ILIAS-Blog

The possibility to learn wherever and whenever you want is a big advantage of e-learning. Unfortunately, you need continous internet access to use the learning content on your LMS. But this time is over now with ILIAS 4.4 because this new major release of ILIAS offers an integrated SCORM offline player which allows you to run a SCORM 1.2 or 2004 learning module without being online.

The SCORM offline player has been developed for the French Navy to support e-learning on ships and at locations that have no access to the intranet of the French Armed Forces. The concept and workflow is quite easy to understand:

1. A SCORM 1.2 or 2004 learning module on an ILIAS installation shall be offered for offline use, too [1].
2. A user that might have already started the SCORM module decides to continue it in offline mode – e.g. because there will no internet access in the next days.
3. ILIAS checks if the computer has already installed the Firefox extension "ILIAS SCORM Offline Player" that is necessary to run a SCORM module offline and store all tracking data.
   • In case this extension is already installed, the learning module will be downloaded and the SCORM offline manager of this Firefox extension is storing the learning module and all tracking data.
   • In case the user has no SOP installed already, ILIAS is offering this Firefox extension for download.
4. Our user can now run the learning module in the browser, make quizzes and complete SCOs without having internet access. During the entire offline use of a learning module all tracking data is stored in the Offline Manager. In the meantime, the online version of the module is blocked for this particular user to avoid divergent learning progress data.
5. Once our user has internet (or intranet) access again, she or he can enter ILIAS, call this specific learning module and synchronise the tracking data. As soon as this is finished, the offline version is blocked and the online version can be used again.

The SCORM offline player can be used on laptops with all major operation systems. Additionally, tablets with Android 4.0 and higher are supported as well. As the SOP requires a Firefox browser on the divice, it cannot be used on iPads.