Forum Discussion
Everything we know about Cornerstone on Demand and Storyline!
I thought I would start a thread about Cornerstone on Demand so there's a central place for people to read and add to. There seems to be a dearth of information about how CSOD and Storyline interact with each other as well as the unresolved issues surrounding it. I've spent many hours scouring the web and speaking with Cornerstone trying to find a solution. Hopefully this thread will serve as a resource for others going forward.
On a side note, I love Articulate Storyline. I started with Adobe Captivate with limited success. It was a very steep learning curve, but I was able to get some basic functionality out of it. I tested out Storyline with it's 30 day trial, and I will say that time-to-effectiveness was drastically reduced. It really IS like using powerpoint. Granted there is less complex functionality and interactions available than Captivate, but so far it's given me everything I've needed to use. The benefit is that the learning curve is much less steep too. Think of it as the difference between iMovie and Final Cut Pro. The latter can do some crazy effects, but the former gives you 90% of what you need and can get you comfortable in 1/4 of the time.
It's nice to have a properly-working content creation tool when you're in an LMS like Cornerstone. I have enough trouble in CSOD as it is.
So some of the nuggets of wisdom that I've found are :
- Cornerstone does not track SCORM 1.2 content properly. You cannot pull a lot of the reports if they are not in SCORM 2004 format. You don't have the option to select that course in the reports.
- If you export into SCORM 2004, there will be an extra section on the left with text links to the module. This takes up 30% of the screen, and on smaller laptop screens may crowd out the module window. Cornerstone says this is a Storyline exporting settings issue. I couldn't find any settings that shows/hides that section. The workaround is to resize the module to the screen, which doesn't get rid of the section, but at least fits the module.
- When reporting, you can get the completion status for a course based on quiz result or last slide viewed. You can also get a final grade for course. Storyline passes the results information for each question (including short answer) but you cannot pull a list of the answers for an individual. Therefore, it may not be advisable to administer any testing where you'll need to review individual answers
- You can get a list of aggregate answers for a module. e.g. I can see how 100 employees answered this multiple choice question. This is helpful to determine if learners are absorbing the course information correctly.
- Web objects (such as websites, or links to sharepoint documents) work in modules if your IT has added csod.com to the trusted sites
- Popup windows that open up the articulate module in CSOD will work if you add csod.com to the allowed list for popup blockers. Your IT dept can also add this to everyone's computer. Otherwise when learners click the "launch" button, the module does not show up.
I'll post more as I think or find them, but feel free to add to this list!
We found an interesting issue testing Storyline 360 courses in Cornerstone where the courses kept minimizing every time a slide would auto-advance. We were able to isolate the issue and it was a simple fix.
First, it only happened when all of the following variables were present:
• Storyline 360 courses
• Auto-advance slides
• Published HTML5 with Flash fallback
• Loaded into Cornerstone (it did not occur in SCORM Cloud)
• Launched in IE browserAll we had to change was the publish setting to Flash with HTML5 fallback
I thought I'd share in case anyone else comes across that issue. We were relieved it was easy to correct.
We use those settings and we don't have this issue in IE so I'm wondering if it is an IE version specific issue. What version of IE are you using? Our users are on IE 11.
Also, you should be aware that setting a course to Flash first then HTML5 can cause issues for Google Chrome users. Newer versions of Chrome will display a puzzle piece saying that the content requires you to right-click to run it.
Another thing to check might be the Storyline player settings. We found we had to set the player not to scale to the full size of the user's screen when we moved to Cornerstone. That seemed to conflict with Cornerstone's own full-window resizing function.
If the symptoms are something like "I clicked this but it registered something different or didn't display the proper score" then it's not an LMS problem. If it's recording the right score within the Articulate package but not recording score or recording an improper score, then it's possibly an LMS issue.
Based on your screenshot, this is NOT an LMS issue. This is displayed entirely on the client side. Since it's intermittent, it's going to be hard to troubleshoot but it's likely not something you've done. A logic bug in the player. Pass it on to the Articulate team and they might be able to take a look or recommend a fix.
