From my testing a few years ago, and assuming that this is still true, SL360 will post the entire suspend (aka resume) data (which, of course, is also compressed) accumulated by the learner at the time of the posting to the LMS. It's up to the LMS to accept it all or only use part of that string.
For example, some LMS's (e.g., newer versions of Moodle) have an option that permits you to go past the SCORM1.2 limit of 4,096 characters for resume data. But I've seen other LMS's truncate strings longer than 4,096 characters to just the first 4,096 characters.
I think (and YMMV) that sending all the resume data no matter what is smart to do by Articulate because some LMS's do have overrides.
One thing that might be nice is if you exceeded the resume limit for a standard, SL 360 told you somehow when previewing the course or something. Then if your LMS strictly followed the 4,096 limit, you could then try to do something proactively to cut the resume data down.
Good question--and that, my friend, is beyond my "pay grade."
Thinking back to early versions of Articulate Presenter, I remember we once had issues with our Saba LMS and it returning the resume data back to the learner at course re-launch. If I remember, every so often it really messed up the course so it couldn't be completed. Learner had to create a new registration and start over.
We suspected, but could never prove, it was how Saba stored the resume data. Longer resume strings had to be broken up in separate data records and we thought something around that caused issues sometimes.
After moving soon after to a new version of Saba and newer versions of AP, we fortunately never saw this again.
SL will post no matter what. However, as Gerry pointed out Scorm 1.2 will only accommodate 4,096 bytes, and then cut the rest off. Which means you'll experience weird things like your course may not resume where it was left off, etc.
You can check the data in ScormCloud. Switching to Scorm 2004 would solve this issue.
Thanks Zsolt, but "no matter what" doesn't answer my question about maximum.
Most LMS have upper limits. Few SCORM 1.2 stick to the standard 4K bytes and have extended their capacity far beyond that. Every LMS vendor documents the upper limit it can support.
Perhaps Articulate has no idea what the upper limit on SL's suspend data.
I wonder if they checksum the suspend data on resume or if the results are simply unpredictable if the string is truncated.
Some LMSs do not limit the data in any Scorm version. Storyline will send it all. The intention when the later Scorm models were introduced was that the higher limit would be passed back, unfortunately some LMS vendors believe that to be Scorm compliant they should rigorously police the data limit. Unfortunately this results in truncation and resuming in the incorrect place.
Some LMSs such as Moodle now offer the option to override the limit, and because of this sending all of the data is a good thing.
I agree with Gerry a publish dialogue would be great to let you know that you risk going over the limit, and also a checksum that all the data has been returned would be an added bonus.
There must be some sort of checks as updating a Scorm where the resume data is radically different often results in the resume data being completely ignored and the course starting from the beginning.
6 Replies
Hi, Sam! :)
From my testing a few years ago, and assuming that this is still true, SL360 will post the entire suspend (aka resume) data (which, of course, is also compressed) accumulated by the learner at the time of the posting to the LMS. It's up to the LMS to accept it all or only use part of that string.
For example, some LMS's (e.g., newer versions of Moodle) have an option that permits you to go past the SCORM1.2 limit of 4,096 characters for resume data. But I've seen other LMS's truncate strings longer than 4,096 characters to just the first 4,096 characters.
I think (and YMMV) that sending all the resume data no matter what is smart to do by Articulate because some LMS's do have overrides.
One thing that might be nice is if you exceeded the resume limit for a standard, SL 360 told you somehow when previewing the course or something. Then if your LMS strictly followed the 4,096 limit, you could then try to do something proactively to cut the resume data down.
Hi Gerry,
This is good to know but it begs a question for Articulate: Does SL check for corrupted suspend_data on resume?
Is there any checksum or the like?
Good question--and that, my friend, is beyond my "pay grade."
Thinking back to early versions of Articulate Presenter, I remember we once had issues with our Saba LMS and it returning the resume data back to the learner at course re-launch. If I remember, every so often it really messed up the course so it couldn't be completed. Learner had to create a new registration and start over.
We suspected, but could never prove, it was how Saba stored the resume data. Longer resume strings had to be broken up in separate data records and we thought something around that caused issues sometimes.
After moving soon after to a new version of Saba and newer versions of AP, we fortunately never saw this again.
SL will post no matter what. However, as Gerry pointed out Scorm 1.2 will only accommodate 4,096 bytes, and then cut the rest off. Which means you'll experience weird things like your course may not resume where it was left off, etc.
You can check the data in ScormCloud. Switching to Scorm 2004 would solve this issue.
Thanks Zsolt, but "no matter what" doesn't answer my question about maximum.
Most LMS have upper limits. Few SCORM 1.2 stick to the standard 4K bytes and have extended their capacity far beyond that. Every LMS vendor documents the upper limit it can support.
Perhaps Articulate has no idea what the upper limit on SL's suspend data.
I wonder if they checksum the suspend data on resume or if the results are simply unpredictable if the string is truncated.
Some LMSs do not limit the data in any Scorm version. Storyline will send it all. The intention when the later Scorm models were introduced was that the higher limit would be passed back, unfortunately some LMS vendors believe that to be Scorm compliant they should rigorously police the data limit. Unfortunately this results in truncation and resuming in the incorrect place.
Some LMSs such as Moodle now offer the option to override the limit, and because of this sending all of the data is a good thing.
I agree with Gerry a publish dialogue would be great to let you know that you risk going over the limit, and also a checksum that all the data has been returned would be an added bonus.
There must be some sort of checks as updating a Scorm where the resume data is radically different often results in the resume data being completely ignored and the course starting from the beginning.
This discussion is closed. You can start a new discussion or contact Articulate Support.