Wrapping HTML content for LMS deployment
After searching in vain for wrappers for content that would allow me to take arbitrary HTML content and deploy it to our AICC LMS, I came upon this method using Toolbook (2004 SP3). Basically the steps are:
- create a Toolbook lesson containing a single page with a "Web Placeholder" catalog object on the page and a button to allow the user to control the exit conditions
- the target in the web placeholder should be a relative url (something like "../directory/here.htm" -- but because of a Toolbook 2004 bug it has to be modified anyway).
- export the content targeting the LMS you want
- add the content you want wrapped to the directory specified in the exported content hierarchy making sure the start page is the "here.htm" file
- modify the .js file in the appropriate browser export directories to remove the "http://" from the location(this is because of the bug mentioned earlier)
- if necessary to maintain SCORM integrity modify the imsmanifest.xml file (there are open source RELOAD based editors(for SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004) out there that allow manifest editing)
This should allow content to be installed, initiated and exited on LMS's (Toolbook supports export to AICC, SCORM 1.2, and SCORM 2004). The entry and exit are the only things tracked. I am not sure what happens if there is an attempt to include SCORM calls in the content (or if in fact content exported for SCORM LMS's works -- I have only tried on our AICC LMS).
Others on the Toolbook list have pointed out that media like .wmx audio/video files and .swf flash can be packaged similarly with no post intervention as Toolbook export handles the packaging automatically.
I have created an example and exported it for use as a framework. The example is exported for SCORM 1.2 (but should work also on AICC). All that is necessary is to add your content in the "wrappedcontent" directory, make sure the start url is "index.htm", modify the manifest (if you really want SCORM 1.2 content), package the result and install in your LMS. The example is available for download. You can of course modify and re-export using Toolbook following the same steps to get it looking and working the way you want.
