Working with SCORM

[Tasha_Biesinger]

We recently ran into an issue where a TA is not able to view the SCORM page in Canvas:

The differences in permissions between a Teacher and a TA don't give any reason for why a TA shouldn't be able to view the SCORM page. During the import process, an associated Canvas assignment is created and the TA was able to view the SCORM content through the assignment - but if the associated assignment is deleted, there doesn't seem to be a way to either recreate or restore the associated assignment (and no way to download and reupload the SCORM content to create a new assignment).

Any thoughts on why a user with the TA role cannot see the SCORM page?

Also - is there a way to export the original SCORM package from Canvas?

[Robbie_Grant]

 @Tasha_Biesinger ,

First, I want to apologize for your question sitting in the community for so long without a response.

Second, it looks like you have stumped the Canvas Community.  Were you able to find an answer to your question? I am going to go ahead and mark this question as answered because there hasn't been any more activity in a while so I assume that you have the information that you need. If you still have a question about this or if you have information that you would like to share with the community, by all means, please do come back and leave a comment.

Robbie

[Tasha_Biesinger]

Hi  @Robbie_Grant , I didn't get any answers and we didn't find a resolution other than keep your original SCORM content files - you can't get them back from Canvas - and don't plan on having a TA manage SCORM. I am assuming at this point that there isn't an answer (unless/until Canvas folks can give us one).

[fosterl]

It turns out that Designers can access the SCORM page to upload SCORM content, but TAs cannot. I've just opened a ticket with Canvas Support about this (#3931761) and will update here when I find out more.

[tpennac1]

@Tasha_Biesinger @fosterl @Robbie_Grant I see that this issue was from back in 2018/2019.  Do you know if this still the case for the TA role and any way to modify the role since for April 2022, with still getting "This is the SCORM settings page for instructors. Please contact your teacher for further information." when clicking SCORM Module.  Thanks in advance for your help.

[Tasha_Biesinger]

@tpennac1 It is still the case. Teacher and Designer roles can access the SCORM page, and TA roles cannot. At the time we did not see anything in the role permissions that we could change to give the TA role the ability to access the SCORM page. While Instructure has done a lot of work over the years to give more granularity to permissions, I don't think they've made any changes to these 'hidden' permissions that are inherent to a specific role.

Here is the response we received from Instructure at the time:

I understand the TA role is unable to upload SCORM content even though the Designer role can. This is functioning as expected. LTI tools (in this case, SCORM) have limited access to Canvas permissions, and enabling other roles to upload SCORM content is not currently a setting or permission.

There was a feature idea that was archived that was related to allowing TA's upload SCORM content, but it has now become part of wider spec document linked HERE, where our Product team is gathering feedback to hopefully create more granular permissions.

In the meantime, if you'd like a custom role or the TA-based role to upload SCORM content, I would recommend basing them off the "Teacher" role instead.

and this

HERE is a guide that describes a bit more about External apps. The above guide does state admins can enable LTI (external apps) at the account or sub-account levels whereas instructors can enable them at the course level. Although, it doesn't explicitly state this is the case for SCORM assignments, this does correlate as SCORM is an LTI. But, the ability that is given to an instructor to enable SCORM or any LTI, is what allows them to add SCORM assignments. Hope this helps! Please do let us know if you have any questions or concerns.