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Tuesday, January 19, 2010

LMS Quirks, Issues, and Work- Arounds : LRN Learning System

We just had a conversation with one of our clients regarding the fact that out content package would not launch in the LRN LMS. Well the package passed the ADL Conformance Test Suite 1.2.7 and ran on Mike Rustici's Test Track (www.scorm.com) so I was a bit perplexed. After some discussion and emails it came down to the fact that the LRN system requires a file called csd.txt to be placed at the root of the package ALONG WITH the imsmanifest file. It uses this file to find the launch page for the course. This raises the question, what does it do with the manifest file and what does it do if there are multiple SCOs in the content package?

I will post a sample of the csd.txt file soon.....
Here it is:

Date of this Request
date=[01/11/2010]

Type of Course (enter SCORM or AICC)
type=[SCORM]

LCEC Site Names (enter a comma separated list of sites)
sites=[site name here]

Course Base Catalog Id (limit: 10 characters - see Notes above)
basecatid=[catalog-id-here]

Course Full Catalog Id (limit: 15 characters = see Notes above)
catid=[full-catalog-id-here]

System ID (to be filled in by LRN at installation time)
sysid=[ ]

Course Title
title=[Course Title Here]

Course Language Code (e.g.: zhCN. See LCEC's Administrator's Reference Guide)
language=[en]

Course Description
description=[This course covers XYZ and ABC.]

Course Entry Point (e.g.: index.html)
entry=[index.html]

Course Launch Parameters
parms=[none]

Course Vendor Name
vendor=[JCA Solutions]

Library Course? (enter true or false - Should be true only for licensed 3rd party library courses)
islibrary=[false]

Technical Contact Name
name=[Brian Caudill]

Technical Contact Phone
phone=[Office: 1-800-305-8159 x201; Cell: 407-222-5432]

Technical Contact Email
email=[bcaudill@jcasolutions.com]

Monday, January 11, 2010

LMS Quirks, Issues, and Work- Arounds : SkillPort LMS

The SkillPort LMS by SkillSoft supports AICC, CTT, Dialogue 2.0 and 3.0, e3, LOT Passive, SCORM, SCORM 1.2 RTE 2, SCORM 2004, SkillStudio, LCMS input, and NLO+. This blog entry will be concerned with SCORM 1.2 RTE 2.

First off, SkillPort does not support all of the mandatory and optional RTE data model elements for the SCORM 1.2 package. It only supports a subset listed below:




You will also need to get on the SkillSoft Community site http://community.skillsoft.com/Products/sct/ccps.asp "SCORM 1.2 Authoring Guidelines" AKA(scorm_auth_doc_v_1_2 (2).pdf). This document (pg 9-11) will explain to you what SkillSoft means by completion, passing score, and failing.

Also, you will need to download the SkillSoft Compatability Toolkit (SkillPort_Compatibility_Toolkit.exe) from the SkillSoft community site. Run your content package throuth this application for 2 reasons. 1) to verify that it is compatible with the SkillPort system and 2) to create the appropriate sppub.ini metadata file and the correct SkillPort input file which is a .par file.

A NOTE ABOUT THE SCT:
[edit] Since you will need IE 6 for this task I suggest you go to spoon.net and use the run anywhere browsers http://spoon.net/Browsers/. It will stream the app to your PC so you dont have to install it. That way you can run all the IE versions side by side if you like.

The SCT is only usable in IE 6.0 and is unusable in IE 7, 8 because the use type=file on all of their input boxes so you can not copy and paste the path to your folder into the input area AND if you press the browse button it makes you select a file when the application wants a folder. I tried to get around this by using FireFox, however, when you complete the run-time compatability test the next button never displays so again you are dead in the water.

Create your own sppub.ini file. Name it "sppub.ini":

# [ SP Publishing Settings formatversion="1.0" ]
window top=0
window scrollbars=no
window resizable=no
default ids=no
enable download=no
content version=0.5
course code=001
prerequisites=Unknown
window height=768
target audience=Unknown
course duration=2
publish version=1.0
window toolbar=no
window width=1024
language=enUS
description=BP Alpha Course
company code=regis
vendor=Regis Learning
title=BP Alpha
window left=0

The SkillPort Course Completion Criteria
The issue was that not of our courses were completing and we were sending cmi.core.lesson_status and setting it to completed. Well the answer was in the way courses are administered within SkillPort. More below....


"SkillPort provides a capability that allows the client to set their Course Completion Criteria (CCC)
either globally or on a per-course basis. These settings set the criteria, which determine whether a
course is marked complete.
SCORM 1.2 courses report two different values - a score and a lesson status. The following list of
elements is a setting or checkbox in the SkillPort Administrator page and describes how the SkillPort
CCC uses the two values to determine the completion status of the course:"


This paragraph above is an excerpt from section "Completion Criteria" in the SkillPort document "SCORM Authorizing Guidelines.pdf"

It is a good idea to discuss this with the LMS admin. Also, if you can have them provide a screenshot of the CCC page and what is selected that is always very helpful.

LMS Quirks, Issues, and Work- Arounds : Intro

I am going to begin to post little quirks, issues, and work-arounds that have to be used in order to deploy content on different Learning Management Systems. I will try to keep it so there is one LMS and LMS version per post since some LMS have many different versions in production. I will not be specific about the project or customer, but I will try my best to detail the issue and any resolutions.