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
Sighle Denier

Haven't had that exact issue, but check your player and publish settings.

In the player, under "Other":
Browser size: display at user's current browser
Player size: scale player to fill browser

Do NOT check "Launch player in new window .."

On restart:
We check "When running in LMS, ignore Flash cookie"

Publish Settings:
Properties:
Quality: Optimized for standard delivery
Output Options: SCORM 1.2

Reporting and Tracking button:
Fill in the course particulars
Report status to LMS as: Completed/Incomplete

If you choose SCORM 2004, choose 3rd Edition

Becky Barch

I publish SCORM 1.2 in CSOD. Problem: I have created a quiz with 44 total questions in 7 question banks in Storyline. I have the banks set to pull a total of 20 questions. When tested in CSOD I receive 18 questions and the score captured was a few percentage points off. I have the quiz set to allow multiple attempts and that function is working. I have tested the quiz in SCORM cloud and the quiz performs as expected, capturing the correct score, etc. I really want the ability to deliver a mixture of random questions the learners Any suggestions?

Phil Mayor

I have launched a module on my clients CSoD and have just had reports back that it is working fine except for the assessment where the user cannot click and of the radio buttons on iOS and Mac computers. I have tested outside of CSoD and have no issues. Has anybody seen this.

An added oddity is that they tested it again and all worked but it was "glitchy" (I have no other information about how it was glitchy).

I have published to Scorm 2004 4th Edition. Client is pushing me to use Mobile Player which I am pushing back on, does CSoD do TinCan API?

Mallory  Kudrna

Hello Phil,

I have been publishing courses as SCORM 3rd edition.  Cornerstone does not support 4th edition.  Maybe that is causing an issue?  Here is info straight from CSOD:

SCORM – Cornerstone supports SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004 1st, 2nd and 3rd editions. The recommended size limit for courses is 250MB.
AICC – Cornerstone supports AICC v3.5, up to 100 course titles per batch upload.'

Have you checked the version of IE they are using? 

Cornerstone does have a mobile app.  When setting up the course in CSOD you must make it available on mobile.  You do not have to use the Articulate Mobile Player options when publishing. 

Hope this helps.  Good luck.

Julie

Steve Flowers

CSOD does support xAPI but it's not straightforward. The client would need to setup an endpoint with global support. Even then, reporting of xAPI statements aren't very clean and meaningful. It's mostly intended to capture informal activities that don't need to tie to LO or curriculum progress.

I'm assuming the item click is HTML 5. I've seen issues with clickable items in the past. Storyline-ism that tended to be resolved with the goofiest activities. Things like re-scaling and positioning the question items. There isn't anything, to my knowledge, that's different about the CSOD environment. So the issues should be replicable even if they're intermittent.

Things I'm thinking about:

What version of iOS / Mac Safari?

What version of mac device (hardware)?

Was a particular network being used to access the system? If so, what are the specifications of the network.

Ideally, none of this should matter. I do think there's something occasionally wonky with Storyline's output. Most of the time a republish can fix it. 

Dana Hinman

Has anyone else been having "reversioning" issues with CSOD and Articulate?

When we try to update a course on Cornerstone the update takes days and sometimes there are unexplained issues.

For example: 1) a NEXT button won't advance (even though it works perfectly in preview) 2) Fonts change from Futura to Times New Roman  3) zoom picture features will not work.

Amy Schammert

We have also experienced delays from the time we published an updated/reversioned course until we are actually able to view it running properly on the server.  In every other system I have used, once the updated shows published it is immediately available.  We have been told more than once by different CSOD folks that it's "normal for it to take 10 minutes up to a couple of hours before the updated content is accessible by users."  So, I don't know about "days" but we certainly have experienced much longer than expected wait times for the new course to "populate" and be available for users and it seems this is normal, expected system behavior.  We've had similar "lags" in the length of time it can take for a Learning Assignment to process.

Will Findlay

There are actually two methods for updating a course which are quite different so that is why I am asking about "reversioning" vs"replacing." For example, you can publish a new online course, and then tell Cornerstone that it should be the new version of an older course. This is "reversioning." Reversioning allows you to avoid any of these file replacement issues, but it does mean that not everyone gets the new version of the course unless you reenroll them in it, which then wipes out their progress.

Replacing is when you just write over the old course. When replacing, what I mean by zero out is that I delete all of the existing course files before uploading the new ones. This prevents Cornerstone from trying to figure out which ones have or have not changed and instead just replaces all the files. My suspicion (which I have no proof of, so maybe I should instead say my superstition) is that Cornerstone's file comparison process doesn't always do the best job at replacing files that need replacing and it leaves ones that should have been replaced. I could be wrong though. I just delete all the files first to rule out this possibility.

[Update 8/2018]: things have changed with the new Content Uploader tool to where you can no longer "zero out" all the files. However, it seems to do better with comparing and replacing the right files now, although CSOD is much more finicky about letting you Replace rather than Reversion. The imsmanifest file has to be almost identical to the previous one.]

Matt Steffeck

I have, in the past, seen update/replace take days and in the mean time the course looks like someone flipped it upside down and shook it. So, you are not alone in seeing this behavior.  As a result I know of some companies that choose to reversion only and not even mess around with update.

Personally, if I have an update I need to do, and by update I mean small tweaks to text or images, not wholesale changes to slide number or order, I tend to push those out the night before a holiday weekend if it can wait that long or at least overnight if it is urgent. A reversion, can be pushed out any time but then you have to decide who is getting the updated version (everyone vs. new registrations, etc).

I haven't "zeroed out" as Will suggests in recent memory  Although on one occasion I somehow broke the whole course when "zeroing out" and ended up versioning anyway.

Of note, when updating, I have seen some impatient souls attempt to push out multiple updates when the first one didn't show up. This never goes well. Do your self a favor and put a version.update number on your first slide so you know it at least took (e.g when version 1 is updated the first time I put a v1.1 on the first slide). Also note just because you see your update number change on the first slide, doesn't mean the whole update is complete. Patience is required for update/replace.