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Help linking multiple projects

Guest
Jul 02, 2012 Jul 02, 2012

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Hello Everyone

I have been using Captivate 5.5 for the last few months and am having an issue with linking multiple projects.

Due to branching choices and options i have 40 projects that I need to link into 1 big project. (the largest number of slides within a project is 25).

at the end of each project i have a next button. on success i have tried "open other project" and link to another captivate file. i have also tried "open url or file" and link to another htm file.

when i upload to LMS (we use Saba) it will open the first file, but when i get to the next button and click, it doesn't open the next project.

anyone have any suggestions?

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Guide ,
Jul 02, 2012 Jul 02, 2012

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I'm unsure of the technical reason why the link won't open another file, but it's almost surely related to your LMS capabilities.

If you unzip the SCORM package and upload to a 'standard' webserver, then access the lesson through a browser (not via the LMS) does it work as expected?

How are you publishing your lessons? Say you have lesson A and within are links to lesson B and lesson C.

When you publish lesson A, Captivate is surely not smart enough to know you also want to include lessons B and C within the package...

If you publish lessons B and C separately and upload those SCORM Packages to the LMS, lesson A has no way of knowing where those lessons actually are in the LMS.

For this sort of functionality, your LMS has to be SCORM 2004-compliant and support 'sequencing', and your SCORM package has to be setup to handle such 'sequencing' (jumping) between files.

It's a very complex process. Are you at all familiar with it?

While it may be acheivable, if your LMS supports 2004 and sequencing, Captivate is not really tooled to do this sort of thing in a SCORM environment...

Unless you can get into the Sequencing structure, barring any other insights from others, probably best to try to blend everything into one big Captivate lesson if you must maintain all the links and jumps...

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Guest
Jul 02, 2012 Jul 02, 2012

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Hi Eric

our LMS supports scorm 1.2. We don't use scorm 2004. i haven't tried using a standard webserver not lms, but it s worth a shot.

i have been using the reload editor to combine all the files into one big imsmanifest file. i found this video very helpful on that (

http://captivatedev.com/2011/09/30/packaging-adobe-captivate-scos-into -one-course-using-reload-edit...) except it starts from the point of already having the published files.

and i have gotten it to work like a dream and it seamslessly went from one file to the next, except that it wasn't communicating with my lms (communication log was blank). when i fixed it so that it would communicate with my lms, i lost the ability to go from one file to another.

in publishing i have the last button of lesson A that says either "open url" to the next file, or "open other project" to the next project. like i said i have tried it both ways.

unfortunately my captivate project is over 250 slides so i can't make it one big captivate lesson.

Basic WBT design is as follows:

  • intro
  • then a fork in the road (choose path a or path b).
  • path a takes you to project 3 for example, and path b takes you to project 4 for example.
    • path a is a linear path that goes from one project to the next.
    • path b allows the learner to choose which lessons to view and they can exit at any time.

my gut says that my issue is not in the upload but in how i have the files "daisy chained" together. I have seen many different people suggest many different things on other posts but am looking for what works best in my scenario

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Community Expert ,
Jul 02, 2012 Jul 02, 2012

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What you are describing here (path A takes you to project 3, etc) is sequencing and for this to work properly you should be using SCORM 2004, not SCORM 1.2.

When using SCORM you can only daisy-chain files that are part of the same SCO module, and as far as the LMS is concerned, this module can only have ONE final pass fail result, not multiple quizzes with different results.  And you can only have ONE SCO module communicating with the LMS at a time.  So each SCO has to deliver a final result to the LMS before the next one can load.

If you want to have each SCO module report a separate result to the LMS, then you need to be creating a multi-SCO package in RELOAD Editor (or the Adobe Multi-SCORM Packager if you have it).  With multi-SCO courses you have to allow the LMS to launch each separate SCO via its own Table of Contents links.  This allow the LMS to finalise one SCO before starting communication with the next one.

It can get complex, but from what you describe above, you may be trying to do something that is not supported by your current SCORM version (1.2) and may not be supported by your LMS even if you DID go to SCORM 2004.

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Guest
Jul 12, 2012 Jul 12, 2012

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Hello Rob.

sorry for the delayed response.

So let me see if I am following you. i looked into it. and our LMS (Saba 5.5) does allow for both SCORM 1.2 and SCORM 2004. i have tried both but neither has worked for me.

I do want one same "SCO module" so I have tried using both the reload editor and multi sco packager from the e learning suite to create one zip file for the LMS. the course has no "scoring" ( i have quiz questions in each module but i don't care if the student gets it right or wrong). path "a" is the only one where it matters if they go through all the slides or not. path "b" is more for reference. if i have to i will split the two different courses, but i will still end up with too many slides to create one big project.

basically what i want to do is to make the LMS look at this file as one big WBT and not a bunch of little ones. i want it to automatically go from one project to the next. but i get an error at the end of the first file that says "website cannot be found" and then "please choose a navigation action"

i know that there are others out there that create large WBTs. How do they get it to work?

