Forum Discussion
LMS disconnects?
Hi. I currently use Captivate for learning development but am wanting to switch to Storyline. The courses we create in some cases are viewed by several thousand people at once. We have had issues with the courses being disconnected from the server. A user can be taking the course and not know that they have lost connection and view many pages before realizing it. I know this is a stretch but I'm curious if any of you who develop with SL have had similar experiences with server disconnects? If so does the course properly bookmark the location of the course when the disconnect occurs? Is SL constantly updating the bookmark location when a page is entered? I hope this all makes sense. Thanks for the help!
Yes. I had this happen with Cornerstone on Demand (CSOD).
- The learner needed to click on a Resources link in the player which opened a long PDF that they needed to review in a new browser window.
- Some learners then thought they'd been bumped out of the course and launched it again--creating a second instance of the course.
- Little did they know that the 1st instance of the course was still open and a timer was running (about 40 minutes or so) at which time the LMS would automatically disconnect them. Note: CSOD disregarded any settings that I added in SL360 about how long the learner had to complete the course. This may have been something added by our security folks--they're very strict about what is allowed.
- The learners kept working in the 2nd instance of the course, which was not reporting to the LMS since the connection for the 1st instance was still open.
- I discovered all of this through extensive testing where I watched learners interact with the module.
- The solution was to provide an animated explainer at the beginning that showed what happens when you open a Resource, and showed the learners how to hover over the Taskbar and find their still open module.
I hope this helps!
Thanks for sharing this info! Launching external files can be a tricky thing for the users. What I need is a way to notify the user that they have been disconnected from the server. Perhaps a piece of javascript that's always watching the URL to see if it's still active? No idea what this would look like or how it would work.
For your users who launched a second version, it sure seems like it would be easy enough for the LMS to have a message somewhere that the course is still open. Maybe a big message right next to the Launch button. Not sure if our clients does this.
Nothing with CSOD is easy. Changing how the LMS behaves was not an option for us.
