We have a vendor that uses Articulate and has some amazing content on finance. They are happy to let us use the training through their LMS but do not want us to host it on our site.
We want to be able to track the users through our LMS. I know they can give us a "skeleton" package that we host but in the background the learner is re-directed to the vendor's LMS, but nobody can tell me how to do this?
This is pretty standard with vendors. I personally like this arrangement, as it keeps you from needing to utilize more of your server hard drive space.
Here's how I handle this...
In your next conversation with the vendor, inform them you are agreeable to having your learners access the course on their server, however, you'd like a receive a course completion report at regular intervals. The report should be in the appropriate data format so you can then upload this information to your LMS (or, if you have access to web services you can set this up to automatically pull completion data into your LMS0 and get the appropriate completion reporting that you need. You will likely want to send them an example of what this report should look like/be formatted as. For instance, send an excel sheet which shows which columns/data headings you need (ie- First Name, Completion Date, Completion Status, etc) and in what specific order. You may also wish to speak with them about options for passing a variable, such as the learners unique employee id, so this is also captured and reported in their completion reports.
Within my LMS, I would create a learning activity which I'll name the same as one of the vendor courses. I'll then set the properties of this learning activity up so that when the learner hits the Start/Launch button in the LMS, an internet window will open up and they will be redirected to the vendors course. The intention here is that the learners continue to go to your LMS to access this/these courses.
Hope this is helpful and provides you some guidance (and makes sense....I've been awake for quite awhile).
This is not uncommon and it can work fine. In fact we do this with 200+ 3rd party courses living right alongside our proprietary content.
Often it's done through AICC or SCORM "shell courses" where the tracking etc is handled by your LMS but where the actual content is actually redirected from a third party server. Your content vendor should have an implentation and tech support team that can do this with you (or for you). The easiest thing is to maybe have your vendor load a test package course along side your admins. That process will explain a LOT and you will feel far more comfortable about what's involved. All content vendors should do that for free as part of trying to close the contract. If they don't that might be a red flag.
Assuming that process works the way you expect, you may then want to specificy what level and how much support you will need to get the rest of the packages loaded and tested. Most content vendors are willing to do that work.... for a fee. Otherwise they will offer X hours of support answering questions on the courses (only). Alternatively, many LMS vendors will also do this work for you.... again for a fee. But unless you are really confident and this is not your first rodeo with 3rd party content, what you DON"T want to happen is to get caught in the middle if there is an issue where the content vendor points at the LMS vendor and vice versa.
PS: Maggie, if you are willing to name the 3rd party content vendor you are considering, some of the heroes here may be able to offer some additional advice that will help.
For example....
If you are looking at Biz Library, you may want to go with the AICC packages instead of SCORM as they tend to play nicer with more LMSs.
If you are looking at SkillSoft, note that the OLSA servers may require additional whitelisting from your corp IT group as well as the "admin" server used to set the content parameters
If you are lookinga at a content "reseller", be EXTREMELY clear about who handles tech support questions and know you might need to warn learners to allow all popups as they may bounce through a couple of servers.
Not sure if I can name the vendor but they are not a content developer. Their finance department has created some modules that our trainer really likes and wants to host on our site.
I guess my next question is, can you tell me where I can find a tutorial on creating a "shell course"?
Bob S said:
Hi Maggie,
Welcome to the community!
This is not uncommon and it can work fine. In fact we do this with 200+ 3rd party courses living right alongside our proprietary content.
Often it's done through AICC or SCORM "shell courses" where the tracking etc is handled by your LMS but where the actual content is actually redirected from a third party server. Your content vendor should have an implentation and tech support team that can do this with you (or for you). The easiest thing is to maybe have your vendor load a test package course along side your admins. That process will explain a LOT and you will feel far more comfortable about what's involved. All content vendors should do that for free as part of trying to close the contract. If they don't that might be a red flag.
Assuming that process works the way you expect, you may then want to specificy what level and how much support you will need to get the rest of the packages loaded and tested. Most content vendors are willing to do that work.... for a fee. Otherwise they will offer X hours of support answering questions on the courses (only). Alternatively, many LMS vendors will also do this work for you.... again for a fee. But unless you are really confident and this is not your first rodeo with 3rd party content, what you DON"T want to happen is to get caught in the middle if there is an issue where the content vendor points at the LMS vendor and vice versa.
So this is not a content vendor/provider.... just another company that has content on their own LMS that you want to leverage?
