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
Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

HI Rainy,

No worries - if you're using Storyline, you'll need to place the course within your LMS and then access the link for the course (may end in index.html) while on your iPad. Depending on your publish settings it'll open the HTML5 safari version or the mobile player. Here's a tutorial for Storyline.  If you're using Presenter '13 - here's the tutorial for Presenter. 

Karoline Keyworth

Has anyone ever had issues publishing a SCORM 2004 course on CSOD and having the bulk of the content not appear? Basically we have a powerpoint type course and only the page template and header show up when published in SCORM 2004. 

Also, is there a way to pull a score from a Articulate published SCORM 1.2 course and have that displayed in CSOD? 

Bobbi Bailey

Dan,

According to CSOD Help files:

"System Administrator > Course Publisher > Create New Course/Publication

Create New Course/Publication

All uploaded files must be SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004, or AICC compliant and in zip files. Note: Currently, SCORM 2004 3rd edition is implemented. Backward compatibility is generally expected, and thus courses published in 2nd edition is likely to work properly, but it is advised that courses are created using SCORM 2004 3rd edition.

Up to 100 AICC courses or 100MB of SCORM courses can be zipped together and uploaded. Individual SCORM courses which exceed 100 MB in size may require upload by Cornerstone. Consult CARE about creating a work order request."

I know the help notes say 100MB, yet the Course Publisher page says 250MB. Either way, I think the answer is that if you have a file greater than 250MB loaded to the system, you will have to contact CARE and have them do it for you.

Rene R

I'm LMS shopping and have Cornerstone on my list of possibilities. After reviewing this discussion, I'm considering removing Cornerstone from my list.

Tom Berry shared that they have addressed the unwanted table of contents in their March 2014 release

(http://community.articulate.com/forums/p/32730/247691.aspx#247691) but are "issues" such as these typical for this system? How about bugs? And do they have consistently reliable reporting and learner completions?

So here's my question to you Cornerstone users: If given a choice, would you stay with or move away from Cornerstone? (We would be using it as a standalone system; no integrations...)

Nasser Amjad

Hi, I have been using a Cornerstone system for last 18 months and all content published via articulate has previously worked fine. We just recently published some courses published via Articulate Presenter/Quizmaker 13 and have experienced an issue tracking results from the quiz.

The course is set up to record completion if the quiz is passed (100% passing score) and allows for multiple attempts so has a retry quiz button. The tracking issue occurs when a user fails the first quiz attempt and then clicks retry quiz it sends back another score value so in the tracking the user has failed the course but the overall score is 100% so it considers the user as completed. We have tried all four tracking options in Articulate but experience the issue with all four.

The quiz settings in the Articulate file seem fine and can't find anything in the design that would cause this. Content designed in other e-learning software programs are also working fine. Have also tested on Scorm cloud and it also seems to work fine. Have contacted the CSOD Care team who suggested to try the articulate forum first so wanted to find out if anyone else has had any issues with Cornerstone and Articulate 13 or has any suggestions.

Thanks

Dawn Russ

When uploading a replacement content package to CSOD, arethere settings/options that allow you to decide how the new content is handled?For example, I would like to ensure that the revised content opens when alearner launches a module they have already completed (which I believe wouldrefresh the internal tracking and that’s okay for this particular content, it’sinternal tracking, not scorable).

I’m not a content admin in CSOD with my new company, butwhen uploading revised content in the LMS I used at my last company, I had theoption to choose how the revised content acted in the system (push new contentonly to new registrations, push to new registrations and modules in progress,or push to completed modules, new, and in-progress).

Any help/guidance I can provide my CSOD content admins isgreatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Bethre Means

We've just experienced a problem with text appearing jumbled in our Articulate Storyline course in Cornerstone OnDemand. The course was fine, until yesterday we made a minor update and republished the course. Now 80% of the text in the course is unreadable.

Has anyone experienced anything like this?

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Bethre,

Did you update the course within the .story file or did you make changes within Cornerstone? If you changed the .story file and you don't see the changes while looking at the file itself, but only loaded into your LMS you may want to also try testing it at SCORM Cloud to help narrow down where the issue is occurring. If the course displays ok at SCORM Cloud, you'll want to connect with your LMS team.

If you see the behavior while at SCORM Cloud could you share a copy of the course here with us so that we could take a look?

Emily Broad

Hi,

I have several answers for you. We've been on Cornerstone for years and I've helped to implement it in various divisions of our org.

