We’ve been slaving away on our SCORM Engine 2009.1 release around here and John stumbled upon something pretty exciting yesterday. I thought I’d go ahead and share it…

Mind you, these are anecdotal, but fairly representative, numbers.

We often use some old Photoshop courses, provided by ADL, to do some of our testing come release time (in addition to everything in the test suite, and our automated tests). John was using the IE profiler to see how some sequencing/logging enhancements he’d made would affect performance…

  • Prior to the enhancement, launching Photoshop Linear was taking 1.25 seconds of javascript processing time. Afterward? 0.17 seconds.
  • Prior to the enhancement, clicking the “next” button took 2.18 seconds of javascript processing time. Afterward? 0.24 seconds.

Our look ahead sequencer is already one of the distinguishing factors of our SCORM Engine. It allows us to avoid server round trips where most LMSs require them, thereby improving the learner’s experience. At the pace it ran in 2008.1, it was already vastly better than most LMSs. Now, it’s running 7 – 9 times faster.

We’d been intending to hold 2009.1 until ADL was ready to test it. We’re getting tired of waiting, so we’re going to release before the testing opens. Watch for further news of the release here.

Tim is the chief innovation and product officer with our parent company LTG, though he used to be CEO here at Rustici Software. If you’re looking for a plainspoken answer to a standards-based question, or to just play an inane game, Tim is your person.