Track & Count User Distractions with JavaScript

Sep 18, 2018

I am participating in the xAPI Cohort right now, and one of our Storyline proposals is to insert code into story.html that counts the number of times that the story.html window "blurs" (the user clicks outside the eLearning). Once the user exits the course, we would submit the total number to an LRS using an xAPI statement. Has anyone done something similar in JavaScript before?

4 Replies
Ray Cole

What purpose would such data collection serve? Can it help you improve the course?

I ask because on the surface, it feels like such data could only be used to punish the learner for being distracted. That doesn't seem like the best use of learning technology to me, and I would be wary of unwittingly enabling a "big brother" surveillance culture by making such surveillance technology easy to implement.

Michael Goldsmith

Hi Ray. The behavior itself is a known phenomenon. I don't need to punish users when they're already showing me they find my eLearning boring. The data is the weaponry I need to push back against my internal customers who want to build PowerPoint-esque eLearning instead of engaging content. You'd think the principle of investing time for good training alone would be enough, but that's just not the way the world works. 

Anywho, do you have any thoughts on how this might be possible?

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