Everything we know about Cornerstone on Demand and Storyline!

Sep 04, 2013

Jason Chan
By Jason Chan

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
Will Findlay
over 6 years ago08/23/17 at 4:54 pm (UTC)

Another thing to keep in mind if you decide to reversion rather than replace is that reversioning wipes out all the steps you have to take right after publishing a course. So you have to go back and set the description, availability, subjects, and so on again (all the tabs on the blue page). Also, reversioning causes the course to get a new LO ID, so if you have any deep links, they will no longer work. 

Justin Lovett
over 6 years ago08/30/17 at 4:25 pm (UTC)

Hello my Cornerstone friends. I am having an odd issue.

The Issue:

  • We have a course, it's published in our LMS. The course has 3 quiz questions, a results slide (that submits results) and the questions give 10 points regardless of right or wrong answer.
  • Our users take the course. Pass it (100%) complete in LMS and take the evaluation
  • The course is published at Scorm 2004 (V3) and is set to Complete/Incomplete
  • We go to pull data, completion data reports fine but Q&A data doesn't report as well
  • Oddly enough my team members (6 of us) who took it all have a complete set of Q&A Data
  • Other users have little, incomplete, or NO data at all in the Q&A Breakdown report

 

Any thoughts?

Jan Farquhar
over 6 years ago09/13/17 at 9:54 pm (UTC)
Jason Chan

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.

 

Steve Blane
over 6 years ago10/04/17 at 3:35 pm (UTC)

Hi everyone,

I've run into an issue with embedded webobjects in CornerStone on Demand, only on IE 11.

They work perfectly in other browsers, and even in IE when on ScormCloud.

I'm getting two issues:

1. The buttons on the webpages are not responding. The hover state works but not the action.

2. The webobject is not recognizing the responsiveness of the page. (see attached).

Any thoughts on how to make CornerStone behave?

All the pages are https and built with CSS and a database only.

Dana Hinman
over 6 years ago10/04/17 at 9:36 pm (UTC)

Hi Steve,

Has this course been updated? If so, It can cause issues like this to happen.

We have been setting our compatibility to "none" in Cornerstone (instead of IE 9, 10, etc) and this has helped course issues.

Of course there is always a chance that the actual learning object in CSOD is corrupted. This has happened to our team a few times. For an inexplainable reason a course is corrupt and will not work. In that case we just republish an entire new learning object.

Those are just my thoughts. I'm interested to hear others!

Steve Blane
over 6 years ago10/05/17 at 12:25 am (UTC)

Thanks for the reply Dana. No, it was a new course. What's the impact of setting the compatibility to None?  I assume it doesn't force a compatibility on the course?

The compatibility was the issue. It was set to 7(!) so none of the responsiveness was working etc. since there we, you know, no smartphone back in '06 when IE7 was a thing. 

They've upped it to 9, where it works but doesn't format properly. But we're testing with a 10 setting using a 9 emulator and it seems to be working.

Will Findlay
over 6 years ago10/05/17 at 1:36 am (UTC)

That is a good question. I don't know the answer, but you could post a
question on the client success center. Here is where the release
information is posted for October '17:

https://clients.csod.com/phnx/driver.aspx?routename=Social/Topic/Posting/DiscussionPostingDetails&Posting=58666&Root=20

Alex G
over 6 years ago10/05/17 at 8:34 am (UTC)

They actually responded to that:

"our QA department will no longer run new feature testing and regression
testing on IE9. That said, nothing will be removed, so the site will
continue working the way it is now, and IE9 users will only gradually
experience growing glitches when using their portal. "

https://clients.csod.com/phnx/driver.aspx?routename=Social/Topic/Posting/DiscussionPostingDetails&Posting=59058&Root=20

Sasha Rubeis
over 6 years ago10/23/17 at 8:04 pm (UTC)

Hello,

Has anyone experienced the lesson not bookmarking while using a MAC computer in Cornerstone?  If a user uses a Apple computer the lesson will not bookmark after exiting the lesson and relaunching.  If a user exits on an Apple computer and relaunches on a PC computer - the lesson bookmarks.  

Will Findlay
over 6 years ago11/02/17 at 1:43 am (UTC)

After the October 2017 CSOD update, I would no longer recommend deleting your course files before attempting to update your course files. It appears that Cornerstone has tightened up what they will allow to be uploaded as an "Update" to a course. In fact, since the update I have tried to update 3 courses and have gotten errors every time, leaving the only option to Reversion the course. Are you all seeing the same thing?

Dana Hinman
over 6 years ago11/02/17 at 1:25 pm (UTC)

Will,

This technique has worked for us as recently as OCT 27th, 2017 (we haven't tried it since b/c there has been no need).  After I delete the previous files I have to reload the upload page in order to be able to upload or else I receive an error. We haven't had trouble otherwise.

Hope this helps.

Will Findlay
over 6 years ago11/02/17 at 1:35 pm (UTC)

Hi Dana, 

The October CSOD update happened the night of Oct 27th. Here is what I would do out of caution: Instead of deleting the files before uploading the new ones, first attempt to upload your .zip file. If it doesn't error out, then delete the previous files, and then click "Update." That way you won't get in a situation where you have deleted the files but can not perform an Update.

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