No sooner had we unpacked our bags from Learning Technologies UK than we headed to the ATD International Conference & Expo in LA, and I have finally gotten around to catching up and reflecting on what we saw and heard this year. For us, conferences are the perfect chance to catch up with our wide variety of customers. Many are the LMS platforms and content providers you see at the Expo, along with several customers that attend, including our loyal SCORM Cloud fans. At ATD, Joe Donnelly once again had a line of folks ready to meet the person who has helped them test and debug their content over the years.
Across the continents, two themes were consistent in our conversations and centered around content. Which standard should I use now? And how do I better manage content at scale, as the volume is catching up to us quickly? This is a strategic moment as organizations are moving past the initial ‘what can AI do?’ and thinking ahead about the operational realities.
Which eLearning standard should you use for AI?
When it comes to the eLearning standards, we often get asked, ‘which standard should I use?’ and now it’s also ‘do we even need standards anymore?’ in an AI-driven world. The answer is always to choose the right standard for the job to be done. Context matters. That is magnified when it comes to adding AI to your learning and training strategy. I shared an in-depth article with Learning News recently, but here’s the quick breakdown:
SCORM and cmi5 are best for structured consistency
When the information provided needs to be consistent, delivered in a structured way, with predetermined data outputs, SCORM and cmi5 are still the best bets. Think compliance tracking, regulatory training and reliable audit trails. SCORM continues to be relevant as the most practical way to connect your content with the LMS or platform that will ultimately deliver those courses. I saw a lot of demos on new AI-native content creation tools, and the output is still primarily SCORM to ensure LMS compatibility and reliable reporting.
xAPI is best for dynamic, data-driven learning
For more dynamic learning experiences where the content changes and adapts to the learner, it’s less about the structure of the course and more about the data collected from those events. xAPI gives you the ability to track as much detail as you need and does so in a structured way that can then feed your LLMs and help direct what happens next for that learner.
Using a standard is more important than ever because AI agents are only as good as the information they are given. Without structure and reliable inputs, AI systems are prone to producing incorrect or hallucinated results.
How do you manage eLearning content at scale?
The overhead that comes with content administration can be an easy one to overlook until you find yourself in the weeds. There are more ways than ever to create content, more easily support language translations and a significant uptick in microlearning.
At ATD, I had the chance to co-present with America’s Credit Unions on this operational hurdle. In their case, the challenge is managing a catalog of 400 courses across 40 different member LMSs. And if you missed it, don’t worry! We will be diving deeper into how they have found ways to reduce the content admin tax using Content Controller in our upcoming CLO webinar.
As more AI tools join the market that make it easier to create new content and we also have the ability to repurpose existing course libraries (with the capabilities of Rustici Generator and others) the amount of content is piling up rapidly. This influx of content highlights the need for having a clear plan for managing course catalogs at scale as the scale grows quickly. Even if you’re not using AI to generate content, having a strategy in place now to organize, index and easily handle updates and changes to large course catalogs is one to consider as your inputs increase.
Setting up your infrastructure for what comes next
The conversations have definitely evolved from if/when we start incorporating AI into our work to now that we’ve started, what do we really need to prioritize? The answers lead back to foundational principles we have championed for years. Use eLearning standards as they provide the structure needed for AI agents to repurpose existing content to power your content library. Organize and index your ecosystem now to prevent future growing pains. Put a scalable content management strategy in place to future-proof your admin workflows as your inputs multiply. We are at a unique crossroads where the groundwork you lay today dictates how successfully you can scale tomorrow. Have questions about prioritizing your technology infrastructure for AI use and for the future? Ask us! We’re always here to help you map it out.
