Tin Can

Nov 05, 2013

Ok, a new post for the Tin Can curiosity driven people.  I am trying to create a new course but I have a ton of custom variables and triggers.  It basically is the old Confidence based learning but with a custom twist.  I can get everything to work within Storyline but my dilemma is how to actually do reports.  Obviously I will not be able to do it with SCORM, so I am wondering how Storyline works with Tin Can.  I know I can publish in Tin Can, but how do I assign those custom variables to Tin Can actions and what can be reported. 

My current LMS does not support Tin Can but I am looking at others right now to be able to do more reporting, I am just missing the connection of getting those variables reported on.  Thanks for your help.

5 Replies
Jonathan Brown

Hi Randy,

We have been working on something quite similar.

When working with Storyline you will need to ensure that you use the built in quizzing functionality in Storyline. So you will need to use the tools like graded multiple choice, fill in the blank and many others. If you have created your own you can use "Convert to Freeform" to convert them into these quizzes. This will also allow you to assign values to various options and start to score your learner based on their answers. At the end of a quiz you will need to use a results slide to calculate their results. Using this method will ensure that data will be passed to the Learning Record Store (LRS) in the correct way using the Tin Can API.

When you publish the course you will need to publish it for your LMS and select Tin Can API Reporting and Tracking. When you set up the options for Tin Can you'll need to track results using a Results Slide.

As you mentioned you will need a Tin Can compatible LMS and an LRS. The data from the course will be passed to the LRS and for reporting you will need to retrieve this data. Depending on your LMS the LRS will need to be set somewhere. There is a lot of documentation on the API in order to help developers. If you have a look at http://tincanapi.com/public-lrs/ you can see the type of information that is passed to the LRS and how that might be used in reporting. You can retrieve this data using various methods.

Have a look at http://tincanapi.com/.

Randy Hill

I have been doing SCORM tracking with Storyline for a while so I am familiar with all these concepts.  I was just not sure if outside of a results slide, which only tracks complete and incomplete and possibly how the user answered the questions, if there was a way to track the custom variables.  It does not look like there is a way yet.  It will track the same way as SCORM does in an lms.  So at this point Storyline does not provide any tincan specific things other than being able to export in tincan form.

Andrew Weaver

Ashley,

I'm not sure if the linked article answers Randy's original question.  Jonathan pointed out the quiz workaround, but it's still not the right solution for what Randy and many other developers need for publishing Tin Can statements other than those listed in the linked article.

Can you confirm that there is no way to send statements to an LRS other than those activities already available through SCORM publishing?

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