Yolanda

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Participant ,
Jul 12, 2012 Jul 12, 2012

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make sure all the projects you are linking are in the same locations as your published project and then try and upload it .

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Community Expert ,
Jul 12, 2012 Jul 12, 2012

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If you want your LMS to see this as a large single SCO course then you need to have only one imsmanifest.xml file and all components in the course must be listed as assets in this XML file. 

Captivate will create an imsmanifest.xml file for a single Captivate project, but it currently provides no way to modify that XML code to specify other assets to be included as part of the course or to build daisy-chaining of sub-modules. 

So what you want as a result would require you to hack the imsmanifest.xml file that Captivate creates, or else use another tool (e.g. RELOAD Editor) that might be more flexible in this area. 

In any case, the links that you use for each section of the course to launch the next one will need to be relative links, not absolute links (Google about these types of links for info), and you may find that doing this will mean that the LMS will not be able to track interaction with sub modules because it cannot track more than one API connection at a time.  As far as the LMS is concerned, a single SCO course should require initiation of only ONE connection to the SCORM API. 

So bottom line is that what you want to do is outside the capabilities of vanilla Captivate development, and would probably require some fancy software coding by someone very experienced with SCORM and your SABA LMS as well.

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Guide ,
Jul 12, 2012 Jul 12, 2012

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Just supporting SCORM 2004 doesn't mean the LMS also supports the Sequencing component of the 2004 spec....many LMS products are '2004 compliant' but supporting Sequencing is not required to be compliant (probably because it's very complicated).

IF your LMS does support 2004's sequencing then, as Rob states, there's still work to be done to get your overall project to even work that way if you're just using Captivate.

The best solution here may be to NOT use Captivate to link all the modules together, but use something like a more simple HTML frameset or a Flash 'shell' - either one that will link to and load the appropriate published CP SWF file per topic.

There's still work to do there though - as the manifest would still have to be setup, but you may be able to use the standard manifest that CP generates for one of it's projects, with a little editing...

LMS communication, however, would then need to be customize though - as it would be the HTML or Flash 'shell' that's first loaded, that would have to talk to the LMS, and is simply loading 'dumb' Captivate SWFs as content.

If you can't find another solution but must assemble your various CP projects into one overall 'lesson' (and can live with just ONE overall quiz score and overall lesson status/result), let me know (IM me through this site) and maybe we can work out a custom solution...

...OR freely search the web for 'SCORM compliant Flash shell' as I think other folks may have ready-made solutions for suh needs...

Good luck!

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Guest
Jul 13, 2012 Jul 13, 2012

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Thank you Everyone!

You have given me a lot to think about. I still don't know how i will solve the issue. I am not "developer level tech savvy" just a good "software tool user" so changing manifest files and creating html code is beyond my knowledge at this point (unless i have a good tutorial or step by step).

The weird thing is I have two versions of this file uploaded into our Saba LMS.

  • Version 1 was created using captivate and the reload editor the way Erik explains it in his video. It works and goes from one file to the next but doesn't bookmark. if you leave the WBT you have to start over (however once you get to the file it left off on, then it automatically goes to the last page you viewed.)
  • Version 2 was created using captivate and the multi sco packager. this one doesn't automatically go from file to file (i get the errors described at the beginning of this post). i have to use the TOC to navigate.

Don't know why they are behaving differently. Also if i use the Aggregator in Captivate it works great. but as many people have said, the aggregator doesn't work for LMS's. and I have not been able to figure out a way to add the aggregator to the multi sco package.

it sounds like my "grand plan" is not possible given my technical knowledge. Can I ask if anyone out there has built huge WBT's and how you have them navigate? do you use a TOC? do you seperate them into modules and make the user launch each one seperately?

any advice is greatly appreciated! this is really helping me and i hope others are benefitting from this discussion.

thanks again!

Yolanda

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New Here ,
Oct 02, 2012 Oct 02, 2012

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Is somebody found the way to auto launch a second module using multi-scorm?

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Guest
Dec 11, 2012 Dec 11, 2012

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Hello all,

I know this may sound like a really silly question - but when adding a link within the project on a 'Next' button to open up another project within an LMS i.e. 'Open URL or File'.  Is the file simply the HTML file name that will eventually reside in the RELOAD Editor?

Loading to LMS's are pretty new teritory for me as I normally use a standard web server where linking is pretty easy.

Help would greatly be appreciated.

Thankyou kindly

Ali

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Community Expert ,
Dec 12, 2012 Dec 12, 2012

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When using a SCORM LMS you should NOT be trying to daisy-chain course modules together using the Open URL or File action in Captivate.  Let the LMS handle launching the next module via its own TOC links.

