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WhitneyMiller-N's avatar
WhitneyMiller-N
Community Member
4 years ago

Course Identifier for Scenes

Hey y'all --

I create multi-scene courses and export each scene as a standalone packet to load into my LMS as its own activity in a course. We recently switched to Tin Can API. Every scene I export from the project file has the same identifier. Is my LMS going to understand that these are separate files? Feeling a little out of my depth with this since I'm a Tin Can newbie. TIA!

  • ScottWiley1's avatar
    ScottWiley1
    Community Member

    I don't understand why you would need/want to export the scenes to run outside your course, but okay. I'm familiar with xAPI, but not how your LMS handles it, or the trade-offs to doing single course with multiple scenes or the all scenes as separate packages.

    I would think that if going as separate packages, you'd still need a unique identifier for each, so that each activity completed can send the correct statements to your LRS.

  • A large number of my learners use dial-up internet or cellular data connection to access our LMS (very rural US state) so we have found that shorter SCORM/XAPI packets are more stable for their UX -- higher likelihood that completion status gets reported to LMS and user does not have to repeat a packet. 

    I included a screenshot in my OP to show how a typical course is structured -- mix of activity types, including LMS-based quizzing and HTML files. 

  • ScottWiley1's avatar
    ScottWiley1
    Community Member

    Ahh, that makes some more sense, although I thought the behind the scenes front-loading of content would get around most of that. Interesting to know.

    I guess since you want to uniquely identify each "section" of the larger "course" for tracking purposes, I would use a common prefix (course) and unique id (section/scene) combination.

    I don't know how much that helps with your original question. 

  • My learners are 100% asynchronous and self-paced.

    i’m concerned with the LMS (Talent) acknowledging completion of each xapi packet as its own record. It’s my understanding that Articulate autogenerates the identifier and it can’t be modified. 

  • ScottWiley1's avatar
    ScottWiley1
    Community Member

    Perhaps you could use a learning plan, and/or prerequisites as a way to make them appear as a collection to the learner.

    And to your point about the auto-generated id, that kind of leans toward making a choice of either breaking out your current scenes to separate StoryLine files, or publish as-is in one packet. 

    Aside from that, unless your LMS allows some fancy associations of separate things to be used to mark a single thing as complete, you're stuck with these options, as far as I know.

  • Each course in the LMS is made up of multiple activities, including multiple Storyline units as SCORM (now XAPI) packets, HTML documents, LMS-based quizzing, and videos. EG, the user registers for Topic 101, a 6-hour course, they have to complete Introduction HTML, SCORM #1, LMS Quiz #1, SCORM #2, HTML #2, LMS Quiz #2, etc. 

  • To update with a response to my own question: Yes, my LMS recognizes single scenes from the same .storyline file as the same object, even when exporting the scene with a new name. EG, both Scene 1: ABC and Scene 2: DEF show up in the course timeline as Scene 1: ABC, even though the scenes were published with the unique names Scene 1: ABC and Scene 2: DEF.

    I'll be resaving each scene as its own .storyline file.