Chris and Amy - you are correct that you can't delete, but that is good. We've had to find old courses and versions for audit purposes. If you delete the courses, you have nothing to show as to what occurred / was trained to - really important for Compliance courses.

Rene - yes. I love it. I've worked with some others, each has their benefits and weak sides. It really depends on what your primary need is. I recommend getting a demo from each of your top runners.

Carolyn - you have the option of using deep-linking - this is a new feature. Another option, which I use all the time is the "Curriculum". It allows you to group multiple learning objects together. You can even tell the system which one must be completed first, second etc....

Dawn - yes, When you proxy enroll, you have the option of selecting if the content should be pushed to users that already have it on their transcript.

Bathre - if the changes that you have made are significant (ie, a new slide added) not just a minor update like a change of a picture or wording, you must inactivate the old published version and upload a new one. If you try to overwrite it, it will be all jumbled up. So, inactivate and then "create / publish" a new file and you're good to go.

Everyone - no I don't work for CSOD, I've just been burdened with other LMS' in my career and love what this one can do in comparison.

Sharon Blanchard

Jason Chan said:

Hi Tom,

I just got a reply from them today -

I just heard back from ourengineers and this request has been completed. Please let me know whenyou have a chance to upload SCORM courses again and confirm that the formattinglooks the way you anticipated.

Just to clarify, by IT, I mean CSOD IT, not my company IT. CSOD are the ones that can change the setting.

And I just tested it.......IT WORKS. As far as an explanation, I don't have one, but it seems like they understood what the problem was and fixed it. I'm sure if you reference some of the explanation in this thread, they can figure it out. If not, I can PM you my CSOD contacts.

Good luck.


Hi Jason,

I came across your posting when I too was experiencing the strange TOC in SCORM 2004 courses. We are in the process of implementing CSOD and are testing various items. I contacted one of our reps concerning this and it seems to be a common issue. This is what we were told: "... there is just a setting to allow for TOC which was set to"TRUE", and now is set to "FALSE" on all portals. Response I received was "Scorm2004TocMenuset to false".

I hope this information will be useful.

Bud Keegan

I'm not on CSOD but my client is-- am hoping any CSOD users might know if this is possible:

1.) track a published assessment by score

2.) track same assessment also by completion (which would be by slides viewed)

3.) communicate #2 to learner dashboard

4.) do NOT communicate #1 to learner dashboard

We basically want to track scores but not tell a learner they've "failed" in their dash!  Any ideas?

Emily Broad

Hi Bud

1.  Yes.  If you publish in SCORM 2004 AND include a summary page, you can report on the assessment within the training.   The report in Cornerstone is a Standard report under training, called the Course Assessment Question Item Analysis

2.  Yes.  This is a different setting in Articulate.  You would publish with the parameter of slides viewed. 

3.  Yes - technically.  If you have, for example, 20 slides and all of them must be viewed for the course to be "complete" then that information will feed to Cornerstone.  The end user will see "complete" or "in progress" in their transcript

4.  Yes.  When you build the course, create a summary slide that does not show the user their grade.  There is a nice "Thank you" slide that I use to indicate that they are done, but it doesn't show the end user their mark.  The marks / grades / answers will feed into the report though.  Only a person with Admin access would be able to print that report.

Matthew Mason

Hi all,

I'm currently working with a client that uses CSOD. They have Storyline content developed by an external 3rd party, who is using javascript to report to the (any) LMS.

The module in CSOD is reporting as complete but this is not marking the course as complete.

Any suggestions? Is the javascript an issue?

Matthew

Matthew Mason

Hi, We have added a 2004 scorm package developed in Storyline into our CSOD lms. We are getting different status for completion of the unit. In some cases, the transcript is showing a completion status of 'completed'. In the view box the status is showing as 'failed'. The storyline file is set to report as 'complete/incomplete'. 

Any ideas where the 'failed' is coming from?

Thanks in advance.

Matthew Mason

Thanks Bruce. The pass was set to 100%. I have changed the output to passed/incomplete and this is now reporting as passed - not failed. The whole course is problematic. The developers built it so that if you failed the quiz the first time (the whole quiz not 2nd attempt on each question) it would take you back through the quiz but skip the questions you got right. This has been causing headaches with reporting as a 2nd attempt at the quiz might mean you only attempt 6 of the 12 questions - reporting a 50% grade, when in reality the other 6 were correctly answered the first time.