SCORM Cloud

Very few things impress me, especially product claims or services. Often times, you get excited thinking it will be diamonds only to realize it is glass.

Well, ladies and gentlemen – I just found DIAMONDS.

SCORM Cloud is a product that has the possibility to be a game changer in the e-learning industry. I’m not just talking the standard verbiage here, I’m talking “shout for joy”!

When I heard about this solution, I was figuring this was going to be another – yeah, uh huh, right product.  But it wasn’t and more importantly, it isn’t.  What it is though, is something that will rock your foundation and can turn the LMS world standing on their head, because now you can become your own learning SCORM compliant system.

No matter where you are, no matter what you are – portal, learning community, LMS/LCMS (open source), group, web page with links, API integrated solution, etc.

SCORM Cloud

What if you could take any course, regardless of your authoring tool, upload it on the “cloud” and have it go where you go, no matter where that is, no matter what type of solution it is? No longer being tied down to a proprietary based solution. Cool, huh?  Well, that is where SCORM Cloud comes into play, and it does it with vengeance.

Capabilities

• Ability to upload SCORM compliant courses into the “cloud”
• Launch courses from within the SCORM Cloud with reporting features built into the “cloud”  (DEPLOY & REPORT)
  
• Can download your SCORM courses from the “cloud” to go into your LMS/LCMS (open source/vendor or proprietary – hosted on your own server – behind your firewall, on your vendor’s server or on any server on the net or wherever)
• Ability to take SCORM compliant courses, including SCORM 2004 from a portal, online learning community, social learning platform or solution, a group, whatever
  
• Can test your course content to verify that it is SCORM 2004 compliant   (TEST)
  
• Integrate into application, future web services possibilities
• Offers a mod for Moodle and soon to be released plug-in for WordPress
• Works with any rapid e-learning authoring tool, plus Dreamweaver or any other web course solution – you create the course, zip it with the SCORM wrapper and upload it into the cloud
• Push – Pull, so you launch from the “cloud” and receive reporting functionality from people who take your courses from anywhere OR it can pull course data from your open source LMS/LCMS and push back data to your open source LMS/LCMS with reports built within the “plug-in or module”.
  

Moodle

SCORM Cloud offers a module which can installs in less than 10 minutes and enables SCORM 2004 compliant courses to work in Moodle. It is the only solution that exists out there that works and has been verified.

WordPress

In a few weeks, SCORM cloud will enable end users to download a plug-in which will turn WordPress into a LMS. Of course, you will need additional plug-ins to create a full robust LMS, but you will have the ability to launch SCORM 2004 courses and some nice reporting from within WordPress.  This is the WordPress.org, which requires you to have your own server on the net – hosted – example Godaddy.com, behind a firewall.

The power of this version of WordPress, is that you can add a lot of plug-ins to create social learning & social media offerings, plus much more.

As far as the Mind can Go

Anywhere, anytime you can launch a course from within SCORM Cloud.  Think about that for a moment, and its infinite possibilities. With the power to use APIs, which SCORM Cloud offers, the world of e-learning can explode into a multitude of solutions, with you leading the way, and not the vendor.

Think social media.  Linkedin? Yep.  Twitter? Yep.  Any social networking site? Yep.  Any social media site or web solution that accepts APIs?  Yep.  It is all possible, not yet though. But down the road, and it is not because SCORM Cloud doesn’t have the capabilities or features, rather it is because of the sites themselves.

Linkedin & Facebook

If you wanted to have a Linkedin private group where people at your company could take courses you uploaded in the SCORM Cloud and you would have some reporting functions, then yes, it can be done, but you could not create a LMS within Linkedin.

Facebook? Same thing, but  as a bonus you can enable Facebook to become a LMS, albeit limited due to Facebook’s capabilities.

Your e-learning or web portal? Yes.   Learning Community. Ditto.  A group page you have on your site? Sure! Intranet site.. hmmm, yessss!  Why??  Because the courses you have uploaded are in the “cloud” and can be launched from the “cloud”. Remember, test, deploy, report! All available from within SCORM Cloud.

Is it Safe? Secure? My own Access to my courses?

Yes, to all the above.

Go Live:

June 7, 2010

Pricing:

Will be based on the number of courses you upload.

Bottom Line:

Rarely does a product come along that you can honestly say, has the potential to be a legitimate game changer.  Rarely, can you say to yourself, I have seen the future and I like it.

Well,  I like it.

Company: Rustici Software Public beta is available on May 21st, 2010. You can sign-up for the trial.

This review was with the beta of their new solution: which has a new User Interface, plus capabilities – testing, deploy, report, etc., which you can view on May 21 and is not any previous version.

Currently on their site:

Dashboard and API. Perfect for Moodle and Sakai users who can download the mod/plug-in and run it against their application.   You can start to create another application against SCORM Cloud using the older version, which I did not review.