on our website. Why? We wanted to offer the option of allowing for overages on your accounts. Some people will elect to block overages, and will receive a message indicating they’ve crossed the limit of their plan and can’t offer training anymore. Others will allow for overages, but they have to pay for the overages at month’s end. 5. All fees are exclusive of all taxes, levies, or duties imposed by taxing authorities and you shall be responsible for payment of all such taxes, levies or duties, if applicable. Why? 5 is the old 4. Nothing new here. But now there’s a 4, so this is a 5. Exciting. TERMINATION 2. If you cancel the Service before the end of your current paid up month, your cancellation may take effect immediately and you will not be charged again except for overages for the current month which will be charged at the end of that monthly period. Why? Since we added overages as a concept, we have to have the right to charge them after you cancel. We wouldn’t want you trying to take advantage of us, now would we? So, that’s it. Nothing too exciting here. We’ll continue to fight to keep this thing as short as we possibly can!

This was the idea all along. We wanted to solve a difficult problem, one that was unpleasant to everyone who looked at, and we wanted to solve it in a way that made it easier for them to use our solution than make their own. Dan Marsden’s thoughts on the SCORM Cloud + Moodle plugin make me feel like we’ve done exactly that. With the availability of the Rustici engine at an affordable price, the urgency for getting the SCORM module in Moodle SCORM 2004 compliant/certified has definately decreased. Context: Dan contributes a great deal to Moodle’s codebase, particularly in the area of the SCORM module. He knows his Moodle stuff and he knows his SCORM stuff. If you use Moodle and you’ve ever had cause to consider SCORM 2004, I think Dan’s message is pretty compelling. How would you get started? Moodle mod + directions available here. SCORM Cloud signup available here. Thanks to Dan for taking the time to check out our work. He offered some comments that are spot on, of course, and we’ve taken those to heart. We’ll release those changes later this week.

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"You want to work here." That’s how we’ve always begun our job postings, and we constantly strive to live up to that promise. Being a great place to work is at the essence of Rustici Software. Tim and I want to create a company that we enjoy working on everyday and where others are just as pleased. We think we’ve done a pretty darn good job, but we’re pleased to see that others agree. Last month, the Nashville Business Journal announced that it too thinks Rustici Software is one of Nashville’s Best Places to Work. So thank you NBJ. And thank you employees…it’s really easy to create a great company when you have a group of talented and driven folks making you look good!

We believe in being up front. Honesty. Transparency. Frankness. So we’re a bit disappointed that we won’t be joining you guys for some conferences this year. We could, but … well, we’d have to pay to be there. I’m not talking about the registration fee. I’m talking paying to be up on the stage. Yep. There were several conferences we looked at that were eager for us to speak - as long as we were willing to pay for the privilege. Whether we had something good to say wasn’t the criteria, and that just didn’t sit well with us. Kind of a switcharoo on those who want to hear from people of substance and not just those of means and opportunity. That kind of wheeling and dealing certainly doesn’t increase credibility for vendors who do take the stage. And hurts attendees by not focusing on what makes for good content first. Our call to conferences would be to cut the games and judge presentations on the fit for the audience first and foremost and only. (And for you, the attendees, to demand and expect that!) Understand, we’re not trying to whine about it… or whinny. We’re just sorry we won’t have as many opportunities to "spread the gospel" of learning standards and meet as many of you as we originally hoped. However, we will be able to catch you at a few places in the next few months: Learning Solutions - Not a speaking gig, but you can hook up with Mike next month in Orlando. e-Learning DevCon 2010 - Mike gets the really technical, heavy-lifting presentations. He’s got two at this conference, one talking about what to include about SCORM in an RFP for an LMS (based on his white paper) and a hands-on technical session showing how to take advantage of our open platform to develop modules and plugins and extensions that take learning anywhere. International Conference on e-Learning in the Workplace - Tim and I (or one or both) are scheduled to present here. Two sessions, one explaining SCORM in plain English (as plain as I can make it) and one looking at the kind of reporting you can get out of SCORM. Campus Technology 2010 - Mike will be in Boston for this one with a longer version of our SCORM in plain English presentation. Check him out on Wednesday afternoon (July 21) and be sure to ask a lot of questions. Got something specific you’d love to see us cover in a session? Let me know and we’ll make sure to answer it! (Well, OK, I’ll try to make sure it’s on the agenda. Can’t control what happens after that sometimes.) Going to be at the same conference? Definitely let us know because we love putting face/voices/reality to online connections.