I need some ideas for tracking user presence during live courses...

Jun 10, 2015

We are developing Storyline courses which will have pre-recorded videos embedded from Ustream. We need a method of making sure the user is actually watching the presentation, with a check-in about every 15 minutes. By design, these courses do not contain any quizzes, that's why we need to track participation this way.

We used to display codes letters in the video itself, one every 15 minutes. Then at the end of the course, the user would have to enter to code letters that had been displayed, in order to pass the course.

Standards have changed, and we now need some type of interaction throughout the course. One option is to have a popup box with an "OK" button appear every 15 minutes or so. The user must click the boxes and they are counted towards their passing score.

What other methods are people using to track active user participation throughout a course? Other ideas?

Thanks,

Mike

 

6 Replies
Mike B.

John,

Thanks for your reply. That's pretty much what our current solution would look like, except that the course would continue to play in the background. There's really no reason to stop the live video stream, as that just complicates matters. The popup makes a noise, so it's quite obvious that it's there and needs to be clicked. I have the popup disappear after 30 seconds if not clicked. The problem with this setup is that it is dependent upon the Storyline timeline, and we can't control that. The user could enter the course early, leave and come back in, etc. All of which would throw off the timeline synch with our live video.

I do have a test course set up now that increments counters as the popups are displayed, and as they are clicked.

I was wondering if there are other methods out there that people are using. In a pinch, we've asked users to type something into an integrated chat box, to acknowledge that they are there, but that's neither automated nor user friendly.

Any other ideas out there?

Thanks,

Mike

Bob S

I'm sorry, you said live video..... as in "synchronous training"?

If so, why Storyline vs a live tool like Adobe Connect where you can do live polling, etc as needed?

If it's not really live, they have you considered simply editing the video into segments so you can spread them out with interactions of some sort in between?

Mike B.

Bob,

We have 3 types of courses. 1) On-demand, piece of cake with Storyline, no problems there. 2) Live webcasts. 3) Re-broadcasts of pre-recorded webcasts.

Adobe Connect is not an option anymore. We looked at this initially and I was incredibly under-whelmed. I even signed up for a live demo and the links on the Adobe site didn't even work, so I was never able to view the demo. I did look at the free trial. Reminded me of something from 1996. We also checked with some partners who have moved away from Connect. Not a good choice for us.

If we can use Storyline for all 3 above, we will have a consistent user experience across all of our offerings. I'm getting closer to having this figured out too.

Re-broadcasts will still run through Ustream, with the entire video on one slide. These are scheduled events that begin and end at particular times, so there is no room for user interactions that interrupt the presentation.

I'm just trying to find out if anyone is using any other techniques to make sure the user is actually watching their presentation. It sounds like this is not being done in any other way. I'll work more on getting the popups working.

Thanks,

Mike

Bob S

Ok, so I guess my thought was around the challenges you are going to face trying to synch (and keep sycnched!) two independent timelines; live video and storyline.

As you know, all sorts of things happen during a live webinar or even streamed playback. And of course some learners take longer to respond/complete tasks than others.    So while there may be some technical way to keep it all synched (super heroes, anyone?)  my gut would lead me to simplify rather than complicate. Hence the suggestions on either editing the video into segments so you have known "key frames" as it were (ie places where you KNOW things will be re-synced)  or go with a live streaming tool that allows for interaction (Connect is just a well known example, there are many others of course).

In any case, super curious where you land on this and how it turns out. Please let us know so we can all learn!

Mike B.

I understand, and I appreciate your help on this.

I think that is the key, we can't depend on the Storyline timeline because we can't control it the way we need to, advance to a particular point, etc. In that case, we have to eliminate that timeline as an option.

What we do have, and what is important to these courses, is the current time of day. Javascript can be used to get the TOD from an Internet time server, then triggers could be used to fire off the popups at particular times. I believe this would be trivial for someone with javascript skills. This technique would be employed for re-broadcasts only.

For purely live events, I think I'll have to return to a technique I used a few years back, where a third server is involved. During the live webcast, I have an admin webpage with access to the server, and am able to set a flag in real time when I want a popup to be displayed. Javascript within Storyline would check a page on the server that would tell it whether or not the flag was set and when it was time to display a popup. This was pretty easy to set up before, I would just need some help with the Storyline integration

That's the plan at this point. I was just hoping for something a little simpler that wouldn't involve a bunch of javascript programming, which I can't currently do on my own.

Thanks!

Mike

 

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