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SCORM Offline Player

1 Description

People would have more time for e-learning if they do not have to be always online to run a learning module. ILIAS leaerning modules could be exported as HTML files and opened in a browser without being connected to the WWW. But this does not work with SCORM learning modules. Therefore an offline player for SCORM modules would be helpful.
 
A SCORM offline player (SOP) has to support
  1. playing a SCORM 2004 learning module without being connected to the web
  2. storing tracking data that has been generated while using the module offline
  3. synchronising tracking data after the user has been reconnected to ILIAS
The SOP would not be an integrated part of ILIAS but a proper application that can be connected to an ILIAS installation. While this application could base on a customised browser, ILIAS itself would only be extended by a SOP connector and a few information about offline use and synchronisation.

2 Status

3 Additional Information

  • If you want to know more about this feature, its implementation or funding, please contact: Matthias Kunkel

4 Discussion

JF 17 Sep 2012: We appreciate this application and support the implementation of a corresponding interface in ILIAS for 4.4. Please provide a proposal for the interface.

Stefan Schneider 22.09.2012: the basic sop component may be a xulrunner application which can be deployed as firefox extension and standalone executable (bundled with scorm courses for dvd / cd deployment?). We should discuss the kind of the interface. A special application protocol "sop://" may be detected by the firefox extension and handle the request to play any imported scorm course or import / export of the scorm course data.
The pros of a protocol based interface:
  • export or import of tracking data can be provided directly in ILIAS as special url in an authenticated user context.
  • no ilias container or authentication must be displayed and handled by a special offline player GUI.
  • the main buisiness logic wil be handled by sop
  • in ilias we just need a (REST) interface for handle the data import / export (lean interface)
The implementation of a special protocol handler in xulrunner / firefox extension should not be a problem. The sop component should be a javascript module (sop.jsm) with full access to the filesystem via XPCOM, but we should only use the profile container of the sop application.

JF 29 Apr 2013: We shortly discussed the SCORM offline player today, especially the export/import of tracking data. The existing tracking data import feature confuses the users. We should re-design this feature and support a real import of tracking data as needed by the offline player. The main goal of the current import feature is to set single learning progress status for learners (e.g. status to passed) manually by tutors. This feature should be implemented in another way. We will continue to discuss the offline player and related features during its development.

5 Follow-Up

Feature description: http://www.ilias.de/docu/goto_docu_blog_3439_174.html

Kohnle, Uwe [ukohnle], 09 OCT 2020: As mentioned already at the Advisory Board 2019 the ILIAS SCORM-Offline-Player depends on the deprecated web-caching technology "AppCache".
Fortunately most browsers did support the AppCache for a long time (Chrome < 85, currrent Firefox Version 81). The only valuable alternative technology for offline storage is the ServiceWorker Cache-API. After consultation with Alex Killing who is actually leading the Elaboration of the "Concept ILIAS Offline" a service worker implementation might be available soonest in ILIAS 8. Until then the usage of the SCORM-Offline-Player must be restricted to limited browser versions.
The already implemented AppCache feature detection should be extended with current compatibility informations.
The TestCases can be performed with a still functional Firefox version 81.

JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe], 12 OCT 2020 : Thanks for pointing us on this general problem of browser support. We recommend to add a short notice in the releases notes of the currently maintained releases that notifies user that the SOP works only with a selected number of Fireforx browsers. Also a mail to the admin list is highly appreciated. In addition, we support the efforts to change the underlying code of the SOP and use service workers once and in case they are introduced with ILIAS 8.

Last edited: 17. Apr 2025, 15:00, Kunkel, Matthias [mkunkel]