Everything we know about Cornerstone on Demand and Storyline!

Sep 04, 2013

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!

894 Replies
Marcy Watzl

Can anyone tell me how to publish and then what to check in the compatibility or other options to get content from Storyline 1 to appear correctly in the Cornerstone Mobile App for iPhone? I am using SCORM 2004. I can get the audio to appear, but none of the images or text show up--not even the resume buttons on the resume pop-up. The attached image shows what it looks like.

Matt Steffeck

This article offers some suggestions, https://articulate.com/support/article/comparing-storylines-flash-html5-and-articulate-mobile-player-output but it sounds like it may be more dependent on iOS version than anything. We have just broken into some mobile publishing with SL2 and Cap 9 and will be curious to hear about user experience in 360. I have successfully published some mobile tests but nothing terribly long or involved and nothing with a bunch of audio and interaction. But my resumes and test buttons do appear as expected (but SL2 keep in mind).

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi WW, 

I don't know any specifics about the Cornerstone interface, but you mentioned an iPad app and HTML5 - so I wanted to pop in here to see if you're seeing that grey tint over the HTML5 output in mobile Safari or if it's still within the Cornerstone App that you're seeing this behavior? Perhaps there is a screenshot which you can share for the folks in the community who are experienced Cornerstone users so that they'll be able to weigh in. 

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Jan,

If you scroll to the bottom of the first page, you'll see that there are the arrows to go to the next page, and this discussion is actually on page 11. If you see this as an email notification, click the button to "view" within the email and you'll be brought right to the end of the forum discussion and can go back from there to see if there is any CSOD specific help that you may need here. 

Will Findlay

One thing I have noticed about CSOD's own site is that they opt to open SCORM courses in a non-full screen window. We have set Cornerstone to open our SCORM courses ((Storyline/Presenter) full screen. This is a preference you can set in the Cornerstone LMS.

I'm curious what people think are the advantages/disadvantages of the full screen vs. non full screen setting. I imagine that one advantage of not opening full screen might be for novice users, who will more easily realize that what they are looking at is a pop-up window. We like the full screen option because of increased legibility.

Natalia Mueller

SCORM versions with CORNERSTONE

Hi all, our LMS administrator found a really helpful tool once CSOD upgraded allowing Storyline and SCORM 2004 compatibility. I believe the source is actually another LMS vendor but the results have been the same for us with CSOD. I've attached both the link and white paper pdf. 

In summary, they created some fantastic charts that shows the results of all SCORM publish variations. It helped us significantly when one of our training groups wanted to publish in SCORM 2004 in order to report on question level data versus the overall score and completion status we've been getting with SCORM 1.2. The settings we had been using didn't work with 2004 so this tool was invaluable to us.

 

SCORM Publish Settings in Articulate Studio and Storyline Products

Chris Undery

Thanks Natalia,

We've only recently moved over to Storyline 2 and reporting is an area I am trying to get my head around (we've had CSOD in for about 5 years). I can get it to send basic completion/pass info through to CSOD but have no idea how to get it to send question level information through to the LMS so we can determine areas of strength / weakness (indiv learner level but also wider).

  • Does it send this info through automatically (SCORM 2004)?  
  • How do we then report on this in CSOD?

Apologies if these are really basic (or stupid) questions but I'm not the LMS administrator and we have never reported at question level before due to a couple of reasons.

Any help would be very gratefully received.

Will Findlay

It sends the info if you use SCORM 2004 (I always used 3rd edition because I read somewhere that it works best for CSOD) but does not send if you use SCORM 1.2.

CSOD just came out with new custom report fields at the end of last year under Transcript Reports. They are under the section titled "Scorm 2004 Quiz Data." I've attached a screenshot of how I set up a report using them that works well for me.

The filter you cannot see in the screenshot says "SCO Name" contains (followed by the name of the module)

SCORM reporting CSOD

Natalia Mueller

Hi Chris, just keep in mind that to get the question level results you'll need to make changes in 2 places- in the course and in CSOD. The course needs to be published with SCORM 2004 and also custom report fields added in CSOD (see Will's post). The resource I added earlier helps you decide what Report Status to select (Passed/Complete/Incomplete/Failed).

Will Findlay

One thing I forgot to add is that you need to have a Result Slide that has a Submit Results trigger on it. It might be a forgone conclusion, since you probably would put a Result Slide in there anyway, but I add this because one time I had customized a Result Slide and somehow deleted the Submit Results trigger and found that I could no longer complete the course.