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
Hi Chris,
There's the old trick of reporting survey responses, then make the survey variable = the topic score when the timeline starts.
This may work for you?
Hi All,
I have been working with SCORM Cloud, Articulate, and Cornerstone for months trying to get to the bottom of why the number of attempts doesn't work in Cornerstone SCORM 2004 reporting. I finally give up as this is the answer from Cornerstone:
“The engineer said to pass on:
cmi.exit = “normal”;
adl.nav.request = “exitAll”;
API_Obj.Terminate(“” );
The line adl.nav.request = “exitAll”; is necessary on CSOD. Without explicitly doing "exitAll" like this, CSOD defaults nav request to "suspendAll", which results in bookmarking rather than incrementing the attempt number on subsequent launch.
As we said earlier, per the SCORM standard, it looks like it's one or the other: exiting (clear bookmarks and start another attempt next launch) or suspending (bookmark and continue this attempt next launch).”
Basically, they are saying if you want people to pick up where the left off in an eLearning, then you can't get number of attempts in Cornerstone. It all has to do with the way Cornerstone is reading the SCORM file, and they have chosen to read it differently then most LMS's. For example, I uploaded it to SAP Litmos and SCORM cloud, and I can see the number of attempts easily in reporting.
I just wanted to pass this information along in case anyone else has worked on this problem as well.
Note also that CSOD does not play well with Quizzes built into a Storyline... or any other Tools Exported modules. We found that if a course was created and completion was based on Quiz completion percentage score used on Quiz slides, it was hit and miss if the completion information was getting picked up by CSOD. I discovered this when all of the Red listed modules had the same structure of completion based on quiz results.
What do do now is remove any SCORM completion based on failed/passed etc and only use questions in a module for re-enforcement purposes and then set the completion based on slide completion or lately we might add the Completion Trigger and only have it on the last slide.
We then test the users using the CSOD Test Engine. When the user completes the module they then get an automated email to do the test. They then get the full completion once the test has been passed. Since we moved to this process, all issues have ceased regarding the incomplete status even when it was complete based on achieving a pass score.
This is not confined by the way to Storyline, it also applies to any development tool SCORM output setup.
I was in San Diego at the Cornerstone Convergence a few weeks ago and I mentioned it again still no explanation from them.
(I do not always trust Scormcloud either by the way :) )
My company has a course that was published to CSOD. It recently started freezing when the user gets to slide 30/31 (very frustrating). I tested the course out on SCROM Cloud and didn't run into any issues. Aside from text content, there is a short audio file. What is the possible reason why this is happening and does anyone have a solution? Thanks!
Have you tried replacing the course files and/or reversioning the course?
We have a client who is new to Cornerstone. We've supplied them with 2 files for a course; one scorm package is the main course file, and the second scorm package is the quiz. They are telling us it isn't possible to have the quiz separate. Is this true? If it can have both in a single course, do you have any advice on how they can build this course in their Cornerstone system? We've never been in Cornerstone, so we aren't sure how to guide them, or if they are correct and it simply isn't possible.
Having an issue uploading a course and am getting a "Resource file does not exist" error for the imsmanifest.xml....I tested it in SCORM cloud and it worked fine and said the imsmanifest looked great. Any ideas what I can do to fix my file?
UPDATE Figured it out...had an attachment whose filepath was too long and contained a foreign character (it's a company policy that had to be presented in english and spanish). Shortened the filepath and removed the 1 accent in the filename and the issue resolved. Found the solution here: https://community.articulate.com/discussions/articulate-storyline/trying-to-upload-published-course-in-saba-yeilds-this-error
Hey Daniel,
Depending on how your authoring tool packages your Zip file for uploading, you may want to check to see if the Zip going up to Cornerstone does not extract to a "Folder" that contains your actual course files. I typically will open the published folder and zip the files contained within...and then upload that zip to Cornerstone publisher.
Bob
Thanks for the reply Robert...I was able to figure out the issue what the length of the file path and that the file name contained a foreign character. Pretty random issue but luckily someone had experienced it before.
Re the comment posted by Chris about a year ago:
Instead, setting cmi.exit="normal" will indicate that the LMS should begin a new attempt with a new set of run-time data on the next launch of the SCO. This should then allow the quiz data to log each attempt.
Does anyone know where this is set? I have looked at the imsmanifest file as well as some of the js files in the lms folder within a SCORM2004 package but could not find an exact match for the 'cmi.exit=...' reference. A lot of different ones which refer to suspend but not this exactly. I would like to test this to see if we can get multiple attempt data to generate to our reports.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Hoping Steve Flowers sees this.
I'm having an issue where JavaScript runs perfectly in my HTML5 published course on Cornerstone IF I open it through Chrome. However, if I open through IE, none of the JavaScript functions. This is standard "Pull user name" and "get computer date" JS... nothing fancy.
