What are some common reasons for Storyline to cause users issues in a LMS?
Sep 09, 2016
Hello everyone!
I work as an ID/developer for an eLearning company. We also host a private LMS that we lease out to others, and we either develop their courses ourselves, or they can host their own. We have one client who is hosting their own, and has reported some issues to my boss. A majority of their users have been experiencing problems related to:
- Course is freezing or "locking up"
- Course is not reporting the results to the LMS
Unfortunately I do not have the actual list of problems. I've been tasked with going through their Storyline files and figuring out what the reasons for the issues might be. But I'm not quite sure where to start. The only thing that becomes apparent is the length of the course. About an hour to complete, a pre- and post-test, about 52 slides. (The courses I usually work with are a quarter or even half that, but this size might be typical?)
Any ideas on what feedback to give regarding, say, "best practices" for Storyline publishing?
It may also be the users' computers. Is there a recommended amount of RAM for longer courses? Probably a flash update?
Or, if there is something I should check for our LMS...
Thanks guys! I don't want you doing my job for me ;) but I'd love some sort of direction.
7 Replies
Hi Lauren,
In your case, I can't say for sure, maybe the LMS has a timeout period shorter than the duration of the course?
Generally, some SCORM related issues between Storyline and the LMS have indeed been reported. Most of them (IMHO) have to do more with the LMS side and the (usually) crappy implementation of the admiteddly limited and quite old standards.
Searching for SCORM issues within the forum might shed some light into the types of issues usually encountered, although it would help if you had the list of specific problems in order to compare.
Hope this helps,
Alex
Thanks Alex!
Yeah, my post is very vague. It's vague for me too, haha. Could you expand on the "crappy implementation" for the LMS? I could try making a suggestion regarding our system.
Well, that 2nd paragraph of mine was mostly "social commentary". :)
To be clear, I was not specifically reffering to the LMS used by your org, just stating the fact that we tend to fail to distinguish LMS Standards conformance vs compliance (vs Certified). I'm not implying every "conformant" LMS doesn't adhere to Standards but, truth be told, a lot of them don't. This is where the majority of "communication" problems between the LMS and Storyline usually stem from (i.e. your 2nd issue).
Hi Lauren!
A great start to identifying if the issue lies with the course or the LMS is to utilize SCORM Cloud for testing. If you can replicate there, then we would want to take a look.
Absolutely! Can't believe I didn't include this as a way to examine those issues further.
Leslie is spot on Lauren - using SCORM Cloud you can at least have a better idea which part is the culprit here - especially now that you don't have very specific feedback regarding the issues at hand.
This is great guys, thanks! I didn't even consider SCORM Cloud. Duh! I won't be able to share the file with everyone (privacy issues), but this will definitely help me try to figure out what's going on. Thanks so much!
I would agree with Alex, Storyline is not without its faults but most issues with LMSs are related to the LMS how Scorm compliant it really is.
As far as course length if you are using Scorm 2004 3rd edition plus length should not be an issue, below that and resume may not work as expected in large courses, I routinely check a course in scormcloud before handing over to a client saves me some headaches.
This discussion is closed. You can start a new discussion or contact Articulate Support.