Research Summary

SCORM Certification Explained

Certification Is

• Independent 3rd party testing
• Provides consumers of distributed learning content and systems with the assurance that certified products have successfully implemented ADL SCORM specifications

Certification Is Not

• An endorsement by the ADL Initiative
• A guarantee that a product has been tested for defects in functionality
• A guarantee that the product’s content is instructionally sound
• The same as being a SCORM Adopter

The Wisconsin Testing Organization is the only current ADL Certification Testing Center.

Certification Vs. Compliance and Adoption

Many products claim to be SCORM-certified, a SCORM adopter, or SCORM conformant. Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) has specific terms and criteria regarding each of these levels of conformance:

SCORM Conformance – the only criteria for claiming SCORM conformance (to a specific version of SCORM, i.e. SCORM version 1.2) is to pass the corresponding test within the ADL Conformance Test Suite of the corresponding SCORM version. The Conformance Test Suite is a free download from ADLnet.gov. This test is done on the honor system and requires no ADL involvement.

SCORM Adopter – the next level up from being SCORM conformance is for a product to be a SCORM adopter. A product must be SCORM conformant before it can be considered to be a SCORM adopter. The logs that result from a passing test in the ADL Conformance Test Suite are submitted to ADL (see the SCORM Adopters page for more information) and if found to be correct, the product is labeled as a SCORM adopter in the SCORM Adopter Product List (for a particular version of SCORM).

SCORM Certification – The final level of SCORM conformance is SCORM certification. Certified products are those products that have been tested by ADL Certification Testing Centers to meet the requirements as described by the corresponding version of the SCORM Conformance requirements document and verified by the Conformance Test Suite (see the SCORM Certification page for more information). Once this process is completed, the product is SCORM Certified and is added to the SCORM Certified Product List. The product is also then compliant to SCORM Certification.

**As a temporary fix to the SCORM Certified Products and SCORM Adopter forms and searchable databases, ADL has posted locked spreadsheets of the data until the forms return. Click the “Resources” tab to access these resources.

Products that wish to become SCORM Adopters should start by Contacting Us.