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When SCORM modules are imported into TRACCESS for a task, a SCORM reference object is created under the target task. This object contains many properties, a few for defining how SCORM status relates to task status, and the majority for defining how the module is launched. The launch properties, contained in the ”r;Package Launch Properties” category of the property inspector, are provided by the third party application that TRACCESS uses for running SCORM modules. The effect (or lack thereof) of these properties can vary widely depending the settings of other properties and the modules themselves. When a module is imported, many of these properties are automatically set depending on how the module was created.
This document highlights some of the key properties and describes how they can be used to optimize the presentation of a SCORM module.
When SCORM modules are launched the two main components that come into play are the Player and the SCOs.
The Player consists of various tools for navigating through the module:
Course Structure: A menu in the form of a tree that displays the various SCOs in the course and their current status. This can be configured with the following properties:
Show Course Structure &endash; Whether or not to use the course structure. Setting this to false can be useful for freeing up content space.
Course Structure Starts Open &endash; Whether or not the course tree is initially shown or not.
Course Structure Width &endash; The width, in pixels, to use when displaying the course structure.
Status Display &endash; Affects how the checkboxes show completion and success status. When the ”r;Combined” option is used, both Completion and Success status are shown as two columns of checkboxes. Completion is on the left and Success is on the right (see the Controlling Behavior/ Status Rollup section for an explanation of the status types).
Enable Choice Navigation &endash; turn on/off navigation through the course using the Course Structure. When false, all links in the course structure are disabled.
Navigation Bar: At the top of the player there are a series of controls used for navigating through the course. Aspects of the navigation bar can be set using the following properties:
Show Navigation Bar &endash; Whether or not to show the navigation bar.
Show Help &endash; turn on/off the Help link in the navigation bar.
Show Finish &endash; turn on/off the exit options: ”r;Close Item” and ”r;Return to TRACCESS CI”.
Enable Flow Navigation &endash; turn on/off the previous and next buttons.
SCOs typically represent a section of a course but can be designed to contain the entire course. They may contain their own internal navigation system, separate from the one provided by the player. Depending on what the SCOs provide, one may wish to enable/disable various Player controls so that the Player and SCOs best compliment each other.
One of the first decisions that should be made is whether or not to launch a module in a new window or to embed the course in the browser window provided by TRACCESS.
New Window:
Two windows will be open for a course.
The size of the window wrapping the module can be configured to fit the course content.
Embed in Frameset:
Only a single window is open for a course.
The windows size cannot be automatically set (although it can be resized by the user).
There are two properties for specifying if a module appears in a new window or not (an option also exists for a new window without the browser toolbar in both cases):
Player Launch Type &endash; Specifies if the Player is launched in a new window or embedded in the browser window provided by TRACCESS.
SCO Launch Type &endash; Specifies if the individual SCOs should be launched in new windows or embedded in the same window as the Player.
If one wants everything to appear in a single window then both of the above properties should be set to Frameset.
To utilize a new window only one of the above properties needs to be set to New Window. Which property to set depends on both preference and the structure of the course. If one wants to use the navigation provided by the Player while retaining control over the player size, it is probably best to set the Player Launch Type. However, if the course consists of a single SCO that contains all of its own navigation controls, the Player controls are not that useful and so the SCO Launch Type should be set. Typically when launching the SCOs in their own window it is awkward to use the Player navigation controls since the Player window is left in the background; therefore, it is probably best to turn off the Course Structure and Navigation Bar components (see The SCORM Player and SCOs / SCORM Player).
Please Note: Experience has shown that modules setup for dynamic import into TRACCESS tend to work best with the SCO Launch Type set to New Window.
Often a module is launched with a default size that is too small to fit the content without scrollbars. If the module has been configured to launch in a new window (player or SCO, see ”r;Frameset Versus New Window” above) then the window size can be adjusted using the following properties:
Desired Height &endash; The height that the browser should attempt to display at.
Desired Width &endash; The width that the browser should attempt to display at.
Desire Full Screen &endash; Set the browser window to full screen mode.
The Required Height, Required Width, and Required Full Screen properties specify the dimensions that the course must have in order to work properly. If these sizes cannot be achieved a warning message is given.
In addition, the sizing of the window can be taken out of the users hands by setting Prevent Window Resize to true.
There are a couple of general categories of course behavior that can be controlled with properties: SCO exit behavior and status rollup.
When a SCO is completed there is a series of actions that can be performed. Different actions can be set for the final SCO and intermediate SCOs, where the Final SCO is the last SCO in the module and Intermediate SCOs are all of the other SCOs. The related properties take the form ”r;Final Not/Satisfied&ldots;” and ”r;Intermediate Not/Satisfied&ldots;” respectively. In general these properties can be set to exit the course, proceed to the next SCO, or display a message.
In SCORM there are two types of status: Completion and Success. These statuses are recorded in TRACCESS and displayed as part of an Employee-Task’s properties. While a SCORM module is running the progress of these statuses can be seen in the columns of checkboxes within the Player’s Course Structure (see The SCORM Player and SCOs/ SCORM Player/ Status Display).
Completion Status:
Whether or not the module has been completed. Values are Complete, Incomplete, Unknown, and Reset. Reset is a special case where the course status has been reset by a supervisor. Properties that manipulate completion status are as follows:
Status Rollup Mode &endash; How the completion status is determined.
Status Rollup: Threshold Score for Completion - Used in conjunction with a Status Rollup Mode of ”r;Complete When Threshold Score is Met”.
Success Status:
Whether or not the module was completed with a pass or fail. Values are Passed, Failed, and Unknown. Properties that manipulate success status are as follows:
Score Rollup Mode &endash; How the success status is determined.
Score Rollup: Number of Scoring Objects &endash; Used in conjunction with a Score Rollup Mode of ”r;Fixed Average”. Number of SCOs used in average.
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