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!

907 Replies
Nathan Hatfield
8 years ago05/05/16 at 7:27 pm (UTC)

Need some help from our CSOD users. I'm having an issue with SCORM 2004 loaded files, specifically this note Jason's original post: 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. 

See this thread - https://community.articulate.com/discussions/articulate-storyline/issue-with-scaling-player-in-browser-gray-box I'm getting both things going on - fully scaled and not scaled correctly. 

Any ideas?

Scott Lindsey
almost 8 years ago05/24/16 at 9:29 pm (UTC)

Matthew - I see from looking over this thread that I didn't thank you for your response. My apologies! I must have gotten buried in our new CSOD implementation. Speaking for this issue, I've noticed if I delete the files and I don't rename the .zip file the same thing when reloading, I get this error. I've learned to make a note of the original .zip file name.

Pooja Bhatia
almost 8 years ago05/31/16 at 4:42 am (UTC)

Hi

I am trying to setup the following workflow in cornerstone and want to know if anyone has any comment on the possibility,

- Create a test

- based upon the score assign a curriculum to the user i.e.

1. if score <50 assign curriculum 'A'

2. if score >=50 && <70 assign curriculum 'B'

3. if score  >=70 assign curriculum 'C'

I am thinking to create groups for all 3 curriculums and assign them basis marks achieved. Is it doable?

Scott Lindsey
almost 8 years ago05/31/16 at 3:05 pm (UTC)

Hi, Pooja - I'm not sure if you can make it that granular with a test. You can populate a group on whether a certain training item is passed or not, but I didn't see where you could populate a group based on a specific scoring range. I'm still fairly new to Cornerstone, so others here might have some ideas. 

Matt Steffeck
almost 8 years ago05/31/16 at 7:17 pm (UTC)

It may depend on your particular setup. You could likely set the three branches within your test if you built that in Storyline. This may depend on whether you can deep link to your other courses.

I would envision the following triggers on your results slide:

Jump to URL/file <deep link curriculum A> when the user clicks the next button if Results.ScorePercent<50

Jump to URL/file <deep link curriculum B> when the user clicks the next button if Results.ScorePercent is between 49.9 and 70

Jump to URL/file <deep link curriculum C> when the user clicks the next button if Results.ScorePercent ≥70

Exit Course when user clicks next button.

 

 

Amy Hanen
almost 8 years ago05/31/16 at 8:27 pm (UTC)

Hi All! I have been working with Storyline for about a year with Cornerstone. We are now trying to implement a "post test/survey"  to get learner feedback to the end of specific courses. What is the easiest way to do this? I have tried building a survey into storyline, but cannot get it to report the results/answers. Previously we were doing the surveys in cornerstone, but we would rather build it all into the presentation itself. Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks!

Leslie McKerchie
almost 8 years ago05/31/16 at 8:45 pm (UTC)

Hi Amy! Hopefully some of your fellow Cornerstone users will be able to chime in and share their experiences and assistance with you here.

I wanted to share the information that is sent to an LMS, but it is dependent on the LMS as to what they can report on. I've seen other users mention that the LMS was unable to display results and you may want to use a method with either a site like Survey Monkey or even a Google Form that you could embed as a web object - unless you just wanted to utilize your LMS again.

Steve Flowers
almost 8 years ago05/31/16 at 9:15 pm (UTC)

Hi, Amy - 

To report survey and question results, you'll need to add a results slide and associate the items with the results. You'll also need to track the completion to the results slide if you want to be able to record the interactions to the LMS. 

This is no good if you want the survey to be optional, yes? Here's where you get into workaround territory. One way --maybe the only way-- to get this done while still leaving the desired results tracking is by using a little bit of Javascript. 

If this is something you're comfortable trying, I'll post an example and explanation of what's going on. It involves script to:

  • Suppress the default Storyline behavior and prevent SL from overwriting our manual completion.
  • Sending completion based on the logic that you want. This is either by adding triggers to check an existing results slide or by firing a JS trigger when a slide is reached. 
  • Associating the publish settings with your survey so that Storyline passes each interaction to the LMS.

This is something that gets a little bit easier with an LRS in place as all Tin Can API interactions will be reported to the LRS regardless of how the publish settings are configured. 

Lulu Hu
almost 8 years ago06/01/16 at 2:51 pm (UTC)

Hi everyone, I am also trying to build a survey into Storyline that is exported as SCORM 2004 for Cornerstone, and running into the same issue that Amy is running into. I have both graded quiz questions and the nongraded survey questions all feeding into the same graded Results slide. Cornerstone correctly displays the users' answers for the graded quiz (which is what we want) but for the survey questions, Cornerstone only displays N/A...

I am using Likert scale questions and a short answer/essay question for the survey. I apologize if this has already been covered in other threads, but I couldn't find any information on this thread yet about the Cornerstone and survey data issues. 

Thank you!

Will Findlay
almost 8 years ago07/02/16 at 2:02 am (UTC)

The way I've settled on for getting user feedback* in Cornerstone is the following:

  1. Create what is called a Cornerstone "Training Form" (not the same as a Training Request Form"). This can include evaluation questions.
  2. Create a new CSOD curriculum.
  3. Add the Online Course (which comes from a Storyline LMS zip file) to the curriculum
  4. Add the Training Form to the end of the curriculum.
  5. Use a Custom Report called a "Training Forms - Curricula Report"  to report on the feedback.

Works like a charm.

* You may wonder, why don't I use Cornerstone's Level-1 Evals. The reason: I hate the way they do not show until after the user completes the course. Too many users have complained that they thought they were finished. By putting the eval as a Training Form in the Curriculum it is much more visually clear that it is required to complete the training requirements.

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