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Guest
Dec 12, 2012 Dec 12, 2012

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Hi Rod,

What if I do not have a table of contents in my course.  Should I then be selected 'Open another project'  for the success action on the next button?

Thanks

Ali

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Community Expert ,
Dec 13, 2012 Dec 13, 2012

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There are two levels of navigation you're working with here.  One level is where you need to be able to navigate from one module of the course to another.  That should be handled by the LMS.

The other level of navigation is within the module itself from one slide or topic section to another.  That level is what the Captivate TOC is designed to take care of.

To reiterate my previous point: If you have multiple SCO modules AND you are using an LMS, DO NOT use Open Another Project.  Let the LMS handle it.

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Guest
Dec 13, 2012 Dec 13, 2012

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Thanks Rod

ali

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New Here ,
Mar 21, 2013 Mar 21, 2013

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Hi Ali,

I'm replying to you as well in hopes that you can also provide me some hints on how to package multiple linked scorms together.

Have you made any progress since this post?

Thanks,

Donna

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New Here ,
Mar 21, 2013 Mar 21, 2013

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Hi,

Have you found a solution to this issue? I'm trying to accomplish exactly what you described, using the same software and version.

I hope you can share your findings!

Donna

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New Here ,
Apr 11, 2013 Apr 11, 2013

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Hello all,

I am replying in hopes that someone from Adobe helps with this issue. I've been on the phone with Adobe and Saba the entire day and neither vendor seem to have a solution for this. Seems rather strange!

Is the only solution to publish the Captivate modules individually and have each link from the Saba table of contents access the modules? This is not a practical solution when you have 40+ modules and 10000+ users taking hours of training. Also keep in mind many companies still have terrible network infrastructures so they typically can't stream large bits of video content with audio.

What is the best solution to do the following:

User clicks one link in Saba to start the course.

The course is made up of 3 modules.

The modules auto advance: 1, 2, 3.

At the end of module 3, Captivate sends a completion call to Saba.

If someone in the forum has solutioned this please help!

thanks!

Frank

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Community Expert ,
Apr 11, 2013 Apr 11, 2013

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In a SCORM-compliant LMS, the best way to deliver the number of modules you have in your course is to build it as a Multi-SCORM course and let the LMS handle launching of each module via its Table of Contents in the SCORM player.  There is nothing "impractical" about this solution.  It was developed in the first place because it was far more practical than trying to deliver the entire course as one huge chunk of information.  It also means that your learners can complete each SCO module in the course without affecting the completion status of others because they are not linked.

Under the SCORM standard, one SCO is not allowed to call the next SCO.  That violates the rules that say each SCO in the course has to be totally self-contained and not require anything outside itself.  Most decent LMS products have an option to Auto Continue (or similar name) that you can set for a course so that when one module is completed, the next module in the course will automatically begin playing.  If SABA does not have this, then it isn't as good as Moodle and many other free or cheap LMSs in this respect.  You should be telling your LMS vendor you WANT this feature built in.

You seem to be under the misapprehension that serving up your course this way (as a multi-SCO) means that your network will be under greater load than if you set it up otherwise.  Whether your course is a 40 SCO or a 3 SCO doesn't change the load on your bandwidth because typically the LMS will only serve one SCO module at a time regardless of how many there are in the entire course.  If your network cannot handle video/audio, then adjust your content accordingly to reduce the load.

You can use the SendTrackingDataAtEnd SCORM template in Captivate to reduce the load on your LMS by just sending tracking information at the end of the SCO rather than peppering the LMS with data everytime the learner does something in the course.  This will help your LMS cope with the volume of requests better.  It's got little to do with network bandwidth because the calls are very small.  But the sheer number of calls from many users all accessing online content at the same time has been known to bring many an LMS to its knees and even crash the server.

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Guide ,
Apr 12, 2013 Apr 12, 2013

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Look at using Captivate's "Adobe Multi SCO Packager" to get all your lessons into one package for upload, and that Saba may then be able to use in it's TOC. Not having Saba, I don't know if that'll work...

I agree with Rod's points and, as he states, SCORM requires each 'lesson' to be unique and record its own data. You can't have one lesson launch, then have that lesson launch another lesson, etc...then send the results of all those lessons back to the LMS at the end.

IF your LMS supported 'sequencing' (as explained earlier in this thread), you may be able to put together a multi-sco Captivate package (thought I don't think the 'Multi SCO Packager' can handle that [?]) which would allow such auto-launching...but each lesson is still unique and still has to track individually.

Likely the only practical way to combine several lessons into one, where the user doesn't have to launch each from the LMS and the results are sent at the end, is to combine all the CP lessons into one. However, note SCORM only records the results of one quiz within a lesson.

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