Sending xAPI statements to the SCORM Cloud with Captivate 9

In this tutorial I'll show you how to view xAPI statements generated from a simple Captivate 9 project. The process we'll follow is to take a small project in Captivate 9, publish it in a zipped xAPI format, upload it to the SCORM Cloud, launch and view the project, and finally, examine the statements as they would look in an LRS. The SCORM Cloud will act as a "launcher" for our sample eLearning course.

Step 1: Use Adobe Captivate 9 to create your eLearning content.

Adobe Captivate 9 is an example of a standalone eLearning authoring software. The application is used to create eLearning content like product demonstrations, software simulations and branched scenarios. For purposes of this tutorial it is assumed that you have enough Adobe Captivate 9 knowledge to create your own content example. For this example, it may as simple as a 3 or 4 slide presentation. The example that I'm using is 4 slides with a number on each. Using Interactions > Click Box I've placed a click box on each page which forces the user to click the forward button in order to move to the next slide. A sterling eLearning this is not but it will do the job for what we wish it to do.
For this example you should place click boxes on each of your Captivate 9 slides. Click boxes come with prompts for success, failure, and hints. Those may be deleted for this example.


Note: As you are creating your small project it is a good step to title each slide in Captivate. The statements will use this slide title if one is provided. A slide label can be supplied by clicking the slide miniature usually located on the left side of the screen then in the Properties panel, typing out the name of the slide. I've done this with each of my slides and named them RedNumber1, RedNumber2 and so on.

Step 2: Publish your eLearning content formatting it for xAPI.

• Assuming that you have your small Captivate 9 project in front of you, click the Publish button at the top of the screen and select Publish to Computer.

• Give the project a Project Title and specify the location to which it should be saved.
• Insure that Publish as: is set to HTML5/SWF.
• Insure the Output Format is set to both SWF and HTML5.

• Place a check in the Zip Files check box. This is what is uploaded to the SCORM Cloud.

• At the bottom of the screen click the More button.

• In the bottom right corner of the screen for eLearning Output, click whatever link appears to the right of it. It might say Disabled.

• At the top of the screen that appears place a check in the box for Enable reporting for this project.

• Click the drop down box for Standard and select xAPI.

• Near the top of the screen, click Configure.
• Take note of the Identifier. This is the globally unique identifier for your content packaged and you will see it again later when viewing the xAPI statements in the SCORM Cloud.
• Change it to something other than the default.
• Supply a title in the place of the default title then click OK.

• Select Slide views and/or quiz for the Completion Criteria area and the Success Criteria area.

• Click OK (bottom of screen). This returns you to the previous screen.
• Click Publish. When complete a dialog box will appear stating that the Publish completed successfully.
• Click OK.

Step 3: Upload to the SCORM Cloud

Note: This step assumes that you have SCORM Cloud credentials. If you do not, go to https://cloud.scorm.com/ and sign up for a free SCORM Cloud account.

• Sign in to your SCORM Cloud account.
• Click the Library button.
• Click Add Content.
• Click Import a SCORM package.
• Click Choose File.
• Find the xAPI formatted zip file to upload.
• Click Import Course.

Step 4: Launching the Course.

• Sign in to your SCORM Cloud account if you have not already done so.
• Click the Library button.
• Place a checkmark by the course that you uploaded earlier.
• Click the name of the course.
• Click Launch.
• Proceed through the course by clicing its forward button until you reach the last slide.
• Close the course by clicking the close button in the bottom right corner of the screen.
• Click Return to the LMS.

Step 5: Viewing xAPI Statements

• Make sure the Library button is still selected.
• Click the name of the course.
• Click View Registration Statement History.

A list of the xAPI statements that the course generated appears.

• Notice the Actor - Verb - Object in each of these statements.
• Notice that the individual slides are "experienced" instead of some other verb and that the name of the slide is used as the object.

There is also a statement that says that I launched the course and another statement that says that I "attempted" the course. Even though I took no quiz there is a statement that says that I passed because I enabled quizzing in one of the Captivate screens.