Mobile Player - how does it connect/disconnect to LMS?
Oct 09, 2015
Hi, my client asked me details on how the connection to his LMS occurs from the Articulate Mobile Player (AMP) for iPad. I thought that information would be easy to come across, but it wasn't. Existing information is mostly about publish settings for iPad, iPad vs HTML5, etc. and also this forum post which seems to suggest that once someone has a SL course running in AMP, it stays available in there forever as long as there is an internet connection, whether or not learner is logged on or even has active credentials on the LMS...
I ran a quick test on my sandbox instance of Absorb LMS. I did setup a new learner with access to a given course, with the "Publish for Articulate Mobile Player" option selected. I logged in on the iPad as the new learner, ran the course and as expected it loaded on the AMP. I viewed a couple of slides. Then exited the course, logged off the LMS from the iPad's browser. I went back to the LMS admin and deleted the user. Impossible to login to the LMS now, as expected. But when I open back my AMP on the iPad, I am still able to see the course and navigate through it, implying that I am still connected. When I open and exit the course again, I can even come back and it loads to the last slide I visited.
Does this mean that once a learner has an e-learning course up and running on the iPad player, he will have access to it forever no whether or not his LMS account is still active? And as a side question, does bookmarking occur on the AMP instead of going through the LMS?
I would love to see some documentation on how exactly the AMP behaves and interacts with my LMS.
Any input and help appreciated, thanks! :)
14 Replies
Hi PY!
If you've allowed offline viewing, this would be expected behavior.
Content in AMP will always resume where you previously left off when:
Hi, thanks for the reply!
I know I have put a lot of details in my thread, but as I mentioned I have
never checked "Allow offline viewing" for the described test I have run.
Which is why I have posted this here.
My issue is: even though learner is disconnected from LMS (and/or LMS
account is deleted), learner can still access courses that have been loaded
on the AMP, as long as there is an internet connection.
For instance, if a course has an expiry date, shouldn't it be possible to
remove accesses to expired accounts?
This is why I would like to have more details about AMP and connection, so
I can properly explain that behavior to my clients and get right the pros
and cons for using the AMP.
Thanks!!
Pierre-Yves Beaulieu
Hi, thanks for the reply!
I know I have put a lot of details in my thread, but as I mentioned I have
never checked "Allow offline viewing" for the described test I have run.
Which is why I have posted this here.
My issue is: even though learner is disconnected from LMS (and/or LMS
account is deleted), learner can still access courses that have been loaded
on the AMP, as long as there is an internet connection.
For instance, if a course has an expiry date, shouldn't it be possible to
remove accesses to expired accounts?
This is why I would like to have more details about AMP and connection, so
I can properly explain that behavior to my clients and get right the pros
and cons for using the AMP.
Thanks!!
Pierre-Yves Beaulieu
Hi Pierre! I wanted to let you know that I located a couple of similar threads here and here, so our team is investigating a bit. I will be following up with you.
Hello again, any luck in digging that up? Thanks
I am working with our QA Team and other team members to get this tested in some different scenarios and environments. I do not have an update at this time.
Hi there, I understand that you guys need to run tests and stuff, but there has to be some documentation somewhere as to how exactly the AMP behaves?
I just found out that the same course which I had used for tests in the AMP, I can't launch right now and get an error message. Which is good, because it implies that learners can't get access to a course forever...
But I would still like to know what exactly is the player's behavior in regards to that (how long does content remain available?), so I can explain it to my clients who are eager to know how well the access to their courses can be controlled.
Many thanks
Hi P Y! Our expectation is that if access is revoked to the content, then it is no longer accessible if you have not allowed offline viewing. It would still be displayed in the users library, but they should get an error when accessing the content.
How long does it take to behave as such once AMP considers learner
disconnected? Minutes, hours, days...?
See the test I have mentioned above. I have logged off the learner and
deleted the learner account, and content was still accessible.
Thanks!
That's the part I cannot answer at this time PY as we need to handle some testing on my end.
Are you testing terminating the connection outside of the AMP app to see if you experience the same behavior?
Yes Leslie, this is what I have been doing. Terminating the connection to my LMS in the browser (Chrome or Safari) and then coming back to the AMP, opening the course, resuming and continuing it.
As a bonus, I have also deleted the learner account from the LMS after login the test learner off. And the course still worked.
Thanks
I was curious if you are able to access the course in a regular browser outside of AMP? Again, shooting blind here ;)
Since the course is displayed in a modal on the absorb LMS, I was logged
off and therefore would not have been able to access it.
What is the expected behavior of the app, as to how and when it connects to
the LMS and validates that the connection is still occuring?
Pierre-Yves Beaulieu
Hi Pierre!
I have some follow up from my team regarding your question.
The way that it works for private courses is that we get a content token when the user accesses their course through their LMS and we launch the course in AMP.
We continue to use that content token until the LMS invalidates it. So when the customer removes the learners access, it’s up to the LMS to invalidate the token.
If the customer is deleting the course completely, the LMS would need to remove the course from their server and/or remove the content token.
It basically comes down to the responsibility of the LMS to either invalidate the content token, or truly remove the content from the server.
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