The Assignable Unit File (*.au)

The Assignable Unit file contains information on all the individual assignable units in your learning path. (“Assignable unit” is equivalent to the term “learning object.”) This ASCII file is a table with the column headings set out by the first record in the file. Each subsequent record describes an individual learning object under the headings defined in the first record.

The sample file below contains all the records required to publish content to Skillport.

For clarity, the records are spaced and line wrapped. When creating an Assignable Unit file, do notinclude spaces between the records.

“System_ID”,“Type”,“Command_Line”,“File_Name”,“Max_Score”,“Mastery_Score”,“Max_Time_Allowed”,“Time_Limit_Action”,“System_Vendor”,“Core_Vendor”,“Web_Launch”,“AU_Password”,“A1”,“learning object”,“”,“object1/unit1.htm”,80,80,0:30:00,Exit, “CourseBuilder for Dreamweaver 4”,“”,“”,“”

The four field values required and used by Skillport are:

System_ID: This field contains an ID that is usually generated by the exporting LMS. The typical format of the ID is “A” followed by a number. So, when hand-coding the files and describing a single learning object for import to Skillport, you should use the value “A1”. This ID is used by the importing LMS to piece together content information from the various files of the file set.
- The System_ID also appears in the Descriptor file; values in both places should be identical. If more than one assignable unit is listed, ensure that each System_ID is unique.
File_Name: This field contains the name and relative path of the file (from the location of the AU file to the file it is referring to) that should be launched when someone accesses your learning object. When creating this URL, it must be relative to the content root area of your content-hosting server. For example, if the first page in your learning object is called index.html and resides in the Learning object directory at the content root area of your content hosting server, assign that value to this field, as shown in the example below:
“Learning object/index.html”
If your content file contains a directory structure for your learning object, reflect that in the URL. For example, if you housed the directory structure LearningPath_1/Object_1 at the content root of your content-hosting server and your launch file resided in the Object_1 directory, your File_Name field would look like this:
“LearningPath_1/Object_1/index.html”
Core_Vendor: This field contains any vendor-specific data required by the learning object to operate properly. This data is passed to the learning object when it is launched. If you authored your content using the Skillsoft Learning Object Template, you can leave this field null (“”).
Web_Launch: This field contains any parameters required by the learning object when launched on the Web. If you authored your content using the Skillsoft Learning Object Template, you can leave this field null (“”).