Standards of distance education scorm. TinCan

Tin Can is more reliable.
Because Tin Can's protocol was developed more recently, it's less susceptible to errors. At LearnUpon we frequently help customers with SCORM issues on older browsers and with authoring tools. In contrast, we've seen very few queries relating to Tin Can. Tin Can just works more often for most customers in our experience.

Better tracking.
A big advantage of Tin Can is the breadth and depth of learning experiences it tracks. While SCORM is confined to tracking desktop courses, Tin Can is more suited to the current landscape, in which “learning happens everywhere”. The rising demand for mobile eLearning options is one reason why Tin Can is increasingly preferred. And SCORM’s older technology is especially unreliable on browsers like Safari and devices like iPad mini.

Richer data.
The technical detail of Tin Can allows it to understand and communicate more and richer data, in a more robust fashion than SCORM. A good Learning Management System like LearnUpon will allow you to create and automate reports based on the detailed data Tin Can tracks. You can also integrate a Learning Management System like LearnUpon with a Learning Record Store (LRS) to further leverage Tin Can's reporting powers.

Tin Can is evolving.
Tin Can is a better option if you want to future proof your eLearning content. While Tin Can will continue to grow and change, SCORM is stagnant in comparison. Choosing Tin Can will allow you to benefit from the ongoing development of a new technology that will continue to improve as it's embraced by the industry. The issues that riddle the SCORM 1.3 and SCORM 2004 standards are, unfortunately, less likely to be addressed.

What Tin Can Won't Do 

One benefit Tin Can doesn't offer is to improve the appearance or content of a course itself. Some users express interest in Tin Can with the mistaken belief that it will automatically create animations that are all singing and dancing on mobile devices, for example. That isn't true. Tin Can-compliant courses are designed and developed in the usual ways. Choosing SCORM or Tin Can only provides a protocol for how the course talks to your Learning Management System, LRS, and/or Tin Can compliant services. It won’t impact how the course looks, feels, or behaves. So choosing between SCORM and Tin Can isn’t about how your courses look but how they communicate with your learning management system.

First There Was SCORM

SCORM is an old standard, as our comparison with dial tones suggests. And while it still works, it’s dated. Over the last three years, Tin Can has started to displace SCORM, just as the use of smartphones eventually overtook landlines. Yet the outcomes delivered by SCORM and Tin Can remain very similar. Whichever standard you choose, the content of your eLearning course and end results won’t be very different. Both protocols allow learners to launch courses, bookmark them, complete them, answer quizzes, pass or fail them, and generally track progress. That’s more or less the end goal of eLearning for most users. It’s the process, the “How and what”, that will look different. And as we saw in our example, SCORM is just a bit more basic when compared to Tin Can.