Limitations of LearnDash for Storyline

Aug 01, 2013

Meryem M
By Meryem M

I purchased LearnDash with hopeful expectation that it would be an improvement over Moodle.  But, after way too many hours working with WordPress I do not yet have even one storyline course online in a functional LearnDash lesson. And I am not even sure that it is possible to integrate the two.

The way LearnDash works with Storyline courses seems to be the same way it would work with a YouTube video.  Upload it into a lesson page.  The user clicks to open the page, sees the video and clicks on it.  It plays.  Then when finished, the user goes to a link at the bottom of the page, a link that is separate from the video/story and marks their work complete. 

LearnDash is highlighting their badges and leaderboards which are promising and look awfully cool.   But completion of a Storyline course will be entirely user-determined with no authentication.  If the user says the lesson is done (just click the handy link), then up goes the badge and points.  Any points or lack thereof in Storyline quizzes are entirely irrelevant to LearnDash.  LearnDash doesn't care if the various slides and scenes in your story were visited or completed.  There might be a time in the future when TinCan of Storyline can talk to the TinCan of LearnDash, but that hasn't happened yet, and there is no estimated time when it will.

I could abandon my quizzes in Storyline and instead use the quizzing utility in LearnDash.  At this point that option makes me want to cry.  My quizzes are integrated into the fabric of my story so that they don't feel like quizzes to the learner.  They are beautiful, interactive and with branching feedback.  But to get any kind accountability that the learner has learned what is in my storyline course, I am forced to use a LearnDash quiz to get that data.  Ugh.

A second issue with LearnDash is the format of the Lesson Page.  The story uploads into the default-width column of your themes default blog page.  So... unless you want to break up the work-flow and have it open in a new window, the slides are resized to much smaller than the standard SL story-size.  There are instructions in the LearnDash support forum (not available until after you purchase the plug-in) that give hairy instructions for programmers to break into their themes .php pages and rewrite code, with warnings that this has to be redone each time LearnDash is updated.  So for a non-programmer this is not a realistic option. 

My conclusion:  LearnDash and Storyline do not integrate well at all.

43 Replies
Chris Hodgson
over 7 years ago08/18/16 at 8:24 am (UTC)

Hi Patrick

This is indeed possible using LearnDash.

Firstly you can purchase a LRS system such as Grassblade which directly integrates with LearnDash, you can then use the xAPI to feed information from your SCORM content built in SL into the LRS, such as quiz data.

Secondly it is possible to take variable data out of Storyline in order to use for other purposes (with a bit of technical know-how)

For example, if you take a look at this example GBL content I produced for my own demo (http://learndashdemo.discoverelearninguk.com/topic/the-colouring-book-memory-challenge/)

Once you have played the game you can go to this Leaderboards page to see how I have taken the score data that is created and placed it into a customised PHP/MySQL leaderboard.

(http://learndashdemo.discoverelearninguk.com/leaderboards/)

Sylvia Wright
over 7 years ago08/24/16 at 3:02 pm (UTC)

LearnDash is working hard to integrate well with Storyline and they've got a great product.  One "glitch" is the fact that Storyline is a one time purchase whereas LearnDash is an annually renewable license.  So if you build your Storyline course with integration to LearnDash you are committed to that annual renewal fee.  There are still a few glitches so it may be more worth the renewal further down the integration road.

Lisa Smyser
7 years ago01/27/17 at 6:26 pm (UTC)

Thank you Steven! I have been struggling with this because grassblade will mark the lesson complete automatically, but isn't compatible with badgeOS (and is otherwise very finicky), so I had to choose between marking lessons complete or issuing badges - not a good choice! I think it's time to ditch grassblade completely and use uncanny or another LRS. I still wish LD would use plain old SCORM!

I'm thinking I'll put the js code directly in the EXIT button on the last screen. I'm going to test it out and if it works that will be very exciting!! Thank you for sharing!

This discussion is closed. You can start a new discussion or contact Articulate Support.