Forum Discussion
RISE 360 and SCORM manifest identifier
Hi - I've been looking through previous reports on the impact of making a course change in Rise 360 and then uploading to the LMS (SCORM 1.2).
Our LMS is Skilljar. I made one modification to a cou...
My issue is similar to Shawn's.
Similar to Karl, our LMS (Cornerstone) allows us to either modify a course, or create a new version. Modifying is ideal, and can happen if you are simply wanting to make basic edits such as text edits. The "modify" action can not be executed in Cornerstone if changes are made to the manifest file (adding lessons, deleting sections, etc.). If changes are made to the manifest file, you must create a new version.
A new version is not the ideal option because it has a ripple effect (creating new versions of the curriculum it is in, displaying messages to users that there is a newer version, selecting various settings for users at different stages of progress, etc.).
The problem is that republishing in Rise in any way (even just text edits) changes the manifest file in several places. This makes it impossible to ever simply "modify" a course in Cornerstone. This does not happen with Storyline. In storyline I can make my text edits, republish and zip the file, execute the "modify" function in Cornerstone, and my changes are applied in the LMS with no issues.
I wish I had known this to be the case before making the decision to use Rise as our main rapid development tool. Does anyone know of a work around or can someone explain the reason that Rise has so many changes to the manifest file while storyline does not?
I'm experiencing the same issue, Ashley. We have a minor text change that needs to be made, and since we used Rise it's resulting in a big headache trying to update the course in Cornerstone. I communicated with Articulate's support a couple of years back about the issue, and I'm disappointed to see that the course identifier is still changed every time you publish. The solution recommended to me by the support agent was to:
1) Extract the original export file and open imsmanifest.xml in Notepad to take note of the value of the "manifest identifier."
2) When updating the content or course, you would need to do the following:
- Export the contents of the new export file on your local drive
- Open the imsmanifest.xml in Notepad and paste the value of the "manifest identifier" from #1
- Save the changes in Notepad
- Re-zip the file with the change and upload it to your LMS to update the content.
However, following these steps I'm still receiving critical errors, so clearly this identifier is appearing in other places.
I was just talking about this with my team like 5 minutes ago, crazy timing. Yes I tried what you mentioned above and it does not work. It is very frustrating. I am guessing it is both a frustrating issue with Articulate but also with Cornerstone as it seems like Karl's (see above) LMS handles the change fine. I have spoken with support on both ends. Articulate tells me to do the steps you mention (which didn't work) and Cornerstone tells me that it is the issue with the imsmanifest.xml file changes.
We have unfortunately had to make the decision that courses will only be updated when there is a large structural issue or don't function properly as the reversioning process is not worth the time and ripple effect it causes. This gets tricky for us too because we have a lot of policy and data changes that should be updated but we can't do it as often as we would like. I really wish someone could come up with a solution.
And, of course, now that I've written all of that I got it to work. The issue was how I was re-zipping my files. I noticed the error I was getting after adjusting the manifest ID indicated that the file path had changed. So I opened my original zipped file intending to compare/contrast, and when I opened my NEW zipped file I noticed that rather than all of the SCORM files laid out in front of me, I had yet another folder to open before I could get to my files. So yes, I had (unknowingly) changed the file path due to how I was zipping the files. I guess you can't just right-click your unzipped folder and Zip it, then expect things to work. Here's what I did that led to success:
- Copied original manifest ID
- Downloaded new course files
- Unzipped the new course files and renamed the resulting folder to match my original (not entirely sure it matters, but it's what I did - they are of course in different locations)
- Opened the new course's imsmanifest.xml file and replaced the manifest ID with my original ID
- Saved
- Selected all files in the unzipped folder, rather than the folder itself, and zipped those
- Note: I used 7Zip, so I chose the option to "Add to filename.zip" to keep my existing file name intact. If you use another method to zip the files, you may or may not need to rename the zipped file. I didn't want to take chances given the file path error I was receiving, so I haven't tested.
- I opened my new zipped files to confirm all my files weren't in any unintended sub folders, then I dragged that baby over to my Modify Content screen
I got the usual yellow errors, but was able to finish modifying the file with my new course! I hope this is helpful.
