Publishing to Own Web Server

I've hosted things on my own web server and never had an issue with multiple people at the same time (it is just an html5 or swf after all). The interactions all work beautifully. Of course you aren't capturing data but if you aren't worried about that you should have no issues. But that will depend (possibly) on your server so ask if you can test something out that is a sample with an interaction. I'm not sure what you are looking at to restrict or require a user to sign in to sell them though. 

(This is far from perfect but you can see, no LMS, no capturing, lots of interactions, and you can check how the refresh mechanism will work (fine from the same computer, but of course not from others). http://insani-x.com/story.html )

Thanks Sara.  They will be selling the courses, but there is no required grade to pass.  Only that the user completes the entire course on their own.

If you want to know that they completed the course (to give a certificate, or track that somehow) you may want an LMS of some kind to capture that. But if it is you sell it to me and then I do whatever I want with it you might be able to have the link inside a secured part of the website that requires sign in but no lms. 

Good luck!

So to clarify:

We sell a course to John Doe - He logs in and works on the course, adds notes, etc., etc.  then logs off.

Mary buys a course later in the day, and logs in after John, (what does Mary see?)

The next day, Tom buys a course and begins work.

You probably understand my question.  How do these courses interact with each purchaser forward?  Even though the course is located on one server, everyone receives the same link, how does SL remember who is who?  

This is probably something very simple, and I swear I'm not that dumb, but I am new to publishing online learning, and just trying to understand how all this works without an LMS.

Thanks!

No worries at all. So when John goes to the course on Monday his computer remembers where he was at, John finishes chapters 1 and 2. But it is his computer that has that "memory". When Mary logs on Monday afternoon she gets a fresh view of the course she completes the first chapter. If Mary goes home that night she has to start the course over from the beginning, say Mary completes 1, 2, and 3 at home. When she goes back to work the next day and sits down at the same computer she starts at course 2 because she'd finished 1 yesterday at that computer. Now when John logs on he will start up at chapter 3 because that is what his computer remembers. I don't have enough information about how your server's login would work to know for sure that it wouldn't clear out the "save" point. (Which is why I'd really recommend trying a test.)

If you really need it to remember when Mary goes home and trys to log in you will need an LMS. As will you if you need to know when Mary has completed all the modules.

If it could be more flexible you could do something where each of your pieces can be jumped to in any order (so Mary could hop right to chapter 2 when she gets home).

I hope this helps.

(And all of this could vary from browser setting to browser setting as well outside an LMS.)

Okay, that's what I thought would happen Sara.  Thank you!  I guess the company should really consider exploring LMS solutions to have the courses run effectively.  Thanks again!

If they really want to track people across computers, completion, and creating a good experience for anything that isn't sort of a one off or a game an LMS can be really helpful. Alternatively if you could break it up into a lot of little modules you may find it easier from the user end. But it still won't tell you when people are done.

Glad I could help.