Help! Replacing a SCORM in LMS makes training unusable - hard lock on resume screen

May 21, 2019

WellSky Learning Center
By WellSky Learning Center


We have published SCORMS to our LMS - Moodle - and are now making updates to the content and republishing the SCORMs.

When we replace the SCORM, a user with progress in the old SCORM is correctly prompted to resume or restart.

However, if the user selects resume, nothing happens (except that the resume buttons disappear).  Learners are blocked and cannot use the training.

We have been able to make SCORM updates easily with our LMS, using Captivate SCORMS, and probably other Storyline SCORMs (I need to check). 

Is this a settings issue?

 

These are our LMS publish settings

 

 

 

10 Replies
Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard
almost 5 years ago05/22/19 at 2:37 pm (UTC)

Hi Fazzi,

When you update (overwrite) existing course files in your LMS or web server, learners who previously started the course won't be able to resume where they left off. They should start over at the first slide in the updated course.

It sounds like your learners are stuck based on a previously cached copy of the course. There isn't a setting to change that within Storyline, so I'd look at having the learners clear the cache/history or access the course in a new browser window. You could also touch base with your LMS team to see if they had further details!

 

WellSky Learning Center
almost 5 years ago05/22/19 at 4:53 pm (UTC)

Hi Ashley, 
Thank you for responding.

Frankly, we're a little shocked and dumbfounded here that Articulate is labeling this as 'expected functionality' , and not as a critical bug.

Replacing or Updating a SCORM package is a fundamentally basic use case for any e-learning authoring and development:

  • We publish trainings
  • Learners progress
  • We need to update the training - whether for simple bug fixes or revised guidance.
  • Learners need to preserve their progress.

We absolutely can't ask thousands of users to restart a training, nor can they experience loss of progress. 

SCORMs authored in Captivate manage this without any problems, so I can't understand why Articulate has this issue.

The business impact of this issue is significant - equivalent to telling our clients that our SCORMs can't support resolutions greater than 800x600, or don't work on Mobile. 

 

Does the Articulate team - or any Articulate leads like Justin Grenier, Mike Olivieri - have proposed workarounds, or an anticipated fix for this? 

 

 

Any support or information would be greatly appreciated. 

Thanks,

Nick Clover-Brown

Fazzi Associates | WellSky

Brian Allen
almost 5 years ago05/22/19 at 4:57 pm (UTC)

Honestly the behavior Ashley described has been, in my experience, the expected norm when replacing/updated SCORM content in any LMS, regardless of authoring tool.

As a general best practice (again regardless of authoring tool) we have always avoided replacing SCORM content when we knew it would hinder any learners who may be in progress.

WellSky Learning Center
almost 5 years ago05/22/19 at 5:30 pm (UTC)

Hi Brian, We use Moodle and have also used Captivate for content creation, we have never had any issues replacing SCORMs. Learners' resume / suspend data is preserved, there's never any need to restart a training.

How does your training department deploy changes or fixes - if you're accustomed to losing progress? Do you somehow transfer progress, or just require users to rewatch the training?

Looking around on Moodle, it seems like this might be related to how Item Identifiers are handled, https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=382352

 

Brian Allen
almost 5 years ago05/22/19 at 6:06 pm (UTC)

We generally look at it case by case, looking at things such as course length, type of course (is it compliance related, etc.), how long since the course has had an active user, etc etc

If it's an important critical update, we need all users to restart anyways...

If it's a non-critical update, we generally follow a process similar to this: 

  • Turn off registrations on the existing course, allowing people who are in progress to complete the course but preventing anyone else from starting it.
  • Create a new course with the updated content.
  • Create a fulfillment link btwn the old course and the new course, so that folks who completed the old version get credit on the updated course.

Again, if the update is critical enough that people shouldn't get credit for attending the new course, then it's probably also critical enough for anyone in progress to start over from the beginning.

Katie Riggio
4 years ago04/14/20 at 7:47 pm (UTC)

Hi there, Phuc!

This discussion is a bit older, so I want to make sure you get the most up-to-date guidance. A few quick questions:

  • Did you update (overwrite) the existing course file in your LMS or web server?
  • Is this issue happening on all browsers or just Chrome?
  • Would you be willing to share the .story file with us for testing? You can share it privately through this secure link.

This discussion is closed. You can start a new discussion or contact Articulate Support.