SCORM and chocolate

One way to understand Assets, SCOs and Content Aggregations is to think about graham crackers, marshmallows and chocolate.

No, not because food helps you think better — although for many, chocolate deficiency can definitely lead to suppressed brain function – it’s because recipes are a lot like content aggregations.

A recipe is a list of ingredients plus instructions for combining them in a specific order to produce a desired outcome.

A content aggregation is a list of assets and SCOs plus instructions for combining them in a specific order to produce a desired outcome.

A recipe may include both basic ingredients and pre-made combinations of ingredients. Basic ingredients are things like salt, butter and sugar. Graham crackers, marshmallows and chocolate are examples of pre-made combinations of ingredients.

Within the SCORM Content Model, think of assets as basic ingredients. Text, graphics, video and web pages are the flour, sugar, and butter of SCORM content.

SCOs are the marshmallows of SCORM content. They’re ready made using basic ingredients (assets), combined in a very specific way.