We've seen a few player specific issues with selection and drag and drop. Most of these are screen lockups and they rarely appear. Makes it impossible to troubleshoot consistently but even a .01% occurrence can make people distrust the content and the LMS.
At T-Mobile we use SCORM 2004 for reporting. SCORM 1.2 will give you very minimal reporting. Since we are using CSOD we build our knowledge checks in CSOD via the Question Bank and Test Engine and link the knowledge checks in our courses. We have found that the CSOD reporting is robust and all the data you need about your learners is at your fingertips.
Under player settings, turn off the setting for launching in a new window. You don't need this since CSOD already takes care of that for you. It will almost always break LMS communication if used.
Hi all. I am having issues with Cornerstone and uploading Articulate Rise packages that have Storyline blocks in them. I keep getting 'Error in upload' responses. I am trying to articulate the issue to CSOD and they are clueless! Any help would be appreciated.
Hi Ben,
I am seeing the same thing. I tried uploading a Rise course with a
Storyline Block and got the same vague "Error on Upload" message. We have
submitted this to CSOD support - I'll let you know if we get any better of
a response.
Hi Julie,
The image you shared referenced the story.html files, so I wanted to confirm if you were using Storyline or Rise?
Hi Ashley - Yes, it's a Storyline course that has been added/embedded within a Rise course. The SCORM package we are trying to upload to CSOD is the full Rise course. You are correct that this issue is specific to the Storyline course within the Rise course. We tested removing the Storyline course from Rise and don't have this issue. We've also tested publishing the Storyline course on it's own and don't have the issue. It seems that the issue is when you embedded a Storyline course in Rise and then export to SCORM. Thanks for looking into this.
Hi Julie and Will,
We released a fix in Rise today to resolve the issue where you may see a double player-interface.js when exporting a Rise course with a Storyline block. Please export your course again and let us know if you run into any problems uploading to your LMS!
Hi Ashley,
I've opened a case and uploaded my zip file: Case # 01179150.
I don't think you are going to have issues with implementing it in SCORM Cloud. I tested it there as well and it didn't seem to be bothered by the duplicate file.
Unfortunately this isn't coming out of my Rise account but a fellow employee's, so I don't have additional info. I'm wondering now though if maybe it has to do with the version of Storyline used to create the module, since you aren't seeing it?
Hi Will,
Thanks for the case number--I see Cleo tested your file and sent you a few questions via email last week. Let me know if you don't see an email from Support@Articulate.com, and we'll resend it!
Yep. The code above accounts for the difference by checking to see if the lmsAPI is in the parent. If not, it just calls the function from the local scope. That's the difference between the way HTML5 seems to be configured.
Ah, ok. I see it now at the if statement at the end:
if(lmsAPI.hasOwnProperty("SetScore")...That's great! I can't really think of any drawbacks to using this method over the "Specific Slide" method. I'd imagine that something like this javascript code might be what is going on behind the scenes anyway.
I can only answer the first part. The reason it's suggested to use Complete/Incomplete is that "failed" is considered a completion and therefore does not easily allow for more than one attempt. However, "incomplete" keeps it in progress for multiple attempts until the user actually passes.
Regarding reporting, I'm assuming you're looking in custom reports, then I believe the pass/fail field you refer to is "Quiz Success Status." This actually is pulling the status of the quiz, not the status of the course on a user's transcript. The "Transcript Status" field should return registered, in progress, or completed.
I hope this helps!
Thanks for the reply Kristin. The Pass/Fail column I refer to is from the standard 'SCORM 2004 course progress chart' report. However I've also checked in the custom report I was playing with and added the 'Quiz Success Status' field but all of the results show as 'unknown'. Screen grabs of both in attached Word doc.
I've also run it with debugger and think this line might explain why its showing as unknown: strSuccessStatus=unknown
Any ideas?
Chris, at first glance I don't have an answer, but I do have some questions. Instead of blowing up the feed (and inboxes) with back and forth, if you'd like to take this offline and report back to the group if a resolution is found, you can email me at Kristin.doll@rgare.com.
