SCORM 2004 long-fill in type Essay question

Are you just using the survey feature? If so, the short answer fill in has a 256 character limit, the essay answer can go up to 5,000 characters. 

I came up with a temporary work-around. I hope it works for you.

After publishing your course, replace the SCORM2004Functions.js file with the attached one. The file is located inside the lms folder.

I changed it so that all "fill-in" interactions will be reported as "long-fill-in".

At around line 41, I changed it to:

var SCORM2004_INTERACTION_TYPE_FILL_IN = "long-fill-in";

It should work for any course published as SCORM 2004.

Yes, just replace the file.

You should make a sample course as a test.

I made a sample course and tested it in the SCORM Cloud. Looking at the logs, all fill-in interactions are being reported as long-fill-in.

Thanks for opening a support case to work directly with our support engineers on this, Russell.

Hi - I've run into this same problem, is there any news on a timeframe for a resoultion?

Hi Paul,

Hello - any progress on this?

Thank you for following up, Adam!

This is an issue that our team is continuing to investigate! Now that you're subscribed to this thread, you'll get notified of any movement.

In the meantime, I'm curious if this suggestion might help you—I'd recommend testing this method in SCORM Cloud first!

This seems to be fixed. I've tested a Storyline 360 quiz exported to SCORM 2004 with a survey/essay question, and it exceed 255 characters by a long shot. I'm attaching some files so you can test it yourself. The text in the essay is copy pasted from a web site. I put "EOF" (End Of File) at the end to see if it cut off. The entry was 2552 characters. The screenshots are from Blackboard Learn. 

Howdy,

This can still be an issue in your LMS, depending on how your LMS behaves.

Good news, Russell's workaround (with a few updates based on how Storyline publishes now) still works.

Screenshots of solutions attached.
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The Fix - Easy Version: (Doesn't require changing code after each publish)

• Execute the following JavaScript in your course: (on timeline start would work)
  SCORM2004_INTERACTION_TYPE_FILL_IN = "long-fill-in"

This trigger needs to fire before any essays are submitted...and MUST fire each time your course is opened. I just put the trigger on the slide master, so it runs on every slide. This way it'll run even if the course is closed and resumed later.

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The Fix - Manual Version: (as of January 2023)

• Publish your Course (Scorm 2004, v4)
• In the published output, open "scromdriver.js" from within the "lms" folder. I recommend doing this in a code editor, but you can do it in notepad as well.
• Find the line:
  
  var SCORM2004_INTERACTION_TYPE_FILL_IN = "fill-in";
  and change it to:
  

  var SCORM2004_INTERACTION_TYPE_FILL_IN = "long-fill-in";

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ARTICULATE SHOULD RESOLVE THIS ISSUE.

Perhaps most LMS's have updated to allow more than 256 characters when receiving "fill-in" interaction types, but it's still a problem that will cause reporting issues on some LMS's. Right now you'd have to test on your system and then apply the fix if it's not working. Even then, the fix might not work on your LMS.

A Deeper Dive into the problem can be found below.

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Essay-type Survey Questions Published in SCORM 2004 v4 seem to SUCCESSFULLY REPORT answers in:

• Blackboard Learn (James's Example in the thread Above)
• SCORM Cloud (I tested this)

Essay-type Survey Questions Published in SCORM 2004 v4 DO NOT REPORT answers in:

• Cornerstone On-Demand (at least our environment)

NOTE: In my test in cornerstone, only 3,992 characters were recorded in the essay (4,900 were summitted). This is likely due to how the SCORM data is sent. The main takeaway is that if you need this workaround, it's highly likely that the limit is closer to 4,000 characters than the stated 5,000.

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Analysis & Assumption:

• Storyline Problem: Essay Survey Questions are presenting as "fill-in" questions to the LMS, not "long-fill-in".
• User submits an essay question in course on LMS.
• Storyline sends "fill-in" interaction type to LMS and question-level data.
• Some LMS's are programmed to allow more than the standard 256 characters for "fill-in" question types (Blackboard, Scorm Cloud, likely others) so they take in the data and store it anyway.
• LMS Problem: For LMS's that have more strict SCORM implementations, they see an interaction type of "fill-in" from storyline, but then for example are sent 3,000 characters from the essay question. Because of the "strictness" of the LMS SCORM implementation, and the LMS interpretation the data as a "fill-in" from Storyline, the 3,000 characters don't fit within the 256 character limit and either omits the data or it causes a database error so the data is not stored.

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Hopefully this helps someone :) - Big thanks to Russel for the tip from before!!

- Nick