Recording "attempts" on LMS

Nov 23, 2020

Jason Dalrymple
By Jason Dalrymple

Hello!

I'm curious as to when Articulate submits an "attempt" to an LMS, in this case, Canvas. More specifically, does the Results page and Submit Results trigger send a score, completed status, AND "attempt" to the LMS, or does Articulate only send an attempt when exiting the course?

For background, we're testing a course with a quiz and a standard results slide. We're seeing mixed behavior as to how Canvas records what it considers an attempt. There are several scenarios I've run, and it seems the only time the LMS records an attempt and updates the grade is when the user closes the course after a failed user attempt.

In other words, if a user fails the test the first time, hits retry, and fails a second time, only the first "attempt" is recorded. If the user hits retry again and passes, only the initial failing score and final passing score are recorded in the Canvas gradebook.

I did document the full set of testing steps, attached, if you want to get more specific details of the process we used. Our hope was that every time the user took the test, the LMS would record an "attempt". However, it look like attempts after the first try are not recorded UNLESS the user either closes the course OR passes on the second quiz try.

Thanks!

6 Replies
Lauren Connelly
over 3 years ago11/23/20 at 8:22 pm (UTC)

Hi Jason!

Great question! Storyline 360 will send the score for each attempt taken by the user to your LMS. It would be up to your LMS to determine how to report on that data.

Storyline communicates the following question details to LMSs for SCORM and AICC courses.

  • id: Storyline sends a series of data to identify the Scene#, the QuestionDraw# (if applicable), and the Slide# in that particular scene or question draw.
  • type: This is the type of question (True/False, Multiple Choice, Multiple Response, etc.).
  • student_response: This is how the learner answered the question.
  • correct_response: This is the correct answer for the question.
  • result: This designates whether the learner answered the question correctly or not.
  • weighting: Storyline doesn't use this item. It'll always be 1.
  • latency: This is how long it took the learner to answer the question.
  • objective: Storyline doesn't use this item. It'll always be 0.

Tip: To send question text to your LMS, publish for SCORM 2004, Tin Can API (xAPI), or cmi5. To publish cmi5 courses, you'll need Storyline 360, the latest version of Storyline.

Lastly, I'm curious if you see this in another environment, such as SCORM Cloud or if this is an issue specific to your LMS. Please keep us updated!

Jason Dalrymple
over 3 years ago11/23/20 at 9:08 pm (UTC)

I haven't had a chance to run full testing on SCORM Cloud, though that it is part of the plan, pending a decision about how important seeing every quiz attempt actually is. I'll probably still test for my own curiosity, if nothing else, and report back next week. Thanks for the quick reply and enjoy the long weekend if you have one.

Jason Dalrymple
over 3 years ago12/02/20 at 3:10 pm (UTC)

Hi Lauren (and any others following or later reading this thread).

I determined that we had to change the option for "Report results to LMS of" in the LMS Reporting and Tracking section. By changing the setting to "Pass/Fail", Canvas recognized and updated for each score, regardless of whether the student closed the lesson or not.

However, the ONE other thing I've noticed, and still need to test, is recording a second passing score that is HIGHER than the initial passing score. I've not been able to get that to happen, even with using "Pass/Fail" as the results reporting.

As a relatively new Articulate user, it's great experience learning some of the "under the hood" things that Articulate does as opposed to the other authoring tool (to remain unnamed) that I have significant experience with.

Thanks again!

Simon House
3 years ago03/15/21 at 4:23 pm (UTC)

Hi Jason

Did you find a solution to recording a higher second score?

I'm having a similar issue, where only the first attempt is being recorded on the LMS, and unfortunately if they fail the first attempt but pass the next time the LMS is still only recording the initial fail! My module is set to 'Passed/Failed' on LMS Tracking and I'm stumped.

Jason Dalrymple
3 years ago03/15/21 at 5:48 pm (UTC)

Hi Simon - We never found a solution for having Canvas record a higher passing score, unfortunately. I'm not sure why that is when it comes to the Articulate/Canvas communication. I'm also a Lectora developer, but I've not tested a Lectora course to be able to better say whether it's an Articulate thing or Canvas thing.

We've also used Pathlore (which is pretty antiquated) but I can't recall with any confidence whether a higher passing score is updated on the user record. I can certainly come back and update if I learn more, but at this point, I'm not sure how it could be forced with Articulate/Canvas usage.

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