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
I think that the triggers that actually communicate completion to the LMS are the "Submit results" trigger (if you "Track using a quiz result") and the newer "Complete course" trigger (if you "Track using complete course trigger"). We avoid tracking based on slide views because it causes too many support headaches when someone insists they viewed all the slides and we don't have a good way to dispute their assertion. I don't think it should matter how the course is exited as long as one of those triggers is in place.
I had no idea there was a new Complete course trigger, and I think my life is about to change because I hate the "based on number of slides viewed" for several of our courses that have optional branching and scenarios. ~~doo doo doooo... the more you know ~~~ Gotta love this forum!
Sorry, just noting the difference between "Complete Course" and "Exit Course" as I clearly missed that little wrinkle when I responded earlier.
It's worth noting there is more than one way to skin this training solution. (Items #1 and 2 are most common in our organization)
1. If you already have graded quiz questions and a results slide, "submit results" (assuming learner has "passed") will communicate a course completion (and communicate any item responses using SCORM 2004 3rd Ed). This can be used to document knowledge transfer if using any sort of pre/post test approach. If you implemented some interactivity and want to know what the learner responded for each question, #1 is for you.
2. A simple attestation slide (" I have completed the course...") can also accomplish this same thing using a single check box, a submit interaction trigger and a results slide with pass set to 0%. #2 works if you have a compliance partner who wants to be able to say "Learner X said they understood and completed required information".
3. If you are attempting to use "slide views" there are potential headaches as Will points out. #3 works if you want to indicate learner "saw" everything and you want to be hated by the learning administrator who has to argue with learners about going back through the whole course to locate the one slide they missed to get the course to register as "completed".
4. If the course is linear or at least set up that the only way a learner can get to the last slide is by completing EVERYTHING, you could get away with that "Complete Course" trigger. #4 works best as long as the learner just needs to get to the last slide for us to know they are done.
I am using Storyline 3 and there is no Complete Course trigger.
Can you all tell me where this Complete Course trigger is located?
In SL 360 Trigger Wizard>Action>3rd item under Project subhead.
I don't know why SL3 would be any different, but I could be wrong.
If that trigger is absent #2 in my previous reply would accomplish the same thing.
Hi Victoria,
The course completion triggers are not built into Storyline 3, but are in Storyline 360. Sorry for any confusion shared here.
How are you tracking the course prior to the user exiting?
There are some limitations in HTML5 browsers with the exit course trigger that you can read about here.
Hi Leslie,
The chart at the page you referenced seems incomplete -- I frequently use the Exit Course trigger in Chrome and it works, at least when the content is hosted in CSOD. The window doesn't close, but the course is replaced with the message "The content has ended. You may close this window."
When that chart says "it doesn't work," what does that mean? My suspicion is that it means the browser window doesn't close. I think the chart should be amended to include information about whether you are in an LMS or not, as it seems to work fine when the content is showing in a SCORM window in CSOD.
Hey Will!
Thanks for confirming that it works well in CSOD for you. I think that's what started this most recent conversation.
I apologize if that chart was confusing, it's moreso for troubleshooting and I should preface with this information.
Thanks for your feedback.
We have a new course that is having issues closing when we click "Exit Course". There is at least a 4 second delay after clicking Exit when posted to the CSOD LMS. It's in 360 and use the triggers "Complete Course" and "Exit". I don't experience this issue when testing through ScormCloud. Has anyone experienced this or have any ideas? Thanks! ~Caryn
We regularly see a delay like this after clicking exit course, but I guess I've just gotten used to it and haven't thought of it as an issue, but now that you bring it up I can see how it could confuse learners.
We've noticed this before but it hasn't been a reported problem from our userbase. People are really happy to report things that aren't clear or confuse them. Seems to be just enough of an indicator of "processing" to let folks know something is happening.
Thanks Will and Steve. Have either of you been able to narrow down any factors that affect the length of the delay? Our course is multi-lingual and is setup so that each language is in it's own scene (after making the language selection). So, we have 6 different exit buttons, depending up on the language. English has around a 4 second delay, while French is taking closer to 10 seconds.
