Do disabled articles add code (i.e. size) to the final SCORM?

I’m working from a template. There are about 40 template articles on each page. I use the template articles I need. I am left with 30ish on each page unused. Deleting them takes too much time (I have 20 pages in my course). Disabling the articles is quicker. I am assuming that disabled articles are not included in any way in the final SCORM (i.e. it’s not just that the code for the articles is there but not show, rather the code is not included in the SCORM). Am I right?

No, disabled content is still included in the output. This is so the course can be imported back into Evolve with all settings & assets intact.

However, unless you’re intending to target an audience with very low bandwidth, it’s unlikely to be much of an issue for your learners.

The data for articles/blocks/components is all stored as (minified) JSON, so any disabled content included in those JSON files is really only going to create a overhead of a few KB at most, perhaps not even that much.

The assets used in any disabled content will also be included - but since the assets only get downloaded when the article/block/component is rendered this won’t affect your learners since disabled content doesn’t get rendered. It will, however, make your SCORM.zip larger so will have an impact on the time it takes for that .zip to download from Evolve or for you to upload it to your LMS.

The one thing that will slightly impact the learner is if you have a component in a disabled article that is of a type not used anywhere in the enabled content. When the course runs it will still load the code that underpins that component - but again we are talking about an overhead of a few KB. For example, the Simulation & Game components are probably the most ‘code heavy’, clocking in at a shade over 100KB each - but those are unusual, the majority of components are 10KB or less.

Hope this helps

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If I understand the scenario, seems like it would be easier to simply insert/paste into the new course any of the 40 articles needed from the template course. Additive process instead of deleting or disabling what you’re not using. Just a workflow thought, but may not be applicable to what you’re doing.

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@Martin that’s a great suggestion. I would also suggest tagging the articles in the template course to make them easier to find.

FYI if you are using an actual Template (as in one that appears in the Templates section of Evolve) I don’t think you can paste content from a Template… but that’s easily solved by just creating a course from that template and switching to using that as the ‘source’ instead.

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Thanks Matt for such a full answer. Apologies it took me s long to respond!