I am working on a course that has duration requirements. Is there some way to see or export slide durations? Or (better) to view the total duration of a .story file? I'm wanting to make sure learners spend a minimum amount of time to complete - they are welcome to take longer!
First, lock the slides so they must be on the slide for "X" until they can move forward. Lock the next button.
Second, most LMS systems will record how long a learner is in a class. This only answer the question of how long they had the file open.
We don't require our learners to stay in a class for a set period of time. But we do require the learner to view all information on each slide. We lock and restrict the time slide and the next button until the timeline finishes, or they have completed all interaction on a slide.
I appreciate the suggestions, Eric. The duration requirement comes from a state agency, so my goal is to prove to them how long students will spend in the course, to show we meet their requirement. This has to happen before the course is even offered, so LMS data is not going to help me.
In the past we've time-locked the slides and that's one of the biggest complaints received from students. No one wants to sit waiting out the timeline of a slide they've completed in terms of its content. This is a 90-hour, 6-credit college course, so they describe it as "torture". And I agree.
And Judy, I appreciate your suggestion, too. I think it's the only way. And it's going to suck to do this for 90 Storyline modules, but I guess I'll break out a spreadsheet. Even worse, I'm using text-to-speech to generate audio for the .story files until we set each slide's script, but then we will record real human voices, because our other biggest complaint is that the "robot voices" are also "torture". And that will change the timing, and I'll have to manually check again.
I see this was requested 4 years ago. I guess my way to estimate will be to follow a suggestion - I can't remember where I saw it. But it said to put all the MP3 files in a folder, select them all in File Explorer, and it will show the total duration of the audio. I won't have audio on every slide, but maybe this will get me close to what I need to do without manually tracking. I wouldn't mind manually tracking except that this course is so massive.
You can try setting a minimum value which you can then reference with the elapsed time variables, and you can set this up in such a way that your learners are unable to complete a course unless the elapsed time equals or exceeds the minimum time value that you've set. Elapsed time variables report time in milliseconds, so you may need to do some conversions to get everything working properly.
Hi Joe! I love this suggestion. In my ideal world, if learners haven't met the elapsed time, I'd be able to direct them back to review content slides that cover the little review and formative assessments that they did the least well in on their first pass. Which I'm sure would take some very careful thinking through, if I can even figure out how to do that. But since I'm early in the process of revising this course, now's the time to try.
So glad to hear Joe's suggestion could work for you! If you run into any issues with getting your elapsed time variables set up, please reach out and we'd be happy to work through them with you!
Well, to be clear, Joe's suggestion will not help me calculate the total duration of all slides in a .story file. Y'all don't seem to have a way to do that. Elapsed time does not equal total duration. Joe's suggestion helps me with something else, maybe, if I can figure out how to send learners back to review whatever they didn't score well on, and I have no idea where to start with that, but it's a different topic.
10 Replies
Two ideas,
First, lock the slides so they must be on the slide for "X" until they can move forward. Lock the next button.
Second, most LMS systems will record how long a learner is in a class. This only answer the question of how long they had the file open.
We don't require our learners to stay in a class for a set period of time. But we do require the learner to view all information on each slide. We lock and restrict the time slide and the next button until the timeline finishes, or they have completed all interaction on a slide.
Hope this helps
Hi, Cheryl,
I don't know of a way to export the slide durations nor automatically get the total for all timelines. Unfortunately, you'd have to do that manually.
I appreciate the suggestions, Eric. The duration requirement comes from a state agency, so my goal is to prove to them how long students will spend in the course, to show we meet their requirement. This has to happen before the course is even offered, so LMS data is not going to help me.
In the past we've time-locked the slides and that's one of the biggest complaints received from students. No one wants to sit waiting out the timeline of a slide they've completed in terms of its content. This is a 90-hour, 6-credit college course, so they describe it as "torture". And I agree.
And Judy, I appreciate your suggestion, too. I think it's the only way. And it's going to suck to do this for 90 Storyline modules, but I guess I'll break out a spreadsheet. Even worse, I'm using text-to-speech to generate audio for the .story files until we set each slide's script, but then we will record real human voices, because our other biggest complaint is that the "robot voices" are also "torture". And that will change the timing, and I'll have to manually check again.
I see this was requested 4 years ago. I guess my way to estimate will be to follow a suggestion - I can't remember where I saw it. But it said to put all the MP3 files in a folder, select them all in File Explorer, and it will show the total duration of the audio. I won't have audio on every slide, but maybe this will get me close to what I need to do without manually tracking. I wouldn't mind manually tracking except that this course is so massive.
Anyhow, thanks for the suggestions.
Hi Cheryl,
Duration variables aren't available right now, but you do have access to elapsed time variables:
You can try setting a minimum value which you can then reference with the elapsed time variables, and you can set this up in such a way that your learners are unable to complete a course unless the elapsed time equals or exceeds the minimum time value that you've set. Elapsed time variables report time in milliseconds, so you may need to do some conversions to get everything working properly.
Hi Joe! I love this suggestion. In my ideal world, if learners haven't met the elapsed time, I'd be able to direct them back to review content slides that cover the little review and formative assessments that they did the least well in on their first pass. Which I'm sure would take some very careful thinking through, if I can even figure out how to do that. But since I'm early in the process of revising this course, now's the time to try.
Hi Cheryl!
So glad to hear Joe's suggestion could work for you! If you run into any issues with getting your elapsed time variables set up, please reach out and we'd be happy to work through them with you!
Best of luck and happy authoring!
Well, to be clear, Joe's suggestion will not help me calculate the total duration of all slides in a .story file. Y'all don't seem to have a way to do that. Elapsed time does not equal total duration. Joe's suggestion helps me with something else, maybe, if I can figure out how to send learners back to review whatever they didn't score well on, and I have no idea where to start with that, but it's a different topic.
>calculate the total duration of all slides
perhaps that helps
Jürgen, thanks! Like many folks, I'd never clicked those three dots by the Title field. It's always nice to discover a new feature.
@Jürgen - Definitely! Thank you. I ran into that when poking things while learning Storyline, and had forgotten!