A scorm odyssey: the University of Wisconsin's journey through standards has lessons for anyone about to embark on e-learning

T+D, August, 2002 by Bill Shackelford

The first ADL Co-Laboratory opened in 1999 in Alexandria, Virginia. A Co-Lab serving the academic community was established in 2000 on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Close contact with the ADL Co-Lab provides the University of Wisconsin Learning Innovations program the opportunity to participate in the Co-Lab's activities.

ADL's goals are to ensure that e-learning content is accessible, interoperable, durable, reusable, adaptable, and affordable. The efforts of UWLI will test whether those goals are achievable as people begin to embrace SCORM.

UWLI's CIO Mike Bestul created a SCORM taskforce to

* develop capacity to deliver SCORM-compliant content

* support a SCORM certification process

* develop the capability to deliver SCORM knowledge training and consulting.

The article goes on to describe UWLI's program in more detail.

Bill Shackelford is president, Shackelford & Associates, Chicago; bill@tarnhelm.net.

Bill Shackelford's first job was selling "found objects" door-to-door. "I discovered several cases of Tidy House paper place mats in my grandmother's cellar and sold them all in a matter of days."