Posts by Mike Rustici

Mike is the Founder and was President of Rustici Software until 2016. Most recently he was the CEO of Watershed Systems. He helped guide the first draft of the Tin Can API (xAPI) and believes ice cream is the "elixir of life."

SCORM.com

What to Expect When You’re Showing (or not showing)

Having a three month old at home, I fully expect everybody else out there to get this title's play on the classic pregnancy book "What to Expect When You're Expecting" (that has made every expectant mother in the last twenty years worried sick). But, I'm…

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Remediation is hard part 2 – If ____ then skip

ProblemWhen remediating after a retry sequencing request, you often want to skip sections that were previously satisfied or perhaps attempted. A common case might be a pretest that can only be attempted once or a SCO that doesn't have to be retaken if previously mastered.…

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SCORM Stats

Curious about the adoption of SCORM 2004, I recently conducted an informal study of the packages uploaded to SCORM Test Track. Here's what I looked at and what I concluded. SCORM Versions I first looked at the distribution of SCORM versions over time. The data…

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SCORM.com

Remediation Is Hard – Part 1

Retry All Resets Everything Many SCORM 2004 sequencing strategies require remediation upon failure. These strategies often call for only material which was not previously mastered to be required on subsequent attempts. The most straightforward approach to implementing such a strategy would call for storing mastered…

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SCORM 2004 XSD Files

I recently completed development of a rather complex SCORM 2004 sequencing template for use by the Army in ATSC and TRADOC. It was working great in several environments, but imagine my surprise when it wouldn't pass validation against the XML schemas. A long investigation turned…

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SCORM Crossroads

I just returned from the ADL Technical Working Group meeting where we tried to set forth a road map for the future of SCORM. With the stabilization of SCORM 2004 and the transition of SCORM stewardship to LETSI, there was lots to talk about and…

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Sequencing Tidbit #2 – Redundancies

"Redundancies"....There's got to be a great quote from Office Space that should go here, but 30 seconds on Google didn't turn it up, so sorry, no snappy quip to start the morning.Because "Not Ain't Always Not" in SCORM 2004 sequencing and navigation, people tend to…

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Sequencing Tidbit #2 – Not Ain’t Always Not

"It depends on what your definition of not isn't"Us programmer geeks have a very well defined preconceived notion of what "not" means. If I say: var person = Pick_A_Random_Person_Off_The_Street(); if ( NOT ( person.Thinks_Mike_Is_Cool() ) ) then     print "mike is lame" else     print "holy cow"…

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Tidbit #1: Post Condition Rules

SCORM 2004 Sequencing Tidbits #1: Post Condition Rules are a bit counter-intuitive on aggregationsSequencing post condition rules are only evaluated when an activity is "exited"....well, duh, right? Wrong. "Exited" is a particular term in SCORM 2004 sequencing and navigation. When the current activity ends, it…

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SCORM 2004 Sequencing Tidbits

SCORM 2004 provides a powerful language for controlling sequencing and navigation between SCOs. As with any deep specification, it can take a little getting used to. When you've been working with it for a while, you sometimes forget all those little stumbling blocks you overcame…

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