SCORM is the most widely used standard for distance education. The model's implementation is based on a rather interesting event: In 1996, the American military was working on different training methods to educate its personnel. The goal was to provide training in various disciplines to military personnel. Initially, face-to-face in-service training sessions began within the military. However, a problem arose: it was challenging to train military personnel due to the nature of their duties. Because of this, they abandoned the in-service training method and decided to switch to distance education.

Tenders were issued, and the distance education proposals were evaluated. The results showed that each company offering a proposal developed independent content. Furthermore, the problematic part was that the developed content only worked on the Learning Management System (LMS) of the company that created it. Recognizing this was not a functional method, the Department of Defense immediately initiated a study. They decided to bring a standard that would unify Learning Management Systems on common grounds. In short, we call this standard, created to ensure that distance education systems can work together and exchange content, SCORM.

What Does SCORM Offer Us?

Durability: For example, if the technology changes and you switch to a new LMS system, you can easily upload and use your content on the new system. Portability: The content can be transferred between SCORM-supported systems. Reusability: SCORM-compliant content can be used in other modules, although this feature is rarely used in practice. Interoperability: The content continues to work the same way when transferred from one system to another. However, unfortunately, this feature does not always work as envisioned. Accessibility: Content can be accessed and shared from multiple locations.

SCORM stands for Sharable Content Object Reference Model.

It is a global standard in content packaging, with SCORM 2004 3rd Edition currently active since its inception in 1997. Although a great vision was set, some challenges were encountered.

Because:

• It offers a static data model, has problematic multi-user support, lacks functional concurrency, has issues with discrete content definitions, and most importantly, it has the "Lost Transaction" issue.
• Too much data is written to many tables, requiring high-performance systems in multi-user environments.
• According to Pareto's principle, while 99% of the work involves watching videos and answering questions, there are 1,500 commands in the background! Using table structures with so many commands impacts performance.
• Until recently, it only worked on browsers, lagging in mobile technologies. Developing game-based content with this technology was somewhat more challenging.

To address these issues, a new generation of SCORM was developed: ADLNet.gov. But it was somewhat delayed, and at the same time, browser and mobile technologies kept evolving. HTML5 has become the web standard.

Our most significant issues with SCORM:

• It significantly prolongs the content packaging process (it has a complex structure), resulting in a lengthy testing process.
• Errors can occur with browser version changes.
• There may be tracking issues due to users' different systems.
• A temporary solution added a "complete training" button to LMS platforms. However, this undermines users' trust in the system and hinders engagement.
• We believe SCORM could seriously hinder the development of e-learning if not used carefully! So, what's the solution?

Using a simple and streamlined structure, tracking information should be sent to and read from the LMS at the component level, not at the training level. This way, the content and LMS remain tightly integrated, and if the connection is lost, the course flow stops immediately! This ensures that systems work flawlessly and with high performance at a low cost, providing a fast data flow. Note that it takes time to open a SCORM-based training package, sometimes taking 8-12 seconds.