The purpose of Content Packaging is to provide a standardized way to exchange digital learning resources between different systems or tools.

Assets, SCOs, and Content Aggregations are typically composed of multiple files that must be kept together to work properly. One of the best examples is a series of web pages. A web page is often composed of multiple files—graphics, scripts, style sheets and the HTML file itself. A series of web pages would also contain links between the pages. If pages are missing, the link goes nowhere. If graphics or related files are missing, there will be big gaps in the information. It is essential that all these “assets” be kept together or the web pages won’t work and no learning can occur.

In addition to the files themselves, a content package may also contain a manifest, a file that details what’s in the package and in some cases also suggests a preferred organization of the content.

Finally, the SCORM specifies archiving methods to keep all the files together so they can easily be moved between systems or stored.