Forum Discussion
Everything we know about Cornerstone on Demand and Storyline!
I thought I would start a thread about Cornerstone on Demand so there's a central place for people to read and add to. There seems to be a dearth of information about how CSOD and Storyline interact with each other as well as the unresolved issues surrounding it. I've spent many hours scouring the web and speaking with Cornerstone trying to find a solution. Hopefully this thread will serve as a resource for others going forward.
On a side note, I love Articulate Storyline. I started with Adobe Captivate with limited success. It was a very steep learning curve, but I was able to get some basic functionality out of it. I tested out Storyline with it's 30 day trial, and I will say that time-to-effectiveness was drastically reduced. It really IS like using powerpoint. Granted there is less complex functionality and interactions available than Captivate, but so far it's given me everything I've needed to use. The benefit is that the learning curve is much less steep too. Think of it as the difference between iMovie and Final Cut Pro. The latter can do some crazy effects, but the former gives you 90% of what you need and can get you comfortable in 1/4 of the time.
It's nice to have a properly-working content creation tool when you're in an LMS like Cornerstone. I have enough trouble in CSOD as it is.
So some of the nuggets of wisdom that I've found are :
- Cornerstone does not track SCORM 1.2 content properly. You cannot pull a lot of the reports if they are not in SCORM 2004 format. You don't have the option to select that course in the reports.
- If you export into SCORM 2004, there will be an extra section on the left with text links to the module. This takes up 30% of the screen, and on smaller laptop screens may crowd out the module window. Cornerstone says this is a Storyline exporting settings issue. I couldn't find any settings that shows/hides that section. The workaround is to resize the module to the screen, which doesn't get rid of the section, but at least fits the module.
- When reporting, you can get the completion status for a course based on quiz result or last slide viewed. You can also get a final grade for course. Storyline passes the results information for each question (including short answer) but you cannot pull a list of the answers for an individual. Therefore, it may not be advisable to administer any testing where you'll need to review individual answers
- You can get a list of aggregate answers for a module. e.g. I can see how 100 employees answered this multiple choice question. This is helpful to determine if learners are absorbing the course information correctly.
- Web objects (such as websites, or links to sharepoint documents) work in modules if your IT has added csod.com to the trusted sites
- Popup windows that open up the articulate module in CSOD will work if you add csod.com to the allowed list for popup blockers. Your IT dept can also add this to everyone's computer. Otherwise when learners click the "launch" button, the module does not show up.
I'll post more as I think or find them, but feel free to add to this list!
That's a neat trick. Hadn't thought of using the original manifest file. Surprised it doesn't fail if the manifest is missing.
When our LMS admin uploads a course into CSOD we get a tiny version of the course displayed in the CSOD window. How tiny? Well, like 10 pixels across. No kidding! I've tried a number of settings for SCORM and for the Player > Other settings with no luck.
Using Storyline 3, Update 2
Publish settings:
SCORM 2004 2nd Edition
Tracking on number of slides completed
Reporting as Passed/IncompletePlayer setting combinations in 'Other' that I've tried:
Browser size--tried Fill screen, tried current size
Player size--tried Scale to fill, tried lock at optimal
Launch in new window: tried On, tried OffThe only thing that made any difference was "Launch in new window". The only problem is that when I do that there are multiple windows onscreen; not what learners are used to.
Help! I'm not even worried about tracking at this point; I just want the course to open and display properly!!
Hi, Bob -
Have never seen this behavior. However, I can see how it might happen if the screen resolution isn't set right in the catalog or the defaults are set to tiny. Try asking your admin to go into the general tab of the catalog item and type a width and height that you'd like it to appear as.
I think part of the problem is the "Online Course Player" displays that silly menu. That side-menu can be deactivated by global support. We don't have a need for it as most of our LO's are singles. It's a waste of space. All it takes is a GPS ticket to turn off the Online Course side menu.
There is also a global setting under Preferences > Content Launching Preferences. I'm curious what this is set to in your system.
Thx for the information Steve. I forwarded it to the LMS admin. I've tried nearly every combination of Browser setting (resize, current, optimal) and Player setting (scale up, optimal) with no luck; the course always displays super-tiny.
I tested the course in SCORM Cloud and it works great. So, I'm leaning more heavily to it being a CSOD issue with player setup. Our LMS admin has said now that she'll reach out to CSOD Support; hopefully they can tell her what checkboxes to set and buttons to click in CSOD.
