IMS Content Packaging

Definition

Content packs are a kind of learning object and IMS Content Packaging has the following objectives:

allow transfer of e-learning contents from one system to an other (interoperability)
allow to import/export contents into/from a [learning management system]. Therefore also be able to use an independent editing tool.

Content Packaging is an evolving and extensible standard. Therefore, make sure that you know what version you plan to build / import / export and more importantly what kinds of extensions various profiles adopt !!

IMS Content packaging is a very popular e-learning standard

IMS Content Packaging 1.1.2 is adopted by ADL's SCORM 1.2
IMS Content Packaging 1.1.4 by SCORM 2004

See also

The standards article that contains a summary table of interrelated standards
The SCORM 1.2 tutorial that introduces the SCORM 1.2 CAM and RTE architecture

Package architecture overview

A Package Interchange File (PIF) is a zip file (recommended, other formats are also allowed):

File resources that include
- All your assets (contents) needed, e.g. HTML pages, pictures, Flash Animations, PPT (whatever, the idea is that you take formats that your client can handle). You may use sub-directories
- Schema files (that formally define all the vocabularies used in the manifest file (see next item).
A special file in the zip is imsmanifest.xml containing:
- a meta-data section <metadata />: describes the package as a whole.
- a resource list <resources />: containing references to all of the actual resources and media elements needed for a manifest (files), including meta-data describing these resources, and references to any external files (URLs).
- an organizations section: describing zero, one, or multiple organizations of the content within a manifest, i.e. information that is used to "play" the contents. There is a tree-based default organization for learning items which in turn refer to resources (assets). However, this section can also contain IMS Simple Sequencing or IMS Learning Design organization or any other future standard.
- (sub)manifests, that can do the same for subpackages.

Here is a picture taken from the IMS Content Packaging Best Practice and Implementation Guide Version 1.1.4 of october 2004 that shows an overview of the Package Interchange File (PIF) architecture:

Technical details

Firstly, you must understand that IMS CP can be (and is) extended in various ways:

IMS itself defines languages for content organization. E.g. the IMS Simple Sequencing binding defines a unique namespace for sequencing elements in such a way as to permit these elements to be embedded within an IMS Content Packaging manifest file. Therefore, elements in the Simple Sequencing namespace can be considered as extending the functionality of Content Packaging to included additional sequencing information. Simple Sequencing elements are intended to be included in the <organization> element of Content Packaging, which contains items that may be recursively included to create hierarchical trees of items. This tree corresponds to the activity tree that drives sequencing.
The default organization vocabulary can be extended like in SCORM 1.2. SCORM adds additional elements (in particular to the <item> element), plus the distinction between ordinary assets and SCOs (resources that can interact with the LMS.

An example

We will use The RELOAD Test Package distributed by Reload to assist learning the Reload Editor and made by Dr. Colin D. Milligan.

Inside the zip

The zip file contains all files that are needed to define an older IMS 1.1 Content Package.

Three *.xsd schema files, i.e. XML grammars needed to formally validate the contents
The imsmanifes.xml file, i.e. the definition of the content package.
All contents

Contents of a simple IMS CP *.zip archive

We slightly altered this example to make it simpler and to use a more recent version of IMS CP and IEEE Metadata. In particular we:

removed most MetaData information
removed some items of the squence and associated references and contents
used IMS CP 1.2 and IEEE LOM (instead of older IMS CP 1.1x and IMS MD 1.2x)

The (altered) IMS Manifest in the reload editor

Contents of the (altered) manifest

<manifest xmlns="http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imscp_v1p1" 
         xmlns:imsmd="http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imsmd_v1p2" 
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
         identifier="sample" 
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imscp_v1p1 imscp_v1p1.xsd 
                             http://www.imsglobal.org/xsd/imsmd_v1p2 imsmd_v1p2p2.xsd">

 <metadata>
   <schema>IMS Content</schema>
   <schemaversion>1.2.2</schemaversion>
   <imsmd:lom>
     <imsmd:general>
       <imsmd:title><imsmd:langstring xml:lang="en">Summer Pictures</imsmd:langstring></imsmd:title>
       <imsmd:language>en</imsmd:language>
       <imsmd:description>
         <imsmd:langstring xml:lang="en">Simple exemplar content package</imsmd:langstring>
       </imsmd:description>
       <imsmd:structure>
         <imsmd:source><imsmd:langstring xml:lang="x-none">LOMv1.0</imsmd:langstring></imsmd:source>
         <imsmd:value><imsmd:langstring xml:lang="x-none">Linear</imsmd:langstring></imsmd:value>
       </imsmd:structure>
     </imsmd:general>
     <imsmd:technical>
       <imsmd:format>text/html</imsmd:format>
       <imsmd:location type="URI">http://www.reload.ac.uk/ex/testpkg.zip</imsmd:location>
     </imsmd:technical>
     <imsmd:rights>
       <imsmd:description><imsmd:langstring xml:lang="en">This content is copyright free.</imsmd:langstring></imsmd:description>
     </imsmd:rights>
   </imsmd:lom>
 </metadata>

 <organizations default="orgs">
   <organization identifier="learning_sequence" structure="hierarchical">
     <title>Summer Pictures</title>
     <item identifier="ITEM-1" isvisible="true" identifierref="RES-1">
       <title>Loch Katrine</title>
     </item>
     <item identifier="ITEM-2" isvisible="true" identifierref="RES-2">
       <title>Ben Ledi</title>
     </item>
     <item identifier="ITEM-3" isvisible="true" identifierref="RES-3">
       <title>Jencks Earthwork</title>
     </item>
   </organization>
 </organizations>

 <resources>
   <resource identifier="RES-1" type="webcontent" href="five.html">
     <file href="five.html" />
     <file href="supp/reloadhelp.css" />
     <file href="supp/reloadeditoricon.gif" />
     <file href="supp/trossachs.jpg" />
   </resource>
   <resource identifier="RES-2" type="webcontent" href="three.html">
     <file href="three.html" />
     <file href="supp/reloadhelp.css" />
     <file href="supp/reloadeditoricon.gif" />
     <file href="supp/benledi.jpg" />
   </resource>
   <resource identifier="RES-3" type="webcontent" href="six.html">
     <file href="six.html" />
     <file href="supp/reloadhelp.css" />
     <file href="supp/reloadeditoricon.gif" />
     <file href="supp/jencks.jpg" />
   </resource>
 </resources>

</manifest>

Run Time environments

Usually a Content Package is imported into a Learning management system, but there are also external players handy for platform independent authoring or even for off-line viewing (e.g. the "reload player"). The IMS specification refers to these systems as Learning technology system (LTS)

In principle (and this is where certain LMS make wrong claims about IMS/Scorm compatibility), an IMS Content is not just displayed, but it also should also interpret standards like [[IMS Simple sequencing] and support user tracking, conditional access to resources, let the user choose between different organizations, remember where the user was last time he accessed contents.

[In fall 2005, DKS tried to import IMS Packages found on the Web or made with Reload into some open source systems ... and was quite dismayed by the result ... ]

Tools

Editors:

Reload Editor
eXe (exe home page)
Authorware (version 7+)

Links

IMS Global Learning Consortium
ADL (SCORM profiles)
AICC Aviation Industry CBT Committee
IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee (LTSC)

References