course uses a simple form of adaptive navigation, implemented with cookies and the SCORM learner metadata. Cookies are being used to provide adaptivity when this course is being run outside a SCORM-conformant LMS.
However, you should not be alarmed. Most likely you browser is already enabled for cookies. Your browser writes cookies to a special file or directory, see sidebar for details. A cookie is a small temporary, small text file written inside this directory, and it is always identified with the domain name from the URL in your browser.
Cookies can not, by themselves, be used to read your disk or to obtain personal information that is not provided directly by you through your browser. Cookies are pervasive on the web. Even the SCORM web site, www.adlnet.org, will attempt to write cookies on your computer.
This course wants to write a cookie to your computer containing the name you provide when you first enter the lessons, a list of lessons you have completed, a pointer to the last page you visited, and your quiz scores. This information, as you will see, is used to keep you from having to repeat the same login sequences each time you visit this course.
Of course you are not required to accept cookies to enter this course. If you have set your browser preferences to reject cookies, then the adaptively of this course is automatically disabled.
However, you must enable JavaScript to view the contents of this course, or for that matter, any other SCORM course.
Possibly, you are unsure about the cookie setting for your browser. If you don't see your name in the web pages of this course from time-to-time, cookies are not enabled in your browser. In MS Explorer, version 5.5, cookies are enabled unless you have changed the privacy setting or security setting to "high."
In Netscape, cookies are also normally enabled. In Netscape 4.x and 6.x, you can find your cookie setting under the "advanced preferences."
Privacy or Security Issue?
Are cookies a security issue or privacy issue?
There is some debate about this since it is a bit of both. Cookies were designed by Netscape, and later adopted by Microsoft and others, as a way to allow web sites to store small bits of information on your computer.
Typically this information is used to avoid asking you the same boring questions over and over again. However, be careful in providing personal information, such as your email address, phone number, etc. when visiting web sites, whether cookies are enabled or not.
Netscape 6.x users can view their cookies and the cookie content easily.
Netscape 4.x users will find their cookies in the directory c:\Program Files\Netscape\Users\your name\cookies.txt
MS Explorer users will find their cookies in the directory c:\windows\Cookies or in c:\windows\Temporary Internet Files.
For a detailed description of the cookie specification and cookie issues, visit the W3C web site.