Different recipes for different results

Content Aggregations are the “recipes” of SCORM content. They contain a list of the ingredients you’ll need (assets and/or SCOs), and state how they should be combined to fill a certain need. Creating different combinations of SCOs and assets allows some of the same ingredients to fill different needs.

To make this analogy even more tasty, let’s take a look at recipes for S’Mores and chocolate marshmallow pie with graham cracker crumb crust — from a SCORM perspective.

To make S’Mores, you need chocolate, marshmallows and graham crackers. These “culinary SCOs” came to you ready-made. All you had to do was combine them in the right order. Sure you could make your own marshmallows and graham crackers, but it is easier and better to buy them. This “Content Aggregation” is like a lesson you assemble from SCOs produced elsewhere.

To make a chocolate marshmallow pie, you combine some of the same “culinary SCOs” (marshmallows, chocolate, Graham crackers) with additional ingredients, to produce a very different “content aggregation.”

In both cases, ultimately everything is made up of basic ingredients (assets) combined in different ways.

OK, let’s concentrate on the SCORM Content Model now. This is making me hungry.