Published as SCORM 1.2. Wondering if 2004 would resolve this?
Thoughts?
Hey Owen -
Shouldn't operate any differently. We haven't seen problems pulling in elements from the LMS to IE. What version of IE are you running into the problem on? Any errors appear in the console when you run the Dev Console (F12 > Console)?
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actionator::exeJavaScript - Object expected
I think that's a normal error (odd way to put it:)). Do you have a .story file without content but with your script that you can send over? Will give it a test to see if I can figure out why it's not working in IE.
I sent the script to you through LinkedIn.
The script tests fine on scorm cloud and operates as expected in chrome.
Have you turned off CSOD’s obsolete compatibility mode setting?
I work for an intn'l company and LMS setting are controlled by a parent corp. over seas. Is this something I can do on a course by course basis at the time I publish?
Wait, I think I located what you are referring to.
Field labeled "Compatibility Mode" and in the drop down I see the following options:
None
IE7
IE8
IE9
IE10
I'll try selecting and updating to "None" and see what happens...
...
...
BINGO! That resolved it. THANK YOU WILL!
Awesome! I'm glad this worked. I'll post this just in case anyone else needs to find it:
When editing a course on the "blue page" it should always be None.
Hopefully your company can switch this off for everyone. It's located in Preferences: Content Launching Preferences (by Division)
Hello, Marcus.
Did you ever get a response to this? I didn't see anything come through on the next page. I have a client using CSOD and I want to pull the preferred name, too.
Any help you can provide would be helpful!
Thank you,
Angie
hi @ beyondcontentco.com
Angie, are you trying to pull the learner's name from CSOD?
What is the word regarding the Google Chrome Update 80 coming out Feb 4, 2020 and course size limitations? Could any offer any insight on the information below as to why Google Chrome is doing this and steps to take to "reduce message size" or keep "message size" under their new limit - Not sure exactly where or how to do this. Does this have anything to do with the way a course is built in Articulate? Or how the final data is sent from the course to Cornerstone? Or what? Cornerstone is clear to say this is not their doing it is Google Chrome - but it effects all cornerstone courses. (Or will it stop there?) How would I limit said message size? Any help or feed back would be graciously received. Thanks!
"Google will release Chrome version 80 on February 4, 2020. With this release, Google is making significant changes to Chrome’s Window Close behavior that will impact how online courses communicate a user’s exit and completion status to a learning platform. NOTE: There is no impact to other supported browsers, i.e. Firefox, Safari etc......We sent this announcement ......
.....In addition to the Chrome Window Close behavior, Google is making another change that will affect specific courses for you, directly.
The impact on you
Chrome version 80 will now limit the size of status and completion updates that your course can send upon Window Close. The new limit per message is 64KB. If the limit is exceeded, course status and completion will not be sent to Cornerstone and these statuses may not be accurate.
What we're doing to help
We have audited all SCORM courses and have identified the below courses within your portal that exceed the new message size limit. These courses will need to be updated to correctly track user's status and completion.
Recommended next steps
If these courses were authored within your organization, you should update them to reduce the size of the message sent to Cornerstone upon Window Close.
If these courses are purchased from a third-party, you should work directly with the provider to ensure the new limit is met.
We encourage delaying your organization's update to Chrome version 80 until you have confirmed that your content is compliant. Other web browsers are not impacted by this change.
Additional resources
Disallow sync XHR in page dismissal (Links here)
Chrome Features Schedule (Links here)
For more information on how to determine if the message size exceeds the limit, view this posting in the Cornerstone Success Center.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
The Cornerstone Team"
Hi, Laura.
This Chrome change limits the size of the communication between an LMS and a course--not the size of the course itself.
The good news is that the most resource-intensive communication between an LMS and a course is
suspend_data, which is already capped at a maximum of 64 KB by even the most generous LMS standards. We've never seen a course that approaches this level of runtime data, so we anticipate no impact as a result of this Chrome change.Please let us know if you need anything else!
Thanks. That is what I understood it to mean as well. However, embedded in their message, Cornerstone audited our client's courses and came back saying one of the course we authored exceeded this limit. (I am not sure how that is possible.) And that we as the author needed to fix it. And that was not a Cornerstone issue this was a Google Chrome issue. I am not sure what next steps would be. Could you help us with the language or next steps we need to advise our client about how to proceed? Thanks! (This was a Storyline 360 course, 2004 3rd Ed.) Or maybe I need to do a private share with you.
Thanks for your reply, Laura.
A great way to inspect the communication between your LMS and your course is to enable LMS Debug Mode and check for messages that exceed 64 KB. I don't think you'll find any, but if you do, we'd love see a copy of the course for further troubleshooting!