Tin Can – What SCORM Can’t
Tata Interactive Systems discusses how Tin Can may be the future of the e-Learning industry.
Say hello to Tin Can API, a new and improved version of SCORM that has the potential to open up a world of experiences in the field of learning. Tin Can makes tracking much more meaningful, and helps overcome several shortcomings of SCORM.
For starters, it recognizes the fact that learning happens through interactions with learning material, people and several other avenues. And it is not restricted to a browser.
Information that Tin Can tracks is relayed to an LRS – Learning Record Source. The LRS can exist within an LMS or independently, by itself. It is, simply put, a repository of learning records. SCORM has limitations to the kind and amount of data stored. Tin Can will help overcome these limitations.
What makes Tin Can better?
Tin Can is in sync with e-learning industry dynamics:
With Tin Can there is a possibility of tracking simulations, mobile learning, informal learning, experiential learning, social learning… This is much closer to how the learning industry is progressing beyond LMS enabled, web-based learning courses.
Tin Can is device agnostic, platform agnostic and delivers richer instructional experiences. These are just some of the features that indicate Tin Can’s potential for the future of e-Learning compliance.
Tin Can helps you record learning, as well as performance
Tin Can records learning in all forms – formal or informal. So from a youtube video that you watch to an interesting blog you come across, and which you certainly learn from, every bit of that learning is accounted for, thereby giving a truer picture of your learning interactions, over and above formal learning.
But where Tin Can truly surpasses SCORM in this context is when it records performance. Not only can it track what you have learnt, but it also has the potential to measure how the learning has impacted your performance, thus making calculation of ROI possible.
Tin Can makes data accessible
LRSs can share data with analytical tools, reporting tools and what more, with other LRSs. It’s almost like a stored record of every learning experience that has shaped your life so far! And you can move with a record of your learning experiences from a school to a university or to a corporate, thus making it possible for a learning/training program to be tailored for you and not imposed on you like a blanket plan.
With time, sophisticated reporting tools can help generate inferences and conclusions from the data which was erstwhile not possible.
What benefits accrue from adopting Tin Can?
1. You are not tied to a platform
You can access content from your tablet on the way to work, resume learning on your office computer and possibly take the rest of the course on your smartphone.
Intermittent network connectivity to an LRS will serve the purpose, continuous network connectivity is not mandatory. Tin Can thereby supports mobility in learning in true spirit.
2. Learning content need not be delivered only through an LMS
You are free to host content online or offline. Experiential learning, social learning and learning from non-conventional formats can now be keyed into a Learning Record Source. The LRS will hold records of your learning and achievements. Every course does not have to run on a single platform. Parts of a course can run on the learner’s mobile phone, the other chunks can be based on social learning for instance. Diverse sources can come together to deliver a single course, something that SCORM could never help us achieve.
3. Uninhibited use of the best technology possible
While SCORM compliance meant using certain browser based technologies, Tin Can totally liberates content authors to use the technology that can best deliver learning, and stay reassured that Tin Can would allow tracking. So if you think a mobile game, a serious game, or a simulation can explain a concept better, go ahead and create the learning from the learner’s point of view. Because Tin Can does not see these are obstacles in the process of tracking/recording.
4. Detailed tracking
With SCORM you can only track status of course completion. With Tin Can you can dig much deeper. You can track performance for parts of a course, spot problem areas, or areas where the learner is above average… Flexibility in reporting is truly possible with Tin Can.
5. Make learning dynamic
If you are training engineers for on-site operations and business acumen in an industry as volatile as Oil & Gas, you can ensure that the changing external inputs reflect in the course by pulling in data from external sources or from within the course itself.
This gives a huge impetus to on-the-job support. Especially for people who work on site or who are employed in sales.
At Tata Interactive Systems we believe that Tin Can may be the future of the e-Learning industry. The way the dynamics of the e-learning industry have changed over the last decade, SCORM compliance is no longer the only factor in deciding if a course will deliver learning in an effective manner. The way the world learns today, Tin Can compliance is certainly indicative of a sound and effective learning program.