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!
906 Replies
Are you using the Cornerstone mobile app by chance? We just have people use CSOD via Safari and I've never seen anything like what you are describing. Can you include an image to show what you are seeing?
Hi all, I've got the Cornerstone mobile app and the Articulate mobile app on my works iPad. I've published a course to our LMS (SCORM 2004 3rd) and can see it in the CSOD app. However when I try and open it, it comes up with a screen that has a 'Launch' on it and a thumbnail preview of the course but I can't get it to load. Its as though it doesn't think I have the Articulate app installed as in the bottom right corner is a 'download from app store' message. Anyone come across this before or now how to resolve?
Hi, Chris -
Don't use the Articulate Mobile App in your publish. It will not communicate with SCORM. Publishing to HTML5 should get it to run. You'll want to test. HTML5 doesn't run equally on all devices in SL2 publishes. SL360 offers improvements.
You should not publish for the Articulate Mobile player if you are hosting
your content in CSOD. It doesn't work.
Thats annoying.
Sorry if I sound a bit dim here but does that mean that I should publish (untick play via Articulate mobile app) then upload to CSOD as normal so can pick it up via CSOD app? If so, what will it open in?
I'm going to have a go I a moment but I'm working from home today and my VPN connection is rubbish (lots of shouting at the screen).
Yes. Untick the mobile player, tick HTML5.
Hi Steve,
Has that worked for you? Because I haven't had any luck. For me, it works fine in CSOD, but once you try the mobile app, it doesn't work.
I do have Storyline 1, if that makes any difference. I'm planning on getting the free trial of 360 to see if that will resolve the problem for us. We'd really like to roll out mobile in CSOD, but this is getting in our way.
Thanks Steve. That's what I did and it sort of works. We would have to do a lot more testing if we wanted anyone to access anything real from a mobile.
Please, somebody could help me? I have several trainings developed in Storyline and running into CORNERSTONE. The question is that some users have problems to completed these trainings and, even they view all the slides and pass the final test, the status of the training is still as "incompleted".
Please, somebody could tell me which the reason of this behaviour?
Thank you so much.
Hello everybody.
In order of my last post, I would like to explain better which is our problem.
We have developed some trainings using "Storyline2". This trainings are running into CORNERSTONE and it seems that are working correctly for everybody except for a few people that have the following issue:
They complete the training (view all the slides and if the training has a quiz they also pass this quiz). The result's slide tell to the learner that he/she complete correctly the course but, when they close the training, Cornerstone don't track correctly this information and the training is keeping into the "incompleted" tab. I mean, the status does not change to "Complete" and it is allways in the "Active" tab.
Please, could you help me and tell me what can I do to solve this problemm?
Many thanks for your help
I think that we will first need to find out what browser and browser version these users are using.
SCORM and Internet Explorer have had a rocky relationship... for example: https://www.google.com/search?q=Scorm+and+Internet+Explorer
Does anyone have experiencing using CSOD's deep link feature within a storyline course? We're finding that our deep links work fine outside of a SCORM course, but don't when used inside a course.
Tracy, maybe try using a URL shortening service such as https://goo.gl/ as a workaround?
Hi Tracy, as Will Findlay said, try using the URL shortening service. Cornerstone CSOD links include spaces and other special characters dilineated as "%20" in the URL. Usually, the browser will translate this into a "%20" or space as needed. However, Storyline URLs are translated literally, so these special characters don't get translated as they should. Cornerstone doesn't recognize it, so directly deep-linking wouldnt' work. The URL shortening will get the job done!
Nice to know the why! Thanks.
Hi Francisco,
We have had this issue as well with some users. It didn't matter what browser they used or what computer operating platform. However, we found that for our users, the people who saw this issue were also the ones who had the module open on their computer for more than 1 hour. This is pretty typical of our learners, since people are often pulled away from their desks or their modules due to meetings or other work. These users "timed out" of the Cornerstone LMS, but they didn't see the small pop up warning them they would be logged out. And so, they would finish their module as usual and then close it out, but because they had timed out already, Cornerstone did not capture their score or progress. Some learners who experienced this issue also reported that their internet was disconnected for a short time, perhaps when traveling from their desk to another location in the office, or when their VPN got disconnected unexpectedly. This caused the same Cornerstone timeout issue.