That certainly changes things... Both Matthew and my answers above were predicated on the notion that this vendor was a 3rd party content vendor that had servers you could link to.
If instead it's just some regular companys with their own LMS, than you have the issues of managing learner log in rights via SSO (single sign-on), browser compatibility complications, curricula management, and a bunch of other things. Not saying it's not possible, but you are going to want to bring in a pro to consult as honestly this is not a the kind of thing you are going to be able to do via learning on a forum. Sorry.
The more elegant solution would be to get them to allow you to host the content, perhaps with some sort of fee arrangement and reporting back to them so they can monitor how it's being used. Or, having them simply host the content on a media server (not LMS) they control, but that you can link to.... then the advice Matthew and I offered is applicable.
6 Replies
Hi Maggie and welcome to Heroes,
You can't do this reliably, unless both LMS's support the IMS LTI specification.
Alex
Hi Maggie,
This is pretty standard with vendors. I personally like this arrangement, as it keeps you from needing to utilize more of your server hard drive space.
Here's how I handle this...
In your next conversation with the vendor, inform them you are agreeable to having your learners access the course on their server, however, you'd like a receive a course completion report at regular intervals. The report should be in the appropriate data format so you can then upload this information to your LMS (or, if you have access to web services you can set this up to automatically pull completion data into your LMS0 and get the appropriate completion reporting that you need. You will likely want to send them an example of what this report should look like/be formatted as. For instance, send an excel sheet which shows which columns/data headings you need (ie- First Name, Completion Date, Completion Status, etc) and in what specific order. You may also wish to speak with them about options for passing a variable, such as the learners unique employee id, so this is also captured and reported in their completion reports.
Within my LMS, I would create a learning activity which I'll name the same as one of the vendor courses. I'll then set the properties of this learning activity up so that when the learner hits the Start/Launch button in the LMS, an internet window will open up and they will be redirected to the vendors course. The intention here is that the learners continue to go to your LMS to access this/these courses.
Hope this is helpful and provides you some guidance (and makes sense....I've been awake for quite awhile).
matt
Hi Maggie,
Welcome to the community!
This is not uncommon and it can work fine. In fact we do this with 200+ 3rd party courses living right alongside our proprietary content.
Often it's done through AICC or SCORM "shell courses" where the tracking etc is handled by your LMS but where the actual content is actually redirected from a third party server. Your content vendor should have an implentation and tech support team that can do this with you (or for you). The easiest thing is to maybe have your vendor load a test package course along side your admins. That process will explain a LOT and you will feel far more comfortable about what's involved. All content vendors should do that for free as part of trying to close the contract. If they don't that might be a red flag.
Assuming that process works the way you expect, you may then want to specificy what level and how much support you will need to get the rest of the packages loaded and tested. Most content vendors are willing to do that work.... for a fee. Otherwise they will offer X hours of support answering questions on the courses (only). Alternatively, many LMS vendors will also do this work for you.... again for a fee. But unless you are really confident and this is not your first rodeo with 3rd party content, what you DON"T want to happen is to get caught in the middle if there is an issue where the content vendor points at the LMS vendor and vice versa.
Hope this helps and good luck.
PS: Maggie, if you are willing to name the 3rd party content vendor you are considering, some of the heroes here may be able to offer some additional advice that will help.
For example....
Thanks for the help.
Not sure if I can name the vendor but they are not a content developer. Their finance department has created some modules that our trainer really likes and wants to host on our site.
I guess my next question is, can you tell me where I can find a tutorial on creating a "shell course"?
Hi Maggie,
So this is not a content vendor/provider.... just another company that has content on their own LMS that you want to leverage?
That certainly changes things... Both Matthew and my answers above were predicated on the notion that this vendor was a 3rd party content vendor that had servers you could link to.
If instead it's just some regular companys with their own LMS, than you have the issues of managing learner log in rights via SSO (single sign-on), browser compatibility complications, curricula management, and a bunch of other things. Not saying it's not possible, but you are going to want to bring in a pro to consult as honestly this is not a the kind of thing you are going to be able to do via learning on a forum. Sorry.
The more elegant solution would be to get them to allow you to host the content, perhaps with some sort of fee arrangement and reporting back to them so they can monitor how it's being used. Or, having them simply host the content on a media server (not LMS) they control, but that you can link to.... then the advice Matthew and I offered is applicable.
Hope this helps and good luck!
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