How to eliminate the masteryscore element from imsmanifest.xml?
Jul 09, 2015
The question seems to have a simple answer, such as... open imsmanifest.xml and delete the XML element. However, I would like to know what publish settings control the appearance of that element in the published output, as I try to avoid any post-publish alterations of SCOs, since these steps are subject to procedural rigor (i.e. human error).
As a little background, I am interested primarily in supporting a configurable passing score for the SCO. That is, on a per LMS deployment-basis, the "passed" status should only be set after the passing score is exceeded within the number of allowed attempts (also custom/configurable). How the custom passing score and allowed attempt values get passed in is something I've worked out already, but I ran into a problem with using the JavaScript API to control the passed/failed status of the SCO. Specifically, if the SCO was exited prior to the learner exceeding the "masteryscore", the LMS overwrote the status with "failed" regardless of what status I set it to (using SetStatus("incomplete")). Manually deleting the "masteryscore" element from imsmanifest.xml alleviates this problem.
See page 2-19 of this document for information regarding the role of masteryscore on the status.
See this cached post from the Moodle forum regarding the same topic.
15 Replies
Hi Andre,
Thanks for post this as well here, and I know you mentioned it with Dan in that other thread. I can't offer any insight into modifying the published output, so hopefully someone in the community will be able to weigh in for you!
Thanks, Ashley. Just to be clear. I don't want to modify the published output. I want to know what publish settings result in elimination of the masteryscore element from imsmanifest.xml.
Hi Andre,
It would need to be a feature request to have a way to eliminate it - otherwise it'll be editing the published output. Hopefully someone in the community is able to weigh in.
I think you get a mastery score if you have it tracking by quiz, have you tried tracking by slides viewed?
Storyline does not have granular setting for publishing to the level you require, if this doesn't remove the mastery score I expect you are stuck editing the manifest after you publish
Good to know. When I get to adjusting the tracking, I'll report on the result.
it might be interesting to know that the Rustici cloud handles the masteryscore slightly differently to Moodle - they used to handle it the same way as Moodle but modified it slightly (and ran into some problems with people that expected it to work the original way)
More info:
http://scorm.com/blog/2010/09/anatomy-of-scorm-minutiae-mistake/
One day I might get round to implementing a setting within Moodle that allows us to control it in the same way:
https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-50620
Adjusting the tracking did not eliminate the masteryscore element from the imsmanifest.xml file. Great read from scorm.com, though. Thanks!
Thanks Andre for the update and sorry you haven't been able to figure a way
around it. Please feel free to keep us posted on anything else you
determine.
Has anything changed in SL3 with this? Is the only way to remove the mastery score to edit the xml?
FYI - If you're using Moodle - we did end up implementing that setting that I mention above - it's in Moodle 3.1 and higher versions.
Thanks Dan, but not using Moodle unfortunately :(
drop me a PM if you want to fix that ;-)
Hi Andre and Dan, I just wanted to drop and line and say thank you - this post (and Dan many others of yours on EH and the Moodle Forum) have allowed me to trouble shoot an issue we were having.
I thought I would summarise, in laymen's terms, for anyone else in the same situation in the future.
We had the problem whereby our SL2 course in our Moodle LMS (3.1.9) would go into Review Mode after it was opened twice, regardless of whether staff had reached the quiz or not. This meant that even once the staff member successfully completed the course (tracked via a quiz set at 80% with two quiz attempts allowed within SCORM), the Grade Book record and the Users Complete Record wasn't accurate (though the Activity Completion Record was fine).
(FYI Our nursing staff tend to do their eL a few slides at a time when they get a few spare minutes. As they go in and out of courses a lot, its important to us that they don't go into review mode (for reporting) and that they can always resume their current attempt (so that restricted navigation doesn't restart), unless quiz attempts failed and we are making them redo),
Below spells out what I did from Dan and Andre's advice to ensure course works in this scenario:
1. In SL package publish course as Passed/Fail. This is important as it controls when the ‘Start new attempt’ checkbox appears on the course entry page. (i.e. if publish as Passed/Incomplete, checkbox won’t appear when fail Quiz Attempts)
2. Edit published SCORM package to delete the Mastery Score node that SL transmits to Moodle. This will stop the course going into Review Mode in Moodle; regardless of how many times the course is opened and closed or quiz attempted.
To do this, when publishing SL package, on the ‘Publish Successful’ dialogue box – before Zipping package, click open, find the imsmanifest.xml file, Right mouse click and ‘Open With’ Notepad. Find and delete string ‘ <adlcp:masteryscore>80</adlcp:masteryscore>’ (i.e. delete the whole line). Save and close file. Back on the ‘Publishing Successful’ box, zip as per normal.
3. In Moodle Scorm setting, under Compatibility ensure ‘Force Complete’ is no and ‘Mastery Source Override status’ is Yes. (I don’t think the Mastery Score setting is important given deleted from imsmanifest, but this is what I had when testing).
4. Under Attempts Management allow Unlimited Attempts (even if only two quiz attempts are limited within the package). A Moodle Attempt is different to a quiz attempt within the package. Two quiz attempts means that if fail quiz twice, the user must start a new course attempt to unlock the quiz. In this case the ‘Start new attempt’ checkbox will appear if followed step 1. Limiting the course to two Moodle attempts, mean that after two course attempts, the grade book will be locked and it won’t record new high grades.
Thanks again. Regards Christine
While trying to tame fallout from masteryscore in Saba cloud I discovered that if content contains a results slide it will add <masteryscore> to the manifest, even if you're tracking slides viewed. In Saba this also turns on Is scoring.
Many unintended results proceed from this "feature." Including the result Andre refers to at the top of this thread about overriding the content settings for success. Apparently in Saba if there is a masteryscore and a raw score, Saba will highjack whatever settings are in the content and evaluate as pass/fail based on the two scores.
Here're the details from Rustici's website, looks like it's a SCORM 1.2 thing:
https://support.scorm.com/hc/en-us/articles/206167486-Mastery-Score-and-SCORM-1-2
I know this is an ancient topic, but amazingly to me it's an issue that has yet to be fixed on the software side. When we revise and republish older content developed in Presenter (despite using the new 360 version of Presenter now), we still have to manually remove the masteryscore code from the XML document before intake to our LMS despite the fact the course completion is set to # of slides viewed and not by score. Why is Presenter still inserting this unnecessary code that requires manual removal when a scoring requirement is not selected in the publishing settings?