Ive created a pick many interaction and its reporting results to our LMS using the tincan standard, but the choices made by users are being reported as strings such as choice_6e92wbDe21r and choice_5dCeX8GmbDy.
How do I reconcile this data in the LMS, with the plain English names of the choices?
Hi Ashley, thanks. I'm not looking to give the learner feedback or to display their answers to them. Instead their answers are being reported to the LMS, but I want to see their answers instead of a string generated by the storyline file.
There isn't a way to change the information that Storyline reports to your LMS and the general quiz data reported is detailed here. You may also want to connect with your LMS team to see what different types of reports and information you can pull.
If Storyline is sending Tin Can data that is computer generated and cannot be manually set by the author to something meaningful, how is an administrator able to use that in reports?
Apologies I didn't see this question when you first asked it. I think because I search for "Tin Can" rather than "TinCan" so just picked this up now with Geordie's response.
I just posted in another thread by Geordie that Storyline 2's Tin Can tracking, whilst not perfect, is a big improvement on Storyline 1. Upgrading may fix this issue and if not will certainly make it easier to fix.
You may also want to read and keep an eye on this question which seems to be similar.
If/when you do upgrade to the latest Storyline 2 if you're still having this problem, I'm more than happy to take a look at your published package for you and see if I can point you in the right direction.
As far as the reporting, it's up to the LMS to read the information Storyline sends, and I can't offer support in regards to modifying the published output or changing how the information is reported.
I apologize that it took us some time to research the behavior you are seeing and consult with our Engineers so that we could understand and explain why our Tin Can API interface works this way.
The Tin Can API allows an activity to be defined within the tincan.xml file or directly within a statement. Articulate defines activities in the tincan.xml file.
When posting a statement to the Tin Can endpoint, the statement will reference objects defined in the tincan.xml by ID. The tincan.xml file will also contain definitions for choices, scale, source, target, and steps for the corresponding cmi.interaction type. You can find the xsd file describing the format of the tincan.xml file here. You can also read more technical information to help LMS developers implement the Tin Can API to fully support Articulate content here.
In other words, the tincan.xml document tells the LMS all the metadata about the content, as in each question text, each question choice, and so on. Then, our JSON Statements post only the unique identifiers to the LMS. In order to come up with the meaningful descriptors for each answer choice that the learner makes, the LMS needs to cross reference the unique identifiers within the tincan.xml file.
This architecture is all a part of the Tin Can API specification, and you can read more about it here. Here's an excerpt from that document that references specifically what we are talking about right now:
"What TinCan.xml should have is... ...any activity details (such as activity descriptions) that should be available to reporting systems, but will not be (or may not be) sent by the activity provider when reporting statements... ...That is, TinCan.xml may be used to describe activities to the LRS, as an alternative to doing that description at runtime."
The specific reason that we do this (explicitly exclude meaningful descriptors for each answer choice that the learner makes from our Statement JSON in favor of including them within the tincan.xml file) is so that the LMS will know about all the questions and answers and not just the ones the user selected.
Please note that Articulate software and its published output is supported as is. We cannot offer advice on customizing the published output to work in a specific LMS environment. Working here with the experts in our community on this issue is the right place to be when considering customizing our published output.
If you are looking to implement customizations for your LMS, you may want to look at hiring a consultant to assist you for a fee. We recommend Rustici Software. You can contact them here.
A couple of our Community Members have also filed private Support Cases on this matter, and I will also be sharing the same information there.
Please let us know if you need anything else. Thanks!
8 Replies
Hi David,
You may want to review this thread - there are a few options you could use in that thread to gather the data.
Merry Christmas to you as well!
Hi Ashley, thanks. I'm not looking to give the learner feedback or to display their answers to them. Instead their answers are being reported to the LMS, but I want to see their answers instead of a string generated by the storyline file.
Hi David,
There isn't a way to change the information that Storyline reports to your LMS and the general quiz data reported is detailed here. You may also want to connect with your LMS team to see what different types of reports and information you can pull.
Hi Ashley, the link is to scorm and aicc requirements, I'm needing help in reporting tincan results.
If Storyline is sending Tin Can data that is computer generated and cannot be manually set by the author to something meaningful, how is an administrator able to use that in reports?
Hi David,
Apologies I didn't see this question when you first asked it. I think because I search for "Tin Can" rather than "TinCan" so just picked this up now with Geordie's response.
I just posted in another thread by Geordie that Storyline 2's Tin Can tracking, whilst not perfect, is a big improvement on Storyline 1. Upgrading may fix this issue and if not will certainly make it easier to fix.
You may also want to read and keep an eye on this question which seems to be similar.
If/when you do upgrade to the latest Storyline 2 if you're still having this problem, I'm more than happy to take a look at your published package for you and see if I can point you in the right direction.
Andrew
Hi David,
My apologies, the Tin Can documentation is detailed here.
As far as the reporting, it's up to the LMS to read the information Storyline sends, and I can't offer support in regards to modifying the published output or changing how the information is reported.
Good Morning, all.
I apologize that it took us some time to research the behavior you are seeing and consult with our Engineers so that we could understand and explain why our Tin Can API interface works this way.
The Tin Can API allows an activity to be defined within the tincan.xml file or directly within a statement. Articulate defines activities in the tincan.xml file.
When posting a statement to the Tin Can endpoint, the statement will reference objects defined in the tincan.xml by ID. The tincan.xml file will also contain definitions for choices, scale, source, target, and steps for the corresponding cmi.interaction type. You can find the xsd file describing the format of the tincan.xml file here. You can also read more technical information to help LMS developers implement the Tin Can API to fully support Articulate content here.
In other words, the tincan.xml document tells the LMS all the metadata about the content, as in each question text, each question choice, and so on. Then, our JSON Statements post only the unique identifiers to the LMS. In order to come up with the meaningful descriptors for each answer choice that the learner makes, the LMS needs to cross reference the unique identifiers within the tincan.xml file.
This architecture is all a part of the Tin Can API specification, and you can read more about it here. Here's an excerpt from that document that references specifically what we are talking about right now:
"What TinCan.xml should have is... ...any activity details (such as activity descriptions) that should be available to reporting systems, but will not be (or may not be) sent by the activity provider when reporting statements... ...That is, TinCan.xml may be used to describe activities to the LRS, as an alternative to doing that description at runtime."
The specific reason that we do this (explicitly exclude meaningful descriptors for each answer choice that the learner makes from our Statement JSON in favor of including them within the tincan.xml file) is so that the LMS will know about all the questions and answers and not just the ones the user selected.
Please note that Articulate software and its published output is supported as is. We cannot offer advice on customizing the published output to work in a specific LMS environment. Working here with the experts in our community on this issue is the right place to be when considering customizing our published output.
If you are looking to implement customizations for your LMS, you may want to look at hiring a consultant to assist you for a fee. We recommend Rustici Software. You can contact them here.
A couple of our Community Members have also filed private Support Cases on this matter, and I will also be sharing the same information there.
Please let us know if you need anything else. Thanks!
This discussion is closed. You can start a new discussion or contact Articulate Support.