2 Easy Ways to Track Course Completion Without an LMS

At a previous place we used a database to manage our learner accounts. We used the web objects in a different way.

The user logged into a web page that was connected to the database and was given a URL that when clicked dropped a cookie on their PC. And it launched the course.

On the last slide we had a web object that we moved off screen. In the web object was an .asp file that read the cookie's data and sent completion info back to the database. We were able to collect who took the course, they passed the course quiz, and when it was completed.

Hi all,


I'll try and provide a full working demo soon, but just thought I'd give a few more elements here, it should already help a lot.
Before I get into it, just a small disclaimer - I hope you understand :-)

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS A GUIDANCE NOTE, NOT FULLY TESTED CODE. YOUR DEV TEAM MAY WANT TO MAKE AMENDS TO SUIT YOUR ENVIRONMENT.

What you need is listed below:
1. On result slide: add a trigger that fires either on time line starts or whatever is most relevant to your setup. The trigger should execute a JavaScript code which would look a lot like the below:


function sendToServer (var) {
$.ajax({
url: '//www.yourserver.com/path_to_php/file.php',
type: 'POST',
data: {"param1":var},
dataType: 'script',
success: function(response) {
// do something...

Expand


Hi all,


I'll try and provide a full working demo soon, but just thought I'd give a few more elements here, it should already help a lot.
Before I get into it, just a small disclaimer - I hope you understand :-)

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS A GUIDANCE NOTE, NOT FULLY TESTED CODE. YOUR DEV TEAM MAY WANT TO MAKE AMENDS TO SUIT YOUR ENVIRONMENT.

What you need is listed below:
1. On result slide: add a trigger that fires either on time line starts or whatever is most relevant to your setup. The trigger should execute a JavaScript code which would look a lot like the below:


function sendToServer (var) {
$.ajax({
url: '//www.yourserver.com/path_to_php/file.php',
type: 'POST',
data: {"param1":var},
dataType: 'script',
success: function(response) {
// do something...

Expand


Hi all,


I'll try and provide a full working demo soon, but just thought I'd give a few more elements here, it should already help a lot.
Before I get into it, just a small disclaimer - I hope you understand :-)

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS A GUIDANCE NOTE, NOT FULLY TESTED CODE. YOUR DEV TEAM MAY WANT TO MAKE AMENDS TO SUIT YOUR ENVIRONMENT.

What you need is listed below:
1. On result slide: add a trigger that fires either on time line starts or whatever is most relevant to your setup. The trigger should execute a JavaScript code which would look a lot like the below:


function sendToServer (var) {
$.ajax({
url: '//www.yourserver.com/path_to_php/file.php',
type: 'POST',
data: {"param1":var},
dataType: 'script',
success: function(response) {
// do something like create a success alert
// or depending on your scenario, do nothing here
}
});

}

var player = GetPlayer();
var1 = player.GetVar("variable_used_in_course");
sendToServer (var1);

This code creates a function called sendToServer that makes the call to the server, and then grabs the value of a parameter you are using in your course (maybe the user's score - this is very well documented in this forum) and executes the function. This code should of course be tailored to your own scenario: for example, you may need more than 1 variable, you could also use cookies, etc. I kept it simple here. Also note that there may be some small syntax errors but this is more to give an idea than a working piece of code

2. On the server side, you should have a php file, that handles the request being sent by the course.
This file should sit at the URL you specified in the JS code (in my example: www.yourserver.com/path_to_php/file.php) and essentially will do something like this:



3. Finally, the JS code relies on jQuery, so you need to reference the standard jQuery library somewhere. I find the easiest is to do that by adding a line of code to the story.html file, once the project has been published in articulate (locate the file, edit it with and editor, and add the code below) :



Hope that helps,and will try to generate a full working demo in the next few days if I have time.

Cheers

Tom, is there any chance that you could demo that? This appears to be a solution that does not rely on the user submitting an email/course certificate/poor results (i.e. is automatic). It would be attractive to my clients. Could the database be a google doc or something similar (i.e. not on the client's server)?

Wow is this ever helpful thanks for posting!

Hi all,

What we've used is a slightly different approach, with a combination of JavaScript and PHP.
Essentially, on the success page, a trigger is created to execute a bit of JavaScript. The JavaScript uses the score and other elements from the player that we need, and sends a request to our server using AJAX.
On the server side, a little piece of PHP grabs the values sent by the JavaScript, and inserts it in a DB. Works pretty well and is very flexible.

Hope that helps

Hi to all,

it seems that more people are interestet in that topic, also I'am. But I don't have experience in Javascript or PHP. So the question to Greg ist, can you support us a Demo Story and the corresponding JavScript and PHP script? Then I may be would be able to show and discuss the task with our Provider and Software developer. Thanks so far.

Hi Peter - well spotted :-) I have now updated my comment. Still working on a working demo, hope to have it soon.

Hello everyone!

I downloaded the file and hosted it on our AWS, so it will remain accessible long-term.

Here is the published output: http://bit.ly/1xZ6VH9
Here is the .story for download: http://bit.ly/174fcEo

Allison you're a star, thank you very much !

I'm one of those who does not have the budget for an LMS account. I just set up a JotForm account and created my first form. It works great! Up to this point I had little actual feedback on who was completing the course. This is no guarantee however, that everyone finishing the course will fill it out. I haven't figured out how to actually create a situation where I can make the form mandatory, since the web object is independent of the player controls. Thanks for the great screenr. It really helped a lot! If you want to take look at the course it is at http://openbibleministries.com/03baptsm1.php the evaluation form is at the end of the course.