How to Test your eLearning in UniversitySite

Applies To

• UniversitySite Cloud (vs Behind the firewall installations)
• Behind the Firewall Installations (vs UniversitySite Cloud)
• InstructorSite
• LearningSite

Intended Audience

• System administrators

Background

We frequently get questions about eLearning content "behaving badly".  Perhaps it isn't properly recording completions for some or all people who use it.  Perhaps it is automatically recording completion just for clicking on it.  Or perhaps it isn't bookmarking and resuming correctly for users.  It's important to test your eLearning in the LMS before making it available to users.

Important Note

There are a great many variables controlling how content behaves, the majority of which are saved with the content when it is authored and published, for example in Captivate.  When content isn't working as expected it is usually NOT related to how UniversitySite works.  

Troubleshooting eLearning can be a complex and difficult process that includes many variables outside of our control and unknown to us such as but not limited to the following:

• How long ago the content was produced
• What browser version it was designed to work with
• What browser version is being used now to play it
• What content editing software version was used to publish it
• What publishing criteria were used to publish the content
• What criteria for completion were built into the content
• Whether the content was published for HTML 5 and IOS compatibility, or Flash

We use a scorm engine designed in conjunction with Rustici, the folks at  www.scorm.com and THE experts on the SCORM standard.  Almost all the eLearning problems customers report to us have nothing to do with our LMS software but stem from one or more of the variables listed previously.

In some cases there are SCORM package properties that can be adjusted in InstructorSite that may get the content working again, and in other cases not.  We do our best but we can't always succeed with getting a given eLearning to behave in a desired and expected fashion. See the Troubleshooting section near the bottom for more ideas that MIGHT help you if you have a particular eLearning that is behaving badly :).

Test before you push out new content

Before publishing eLearning courses it's important to verify the content is properly reporting completion and bookmarks.  

Testing for Inappropriate Completions

1. Play the SCORM Package and then immediately exit
2. Confirm the SCORM package relayed the status as "Incomplete".  If the status is "Complete" there's a problem with the design of your eLearning.

Testing Resume/Bookmarking

1. Play the SCORM Package 
2. Let a few slides pass, then exit using either a provided exit button, or the X in the upper right of the browser window.
3. Confirm the SCORM package relayed the status as "Incomplete".  If the status is "Complete" there's a problem with the design of your eLearning.
4. Click "Resume" and confirm that it picks up where you left off, not from the beginning.

Testing for Completions

1. Find out what criteria were set for the content to be considered "Complete"
2. Play the SCORM Package
3. View the content and answer any required questions or respond to any prompts as required by the completion criteria set for this SCORM package
4. After closing out of the SCORM package, confirm that the SCORM package relayed the status as "Complete". If the status is "Incomplete" there's a problem with the design of your eLearning.

Important Note: This just proves that it CAN be completed.  Now you need to put yourself in the role of your learner and attempt to cheat by skipping to the end.  If users can get to the end, the SCORM package should relay the status as "Complete", otherwise users won't be able to figure out what actions they need to perform to complete it.

Testing the reporting of Scores and Pass/Fail status

It's possible to design  a SCORM  package that relays a score to the LMS.  It's also possible to design  a SCORM  package that relays a status of pass vs failed.  The SCORM package is responsible for relaying this information to the LMS. Here's how to test:

1. Launch the SCORM package and complete it with a failing score
2. Confirm the SCORM package relayed the status of "Completed Unsuccessfully"
3. Launch the SCORM package and complete it with a passing score
4. Confirm the SCORM package relayed the status of "Completed Successfully

Troubleshooting

Contact the vendor who made the content

When courses aren't reporting their status properly, it usually due to an issue with the course itself, not the LMS.  Contact the person or vendor who produced the content for assistance.  

Eliminate UniversitySite as a source of the problem

If content is behaving badly, test it on SCORM Cloud (free test site) to confirm the problem is with the content, not the LMS.  Contact the SCORM experts at support@scorm.com for assistance with problematic content.

Problem: Content Won't Complete

Most of the time when courses aren't reporting a 'completion', it's due to an issue with the course itself, not the LMS.  Contact person or vendor who produced the content for help.

UniversitySite, being a SCORM compliant LMS, takes its queues for recording course status from the content itself.  When the content reports 'completion' to the LMS, UniversitySite records the status as complete. When the course does NOT report 'completion' to the LMS, UniversitySite records the status as incomplete.  The content is in control.

The first step is to determine the Completion criteria in the SCORM Publish settings.  SCORM 1.2 had only one status element that returned one of the following: complete, incomplete, passed, failed.  SCORM 2004 returns two different elements:  Completion Status and Success Status.

In the most recent versions of Captivate, these settings are found under Quiz: Settings.  If you choose Quiz is Passed, the content will not return complete until the passing score is achieved even if the user has viewed all of the slides.  If you choose Slide Views, the content will show complete once the user has viewed the percentage of slides you have designated.  If the content contains branching, you will need to account for that when determining the percentage criteria.

Articulate Studio and Storyline have multiple settings for Completion Status.  This article is very useful in helping you determine which settings will meet your needs:  Articulate SCORM Publish settings.  If you have included quiz slides in Storyline, but want the status to report Successfully Completed even if the user did not pass the quiz question, like in a tutorial or try-it, you need to remove the Quiz Results slide.

Problem: Older Content Won't Play

If the content was published a few years ago it might now be incompatible with modern browsers and no video will load as a result.  This seems to be true for Microsoft eLearning for Office 2007.

We have found often, this content will still work in IE 9 or 10, but not Chrome, when you change the Internet Explorer Compatibility Mode to "Emulate IE8 [Use DOCTYPE]".

To get to the SCORM Package Properties Editor click the Test  link you see when viewing the course in InstructorSite, from within the eLearning Packages section.

After making the change on the Compatibility Settings tab, don't forget to save those changes.  

TIP: If you have many courses that have this same problem and need fixing, I encourage you to create a SCORM Preset and apply it to them as a group.

For instructions on how to do that please see  this article

NOTE: Sometimes this setting won't work until you also change the launch behavior as follows.  Only do this if the content didn't work after changing only the IE compatibility.

General Tips

• Try it on more than one computer
• Try it in a different browser version
• Try it in a different browser, e.g. Chrome
• Publish it for SCORM 1.2 instead of 2004, or vice versa
• Publish it for HTML 5 so it works with IOS devices
• Try a different action for when the project closes