SCORM, today’s e-learning standard, is a collection of specifications adapted from multiple sources to provide a comprehensive suite of e-learning capabilities that enable interoperability, accessibility, and reusability of Web-based learning content. Organizations adopt SCORM to create efficiencies, lower costs, reduce risk, and increase overall learning effectiveness and return on investment.

SCORM is probably the most important and widely emerging e-learning standard today, whose ultimate goal is ensuring ubiquitous access to the highest quality education and training, tailored to individual needs, and delivered cost-effectively anywhere in the world at anytime.

It is a set of technical standards for e-learning software products. SCORM tells programmers how to write their code so that it can “play well” with other e-learning software. Specifically, SCORM governs how online learning content and Learning Management System (LMS) communicate with each other.

The major benefits of SCORM in E-Learning platform are outlined below:

• Reusability of content for faster development: Developing content once, then reusing it for multiple audiences and contexts reduces development time.
• Content sharing between systems: Moving to SCORM makes integration easier between existing and future systems, which protects the infrastructure investments and lowers the cost of ownership.
• Reduces cost of content maintenance: By enabling the organization to maintain in-house content using any tool regardless of system or content vendor, SCORM lowers the overall cost of content maintenance.
• Maximum return over technology investments: SCORM content can be launched, operated, and tracked by any SCORM-compliant content delivery system, whether content was developed in-house or by a third party, enabling to get the most mileage from the technology investments.
• Avoid proprietary authoring tools: The same tools that the development team is using to create Web content can be used to develop SCORM-compliant content, eliminating the need to use or develop proprietary tools.
• Leverage best practices: Take advantage of the collective knowledge and expertise of the growing SCORM community that is continually evolving and enhancing SCORM functionality, tools, methodologies, and best practices with proven results.
• Reduced Risk: By design, SCORM reduces business and development risks because it enables content portability, durability and interoperability.
• Future-proof courseware investments: A key advantage of SCORM-conformant courseware is that no matter who developed it, when they developed it, or for what learning platform, it can be “played” seamlessly on any existing or future SCORM-based delivery system.
• Improved learner experience: SCORM content and delivery systems enable organizations to create more compelling and effective learning experiences through dynamic sequencing, rich metadata, object-oriented design, and more.
• Reduce switching cost risk: Investing in standards today helps, in ensuring that any costs associated with switching the e-learning initiatives from one platform to another in future will be minimized.
• Lower obsolescence risk: Embracing standards also reduce the risk that the tools you are using, the content you are creating and deploying, and the knowledge and skills your people are acquiring will become obsolete. Standards help protect these investments, keeping reengineering, retooling, and retraining costs to a minimum.