AICC (Aviation Industry Computer-Based Training Committee) was the first widely adopted e-learning interoperability standard, originating in the late 1980s and 1990s to let airlines share CBT (computer-based training) content across different systems. Its technical mechanism, known as HACP (HTTP-based AICC/CMI Protocol), allowed content to communicate with an LMS over HTTP by posting form data back to a server — predating the JavaScript API model that SCORM later used. AICC defined four data models covering student data, course structure, objectives, and completion status, and many LMS platforms continued to support it alongside SCORM for years because a significant library of aviation and defense content was packaged in the AICC format. The AICC organisation itself dissolved in 2014, and active development of the standard ceased. Today AICC is considered a legacy format: you may encounter it when integrating with older content libraries or legacy enterprise LMS environments, but no new content should be authored to it. SCORM 1.2 superseded AICC for most use cases, and xAPI and cmi5 have since moved the field further. Its historical importance is that it established the idea that content and LMS should speak a common language — the core premise that all subsequent standards inherited.
