Replaying courses

Sep 10, 2018

I recently received a request that, when a user retakes a course they've previously completed, they don't want to be forced to work through the course in order again the way they did the first time. I generally set our courses (both Storyline 360 and Rise) with restricted navigation. That seems to be the overriding factor. So they can go back and take the course again, but they have to start from square 1. 

Has anyone else had complaints about this? Is there any workaround, at least in Storyline?

Thanks!

28 Replies
Alyssa Gomez

Hi there Cheryl!

Try setting the revisiting property to 'Always Resume'. This will ensure the learner doesn't completely reset the course when they want to take it again. Instead, they'll resume the course to the last slide.

On the last slide, you can add a custom "restart course" button that will take the learner back to slide 1. Once they go back to the first slide, they should be able to freely click the next button since they already visited every slide in the course.

We've also gotten lots of requests for this feature: "A Read-Only seekbar with restricted navigation, but give learners the option to drag the seekbar when a slide is revisited." It sounds like that feature would be handy for you, too! If we implement that new seekbar functionality in the future, we'll let you know. 

Cheryl Hoover

So the Rise course has restricted navigation. I finish the course. I want to go back to the course to check some fact somewhere in the course, but I can't skip ahead because it's restricted. This is the way it works in Rise; correct?  The complaint was they already took the whole course. They just wanted to go back to review something in Lesson 4, for example.

Alyssa Gomez

Hi Cheryl!

When you use Restricted Navigation in Rise, the learner will have to go through the course sequentially the first time. They can also go back and freely view lessons that are already marked as complete.

If they complete the entire course and revisit it later, they should see that all lessons are still marked as complete. They can then go back and view any lesson without restriction. 

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Cheryl,

Thanks for that video. It looks like your course isn't resuming, but it did seem to bring the user back to the second lesson. I'm curious what SCORM output you choose - it's possible Rise isn't resuming to the end if the user met the suspend data limit earlier in the course. Have you tried leaving the course before completion to see where it resumes?

Cheryl Hoover

How do I figure out the suspend data limit for the course? It's a pretty small course, if that means anything. I just tested on another Rise course, and it's doing the same thing. Interestingly, I hadn't completed the course when I first launched it, and it brought me 3/4 through the course right to the place I needed to resume at. But once I completed the course, it reset it back to 0, and I could only start at the Intro and couldn't jump ahead anywhere.

The second issue is, as you see on the video, it's not letting me jump around the course freely as Alyssa described that it should. How do we investigate that? 

Should I open two tickets to investigate these issues, or is this an LMS problem? Thanks very much. 

Cheryl Hoover

Hi, Alyssa. Back to work. 

I just tested this in Scorm Cloud and it acted as you said. I completed it, it registered as completed, and I could go back in and go to any section I wanted. It also let me return to where I left off when I tested that. So this points to an issue with my LMS, right? I hope they'll know what to do to correct it.

Cheryl Hoover

Hi again. My LMS was able to replicate the issue. They said "It sounds like there is an issue with how Rise manages its course suspend data." No repair time estimate.

Does that make sense as compared to Storyline? Have there been any changes? To be honest, I'm not sure if this has been going on since we started using Rise or more recently. 

Leslie McKerchie

Thanks for continuing to follow up with us Cheryl.

I read back through the conversation here and it looks like you are only encountering an issue with users that have completed the course, is that correct?

The resume feature may not work as you'd expect after you meet the completion requirement. Most LMSs consider a course to be in review mode after the tracking requirement has been met.

In review mode, resume data is no longer sent to the LMS, which prevents learners from accidentally changing their course status from Complete back to Incomplete. 

We also have a great article on all the items that we've chatted about here.

Cheryl Hoover

That's the issue. Correct. When I complete the course in Scorm Cloud and return, every lesson in the left panel had the check mark denoting completion of the lesson; and I could move about freely in the course. My issue is I'm returning to the course and nothing is checked. It makes me start from scratch on Lesson 1 again.

Cheryl Hoover

It is, yes. These courses are registering as completed.

Leslie, can you point me to information on how Storyline should handle these same issues? My default settings in my Storyline courses are to prompt to resume and restricted navigation. When I go back to revisit a course I've already completed, I'm finding the same thing. It's starting me on the first slide and I can't jump out of order. Thanks, Leslie.

Katie Riggio

Hi, Cheryl. I'm excited to let you know that update 21 for Storyline 360 is here! What's inside? 🎁

To follow up on Alyssa's post: Please welcome the Conditional Seekbar in the Modern Player! You can use this new feature to prevent learners from skipping ahead until they've completed a slide. The seekbar is locked the first time learners view the slide. After that, they can drag the seekbar back and forth.

Plus many more goodies; check out all the new features and fixes here!

Here's how to update Storyline 360 to see everything the latest release has to offer. Be sure to let us know what you think!

Cheryl Hoover

Thank you, Katie. I appreciate that.

The problem is our LMS can't figure out how to let users view freely after the fact. It works fine in SCORM Cloud but not in my LMS. They've suggested as a workaround that I set everything up to free navigation if a user going back to review a course they completed is important. 

Crystal Horn

Hey Cheryl.  I'm sorry this issue of revisiting a completion course is still a thorn in your side.  Does using free navigation work for you?  I suspect you'd like that control over the course navigation on the learners' first run-through.

If it's worth troubleshooting further, I'd be curious whether it works for you to "manually" restrict navigation.  That would mean setting triggers to disable the Next button until the timeline is complete on the first time through.  You would likely use a variable to track each slide's completion so that the Next button functions when revisiting the slide.  This method would be specific to Storyline, of course.

Hopefully some of these spitball ideas will help you get closer to where you need to be!

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