It shouldn't be this hard, am I right??!! <grin> And the non-technical people around me wonder, "It's all SCORM-compliant so it should just work...what's the big deal?" <groan>
Bob-
You have to open a gps ticket with CSOD to have the launch window disabled. Only way to fix within. CSOD.
For scorm 2004, in player options within 360, you have to uncheck “launch in new window”
CSOD Support seemed to be stumped. They said the course worked fine for them in Google Chrome but not in Internet Explorer 11. (IE 11 is our current corporate standard so that's that.)
Surprisingly, they asked if there are any browser config/compatibility settings in Storyline that maybe I could change or check, such as forcing the browser into IE Compatibility Mode or forcing the browser to spoof an earlier IE version. (The answer is no, of course.) How could they be unfamiliar with Storyline??? CSOD is, after all, an LMS and Storyline is one of the most popular elearning authoring tools around these days. Sigh.
In the end, we decided to enable "Launch Player in new window" within Storyline. The learner is presented with a "Launch Course" orange button in an otherwise empty browser window. When clicked, the orange button launches another window on top that contains the course. An ugly user experience but we could never get the underlying CSOD window to display the course.
As suggested earlier in the thread, did you try setting IE Compatibility Mode to None? We tried it and it did resolve some problems for us. We are using SCORM 1.2 and HTML5 Only output.
We always set IE compatability mode to None otherwise we run into various problems. No idea why it works but it does.
I really suggest calling back and talking to another rep. I am a designer and our CSOD LMS admin and we literally JUST went through this last week. They should be able to turn off the separate launch window while on the phone with you so you don’t get the page with the orange launch button and separate menu to the left. We were in the asme situation as you - about a year ago we published everything as 1.2 because when we called GPS back then we were obviously speaking with someone who didn’t know and they told me they couldn’t do anything about it, we were stuck with the orange launch button and window that took up valuable screen real estate. Then we were meeting with some consultants last week and they told us all we had to do was call and ask for it to be turned off for scorm 2004. I was so frustrated, but tried again and when I called and obviously talked to a different person than a year ago, they fixed it while I was on the phone with them and it worked perfectly - after we unchecked the “launch in new window” within the Storyline settings as well. Now we can publish in scorm 2004 and the course launches seamlessly in one step just like all the scorm 1.2 courses we published.
Hi Bob,
I'm sorry that CSOD support weren't much help - but I'd agree with Chris that you'll want to look into disabling the compatibility mode of IE (which some LMSs have been forcing content to run in automatically).
We've seen this recently for users who are playing back Rise content in an LMS that has limited HTML5 support, so the steps below are what we've shared to disable compatibility mode for those users - and would be worth checking into for your Storyline course too.
Option 1: Change Your Compatibility View Settings
- Click the gear icon in Internet Explorer (or click the Tools menu if it's visible), then choose Compatibility View settings.
- If the website where your course is hosted is listed in Compatibility View, select it and click Remove.
- Click Close, then launch your course again. If the page is still blank, try the following method.
Option 2: Use the Developer Tools to Switch Document Modes
- Click the gear icon in Internet Explorer (or click the Tools menu if it's visible), then choose Developer Tools. They'll open across the bottom of your browser.
- On the right side of the developer bar, you should see an icon that looks like a computer monitor and a smartphone with a number beside it. When you hover over the icon, a tooltip will say Document mode (with a number). Click the icon to display a list of Internet Explorer version numbers.
- Select version 11, then launch your course again.
About CSOD's support response... That player frame is controlled by CSOD, not by Storyline. It appears clear that the LMS player frame is squeezing the content in your screenshot. Turning off the player frame in the backend should make the problem go away. We inactivate that feature since we don't need it and every course runs well for us.
Oh. The other thing you might try is publishing to SCORM 1.2. If you don't have big suspend data needs, this could remove the player frame. Also, I'm not certain but I don't think CSOD supports SCORM 2004 r2. I think they are at 2004 r3. It really shouldn't make a difference but this is an odd issue. These are things I'd try.
Every new client should learn this phrase: "Please set Scorm2004TocMenuset to false." Disabling the SCORM 2004 frame is a recurring motif in this epic thread. You would think CSOD might make false the default for new portals???
I guess maybe they are trying to conform to a 13-year-old standard by starting with it on, but it real practice, who uses multi-scorm objects any more, or ever?
