Variables used for bookmarking

Hey Aaron,

Are you using Taleo / Learn.com from Oracle? Is it restoring them somewhere in the middle instead of to the end?

We've seen this as well with SCORM 1.2 published modules that have a lot of persistent elements. The problem on our end is that SCORM 1.2 only allows for 4K of suspend data. In a very large course with many variables, or slides that store progress, this can add up. If you go into the debugger and grab the suspend data field value for a bad restoration, you'll probably see around 3900+ characters. If so, this is probably the same problem.

Couple of ways to solve this, if your bad restores are at the 4K limit and it's restoring folks to the same spot on revisit.

• We've asked Oracle to increase the suspend data field size to 64K. SCORM 2004 specs a floor of 64K. Most LMSs increased the field size for SCORM 1.2 as well. No telling when this will happen. I wouldn't set my expectations on this request.
• Publish your modules to SCORM 2004. If you already have completions rolling in... this is probably a non-starter. Managing content in learn.com is a pain.
• Run back through your Story file and set each slide's When Revisiting property to "Reset to Initial State" unless you really need to store the state of the slide. This will decrease the number of elements stored in the suspend data field.

Hey Steve,

THANKS for the quick response!! This sounds like the issue... we combined all of our modules (40 or so) into one very large course. And the bookmarking feature seems to work just fine when skipping around randomly (because it's not reaching the 4k limit). However when you go straight through beginning to the end it will get hung up about 30% through the course. Then the bookmarking feature will hang in the same spot.

How do you access the debugger? Is this in taleo learn tools somewhere? Once I figure this out I'll be able to confirm this issue.

-Aaron

When you launch the course / class, you should see a series of buttons at the top. The one with the bug is the SCORM debugger (I think that's what it's called).

Are you publishing to SCORM 1.2?

Yeah, it's storing a lot of things for every slide that isn't set to reset to initial state. Every object state change, layer changes, and the point in the timeline that it left off. It all adds up. Changing to reset to initial state should reduce the volume but may not eliminate the problem alltogether. This is a problem we've seen crop up recently as well.

I've put in a request with the Articulate support / dev team to have Storyline's suspend data string re-ordered to put slide visits and restore location up front. You might want to do the same to get more attention on the issue.

Hey Steve,

Sorry for the late response. I figured out the debugging tool before coming back here. And yes, the suspend data is piling up fairly quickly in our courses. I copied the suspend data and then pasted it into note pad to check the file size. Came out to be exactly 4.00KB right on the dot. I would think that this pretty much confirms our issue.

Yeah, I will reach out to the support/dev team as well. However, I'm not sure how to go about this issue....

Thanks a bunch for the response!

Hey Aaron,

If you run back through and set each of the slides to reset to initial state for slides that don't need to store persistence, it'll save some bits.

Hello Steve,

I hope you had a good weekend! As per your response. If I do that, will it still be possible to track completion status based off of slides? It seems it would need to hold onto that data. Or is there a counter variable somewhere that tracks the completion data?

Also, what are some caveats of migrating to scorm 2004? Would it affect (or is it effect??), our current completions going forward? We sent our request to Oracle today to see if we can have the suspend data limit increased.

Another thing that I can possibly set up is have an quiz disguised as some sort of interaction and set completions based off of 70% of these interactions. However, we're looking for a quick/simple fix without much dev time.

Let me know if you can think of any other fixes.

Thanks,

Aaron

You'd need to create a new course for SCORM 2004 since configuration is made when the course is added from the manifest. Updating to reset to initial state won't affect the completion for those slides. Visit is visit

Other than having to start a new course, SCORM 2004 should work pretty much the same.

So, updating the slides to the initial state should be ok, however we could eventually encounter an issue if the users try to do a big chunk of the course in one session.

By new course, you mean same source published using Scorm 2004, correct?

Yep - same source published to SCORM 2004. Would need to upload and add as a new course as far as I know. The manifest is processed when the course is added.

Shouldn't encounter issues doing a big chunk in one session.

Hey Steve,

I went ahead and published in Scorm 2004, which fixed our issue! W00t w000t w00t. One final question.... I want to keep the current course for anyone who has already completed it.... is there a way to just swap the manifest file somewhere? I have been trying to use the scorm class importer and pointing to the new manifest file. However when I choose replace existing or create a new version of the course. I am never able to find the course I'm trying to update. Suggestions??

Thanks for all of your help thus far!

Aaron

Yeah. The course instances are different. So if you want to keep the old completions you'll need to run two reports, unfortunately. The LMS won't let you replace one with the other. You might be able to work some things with a learning plan, making the learning plan the completion indicator and making any of the courses / classes in the plan complete it. I don't have much experience with LPs but from what I understand this should be possible.