Advanced LMS Integration of SCORM Web Laboratories

Abstract

E-learning and its hybrid counterpart-B-learning-have become standard tools in higher education. The development of information and communications technologies (ICTs) and their application to education has made this possible. Among ICT technologies, the learning management system (LMS) has been the most important development. Teaching labs have also undergone a technological evolution, enabling them to be used online while interacting closely with LMSs. This paper presents a set of procedures that ease the integration of Java and JavaScript laboratories with LMSs in order to obtain adaptive learning contents, which are presented customized to students based on their likes and results. It describes innovative tools implemented by us as a Java package, a JavaScript library, and associated resources that achieve an advanced Lab-LMS integration in a shared content object reference model (SCORM) environment. These resources simplify communications between the elements of an SCORM content package, including the embedded Web laboratory, and the LMS where they are hosted. This paper describes the tools, procedures, and discusses its possibilities and advantages, and shows the results of several use cases of Web Labs delivered to undergraduate engineering students at University of Jaén that prove the validity of the proposal obtaining adapted learning and good results.

Keywords

• Adaptive learning
• E-learning tool
• E-learning standard
• laboratory
• learning management system
• student experiment