We also experience the delay when users are exiting. This is confusing to learners. The larger issue we are running into is the evaluation is not showing up after the user closes the course. The evaluation is set to trigger upon completion.
Will, we're still not using 360 yet until it's approved and funded enterprise wide, so we are still using SL2. Is the "newer" complete course trigger not available in SL2? I haven't really looked or used it. We're converting to COD and I'm screening this thread for some intel in advance of UAT, some earlier posts about reporting and tracking issues have me concerned, hoping a lot of that has been ironed out in more recent times. Most of our existing content was published for Scorm 1.2 so hoping all that works well still in COD. I think our new std. will be to pub as Scorm 2004 v4.
I have SCORM 1.2 courses and they function within the CSOD. I use the "slide view" tracking option as my courses are very linear and rarely run into an issue. The main issue I have seen is that if a person has launched a course twice and has two windows are open of the course. If they complete the second opened course their progress isn't documented as the system is looking at the first course. If it sounds legitimate that they completed the course we just mark them complete.
We also have the short delay when closing out a course and I agree with Will that we have never really seen this as an issue and our users haven't expressed confusion either.
One additional note, CSOD supports 3rd edition. When you switch over to SCORM 2004 you will want to go with that.
Hi Chris,
The newer complete course trigger is only available in SL360: https://articulate.com/support/article/storyline-360-course-completion-trigger
You are correct in thinking that a lot has changed in Cornerstone over the course of this thread. As Julie said, SCORM 2004 v3 is what to use in CSOD.
Just popping in to give an update. We were using Scorm 1.2 and the "course complete" trigger on the Exit button to signal the end of the course. I think the "course complete" trigger might have been what was causing the significant delay. We kept it in Scorm 1.2, but removed the "course complete" trigger. After changing to completion by number of slides, it seems to have fixed our lag issue. There's still a little delay, but that's fine. Using the other trigger, we were experiencing up to a 10 second delay....which makes it feel like the screen is stuck. Our issue is resolved. Thank you for your help!
Chris (and yes, a great name LOL), how did this end up working out? We're in the midst of converting to COD and I'm concerned with all the posts in here about completion reporting issues.
Thanks Will, I thought we were going to be using v4, any reason why you're advocating v3?
Not sure if there were any responses here. By evaluation do you mean "smile sheet" for the course or a post test?
We have one course set up with an evaluation (Level 2 Learning on CSOD) assigned to follow on after completion. It is worth noting that it does not auto-launch, but it appears in the "pending evaluations" section of the learner's landing/main page with a "Take Post-Test" link . Evaluation settings in catalog are "Active" and "Required" and the course is not in completed status until the learner completes said evaluation or 14 days elapses. Whichever comes first.
Regular old post tests are placed in curricula as a separate LO and typically auto-launch on completion of course content.
Thank you Matthew for your response. It is a smile sheet I am referring to. On some course it will come up automatically and on others it does not. All of the settings on each of the courses are the same in COD. I am wondering if it is the way the course is set to complete in the tool? The additional information on the Level 2 follow-up evaluation is also help full.
This is based on this note in the help documentation:
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.
Also CSOD confirmed last year they do not yet support 4th edition in a post in the CSOD Success Center.
What do you mean by "come up automatically?" Do you mean that the blue button changes its label to "Evaluate?" Or do you actually mean that the evaluation form displays immediately after the user exits the course? I ask because I don't think there is anything in CSOD that would make it possible for the evaluation to pop up like this after the course is done, unless maybe if someone has found a clever way to make it happen that involves launching the evaluation from inside the course itself. Could it be that these evals are being hosted somewhere else like Surveymonkey?
The reason I can't believe this is that there is no current way in CSOD to deep link directly to an evaluation, at least that I am aware of.
Hi Will,
I think I asked the question in a incomplete or incorrect way. Here is what is happening.
We Enable Completion Page in the system and have a specific look and feel for employees and this page is displayed after the user has complete the training. This completion page has a link to the evaluation. For some courses the completion page will come up as soon as they close the course and for other courses it takes a refresh or up to 30 seconds to display. With the completion page taking that long to display most of our users have closed CSOD and moved on to other things.
If the user does not see the completion page or closes CSOD before the page display they can still complete the evaluation from there completed transcript for 14 days.