I occasionally evaluate the current state of learning platforms for organizations planning massive corporate training rollouts and competitors. The vendor demos were slick. The promises were bold. But something felt… off. The problem? Every single platform was built on technology standards from the early 2000s. SCORM 1.2, to be exact. Released in 2001. The same year the original iPod launched. That's when I knew I had to dig deeper. What I found should terrify anyone responsible for corporate training technology.

SCORM: The Zombie Standard That Won't Die

Let's start with the brutal facts about the Sharable Content Object Reference Model, or SCORM. It is officially dead. Period. The U.S. Department of Defense, through its Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative, literally "put a lid" on SCORM development back in early 2011, making SCORM 2004 4th Edition its final, unmaintained release. This standard, born in the year 2000 to solve yesterday's interoperability problems, has received no updates or maintenance for over a decade. Yet, it persists like a zombie, deeply embedded in the infrastructure of countless corporate learning systems.

So why is this dead standard actively killing your training ROI? For starters, forget about effective mobile learning. SCORM was designed before the smartphone revolution and requires an active internet browser session to even function. It has no native offline capability and delivers a terrible, non-responsive experience on mobile devices.

And what about data? SCORM’s tracking is barely a keyhole view when you need a wide-angle lens. It can only tell you if someone completed a course, their pass/fail status, a final score, and how long they spent in the module. It offers zero insight into actual learner behavior, can't measure skill transfer, and provides no real path to the personalization that 91% of employees now demand.
If you need to update content, prepare for pain. Even fixing a simple typo requires repackaging and re-uploading the entire course, a process that frequently wipes all learner progress. In a world that demands agility, this cumbersome and expensive maintenance cycle is untenable.

xAPI: The "Solution" That Created New Problems

When the Experience API (xAPI) launched in 2013, it promised to solve all of SCORM's problems. Track everything. Anywhere. Offline and online. It was meant to unlock rich data and powerful analytics. The promise was real. The execution? Brutal.

Here's what the vendors don't tell you about the xAPI money trap. While the specification is open-source, implementing it requires expensive, specialized software, most notably a Learning Record Store (LRS). An enterprise-grade LRS can cost you upwards of $4,000 per month, and that's before you factor in per-user fees or volume-based pricing that can scale exponentially. The hidden costs are even worse, involving custom development, specialized technical expertise, and complex data design just to get meaningful results. One frustrated implementer told me their xAPI project cost 400% more than budgeted. The "flexible" data model became a consultant's paradise.

Beyond the cost, most xAPI implementations fail because of complexity and chaos. The standard requires a deep technical understanding to configure an LRS and design meaningful data statements; without it, you're just producing "junk data". Most L&D teams simply lack this expertise. Furthermore, different vendors interpret the standard differently, meaning "xAPI conformant" does not guarantee that two systems will actually work together. This lack of true interoperability and the massive upfront investment for an unclear payback period make xAPI an ROI nightmare for many.

The Modern Learner Reality Check

While the industry argues about data standards, learners have moved on. Today's employees have, on average, just 24 minutes a week for formal learning and overwhelmingly access training on mobile devices. They want personalized, role-specific micro-content and just-in-time performance support, not monolithic desktop courses. They value social and collaborative learning, not isolated, one-size-fits-all modules. The gap between what SCORM and even most practical xAPI implementations deliver and what modern learners actually want is massive. And it's growing.

The Industry's Dirty Secret

Here’s what I learned from talking to dozens of L&D leaders: we are spending billions on learning technology that doesn't work. A huge majority of corporations have an LMS, but a significant portion are actively looking to replace them, citing poor usability, terrible reporting, and no adaptability as their primary complaints. The root cause is clear: we are trying to build the future of learning on the crumbling infrastructure of the past.

The companies winning at corporate learning aren't waiting for standards to catch up. They are building around modern principles like API-first architectures that allow for custom integrations, real-time data sync, and true data ownership. They focus on microlearning and performance support embedded directly into the workflow. They are leveraging AI for adaptive learning paths, real-time recommendations, and automated skill-gap analysis. And they are building on modern web standards that are responsive, offline-capable, and cross-platform by default.

So, What to do?

You must start by auditing your current technology stack. List every SCORM-dependent system, calculate the true cost of your content creation, and document the data and mobile learning gaps. Then, benchmark modern, API-first learning platforms and microlearning tools to calculate the potential ROI of a new approach. With this data, you can build a business case that quantifies SCORM's hidden costs and secures the executive sponsorship needed for change.

Your next move should be to pilot a modern, non-SCORM solution on a high-impact use case. Measure the difference in learner engagement and document the efficiency gains. At the same time, invest in upskilling your team in modern learning design, data analytics, and API integration. This will empower you to plan a strategic migration, prioritizing content for conversion and setting realistic timelines for your transformation.

The bottom line is this: stop accepting "good enough." The eLearning industry has been trapped in a cycle of mediocrity for too long. SCORM is dead. xAPI is too expensive and complex for most. Modern learners are frustrated. The organizations that break free from these legacy standards will dominate corporate learning for the next decade. The question isn't whether to move beyond SCORM and xAPI. The question is how fast you can make it happen. In technology, standing still is moving backward. Don't let legacy standards kill your learning ROI.

The link has been copied!