You may like to run a few tests to see if this is the case for your learners who experience the issue. Maybe they will also remember if they got disconnected from their wireless network?
We have spoken with Cornerstone about this issue and unfortunately we can't change the time-out duration (I think the default is one hour). We've opted to add a small popup disclaimer at the beginning of our modules, warning learners to watch the time and close out of the module and refresh the Cornerstone Transcript each hour to ensure that their work gets saved. It's unfortunately a tedious workaround for our learners but it gets the job done. Due to the nature of their jobs, we can't expect our learners to always have 100% of their time dedicated to the module if they need to take a client call, etc. Hope this helps.
Lulu this is very helpful to know. Do you know if
1) the 1 hour countdown is reset if the user is interacting with the module? e.g. if I watch a video on a slide for fifteen minutes (dropping me down to 45 minutes left), but then I click the next button in the Storyline module, does the CSOD time-out clock reset back to an hour before time-out? Or does it mean...
2) that as soon as you launch the module, you have 1 hour no matter what you do within the module before CSOD issues the timeout warning?
Hi Will,
It is the latter - as soon as you launch the module, you have 1 hour before CSOD issues the warning. Because Storyline publishes as a Flash object, whatever you do in the object isn't recognized in CSOD until you close out and the SCORM package sends data to CSOD. During that hour, if you happen to go back into CSOD and maybe look at something in your transcript, or click on a link, etc, then the timer will reset. But as long as you're only interacting within the Storyline Flash object, CSOD will count down.
That said, I don't know what happens if you publish Storyline only as HTML5 and then upload that object into CSOD. That'd be worth a test!
Thanks for this info Lulu. I learned something useful on the CSOD forums. There is an enhancement coming out in this coming CSOD February release called Online Course Timeout Enhancement. This should help users extend their time available in the course without having to go the the portal:
https://help.csod.com/help/csod_0/OnlineHelp.htm#0_Whats_New/171/LMS/Online_Course_Timeout_Enhancement/Online_Course_Timeout_Enhancement.htm
One of the use cases: "Jennifer is an employee at a healthcare organization who needs to take the First Aid Awareness course. Jennifer launches the course, which opens in a new window, and the system begins to count down based on the portal’s timeout configuration. When the session is about to expire, the online course timeout notification appears. Jennifer chooses to continue the course session, and the system resets the timer for both the online course window and for the parent window of the application."
I found out about this new feature in this very useful discussion here:
https://clients.csod.com/phnx/driver.aspx?routename=Social/Topic/Posting/DiscussionPostingDetails&Posting=43814#loaded
Hello Xavier,
What you are describing is exactly the behavior that I am looking for on a course. Can you please share the settings you used for publishing? Did you use Passes/Incompleted, Passes/Failed, Completed/Incompleted, or Completed/Failed? Are you using SORM 2004 3rd edition?
Thank you!
-Aaron
Hi,
Is there news with regards to uploading Tin Can packages to Cornerstone?
Cornerstone doesn't yet support uploading Tin Can packages. It does have the ability to track outside activities (Tin Can activities), as long as they are configured to work with Cornerstone.
Actually, they are supporting TinCan content now, you just have to request your Client Success Manager or Global Product Support to start the process of turning it on. However, my understanding is that the reporting is not yet fully supported though. Here is a link to the guide that they provided to me.
https://help.csod.com/help/csod_0/Content/Resources/Documents/AdminDocs/CSOD_xAPI_Support_-_Guidelines_v1_4.pdf
Side note - we have not implemented TinCan, so I can't provide any end-user support or additional information, just the data they gave to me.
This is for external content though, outside of the LMS, where it sends a message telling Cornerstone that someone did something.
In regards to uploading Tin Can Packages (which is what you can create with Storyline, for example), the most information I can find is that this capability is slated for release possibly this year. (I saw this date at the end of a webinar (35:00 minutes in) on Tin Can you can view here if you have access to the client success site)