Captivate7 and Tin Can: How Connect to LRS?

[isambard-sydney]

Have configured my project to report completion via TinCan.  Have published as SWF.  Get a heap of bonus JS files. And when launched I get a TinCanJS error: No LRS: Data Cannot be Stored.

This is not surprising since at no point have I been asked to provide my LRS endpoint or authorisation. 

The documentation talks about updating the manifest file but points to a filename (imanifest.xml) that patently does not exist when publishing to Tin Can.  I get a tincan.xml, but with no explanation on how it is to be used. I also get a tc-config.js, but no idea what that's for......

Where/how do you get this to actually work?  Where/how do I:

> define the LRS endpoint and authorisation

> define the actor

> define the required verb

This is assuming Captivate self-manages the object as itself...

Seeing as they made such a big deal of "Tin Can integration", didn't expect it to be this unclear to actually use the thing.

TIA

Steve

[christine-rios]

Steve, were you able to find any information?  I just started looking at TinCan and Captivate 7 last night and was shocked at the lack of information!  I am searching the internet now, but am coming up empty.  Any info you can share?

Christine

[isambard-sydney]

Christine,

I've got nothing

Did get some Adobe account manager reaching out with a blank offer of help. But didn't look like he'd read the original question.

Have reiterated the requirement to him. If anything comes of it will let you know.

Steve

[Sankaram]

Hi Steve,

    May I know which LMS you are trying? When you select reproting mechanism as Tin Can and upload & launch the course on SCORM Cloud should work without any modification by author. LRS end point is provided by the LMS. User doesn't need to add it. To get more information check Launch section in https://github.com/RusticiSoftware/launch/blob/master/lms_lrs.md.

In case if you want to send statements to multiple LRSs, you can configure the end points in tc-config.js file. more info at http://scorm.com/scorm-solved/scorm-driver/scorm-driver-quickstart-guide-2-update-titles/

Defining and customising the statements are not possible with Captivate 7.

Thanks,

Sankaram.

[isambard-sydney]

Sankaram,

I was using SCORM cloud as a test.  But point is I had not intention of uploading any of this content to it, just to get reporting via the LRS. 

All the content is hosted on the intranet.  Intention to use TinCan so when opened it sent a "viewed" message.  And that's all I needed. 

Captivate's implementation of TinCan appears essentially useless.  If it only works with content hosted on an LMS, why bother using TinCan to communicate when I can just use SCORM?  All the benefits of TInCan I was hoping for (remote content, report to multiple LRS, etc) are scuttled.

Annoyingly would be reasonably easy (I reckon) to push more of the statement definition into the config Javascript file where we could edit as needed.  ie give me a variable in there called "userName" and I'll happily populate it, no matter where that script file is called from.

[Erik_Lord]

I have to echo the OP's comment. Per the spec, at least my understanding of it, a lesson (SCO, course, whatever term you prefer) should know the URL for the LRS. It should not rely on an LMS to supply the LRS location or, as the OP states, that defeats the primary purpose of moving away from dependence on the LMS.

However, by the scorm.com URL you provide, it seems there may be a way to customize this...

However, you have the option of sending statements to more than one LRS at a time. To demonstrate this, look for the two tiny circles in the screenshot above. Just delete the /* and the */ in the bottom of the tc-config.js, and when you launch your Tin Can course, you’ll be generating statements to your LMS as well as to our public LRS.

In that example, if we uncomment the 'endpoint' and 'auth' entries in the 'TC_Record_Stores' section, the lesson will record to whatever LRS the LMS specifies (via that github.com URL you provide, "...When an LMS launches a Tin Can AP, it will provide the necessary information for that AP to track back to the LRS.") *as well as* the Rustici public LRS - as that's the LRS URL provided in that 'TC_Record_Stores' section.

So it would hopefully stand to reason that changing that URL to *any* LRS would likewise work...right?

What if the LMS the lesson is launched from does not have an LRS...or what if the piece is launched from standard website, or a standard App....

Will that break anything?

Will the secondary LRS URL still be used?

If that secondary LRS line can be customized (assuming the 'auth' token is handled properly) and the lack of LMS launch or LMS 'Launch' parameters doesn't break the process overall...then there's solid hope that CP7's TinCan implementation is more useful than it appears!

So Adobe, can you confirm any of the above?

And if that all does work, can you please add a 'LRS Location' field to the TinCan properties within the CP Preferences UI in the next update?

I look forward to good news!

[isambard-sydney]

+1 Erik.

I should not need to have an LMS, and place content on it, to track activity in an LRS.

[Erik_Lord]

Agreed

Playing with Storyline's output a bit, we determined that if you pass the HTML file a query string an LMS pointer and proper auth token, the lesson will track to that LRS. We setup a very simple webpage where we enter a name and email address, then generate a link...which launches the lesson and reports to the public Rustici LRS.

So it can work with Storyline, but like with Captivate, there's no explanation of that nor place to enter a custom LRS URL within the lesson directly. It seems both products require you to launch the lesson from a web *something* that supplies the LRS pointer...and so far, those seem to be LMS solutions...

I would like to know from Adobe support if altering the 'tc-config.js' file would indeed support sending data to an alternate LRS without breaking anything else... Maybe that's the next published output we'll try with our quick web alternative...

-Erik

[liveaspankaj]

Steve/Christine,

The content could ask for LRS details and start sending statements. But, The very purpose of Tin Can is to track learning experiences. And to track learning experiences, the content would need to know who the learner is. It would be easiest for an LMS to provide that information. That is the reason most of these Tin Can packages work with an LMS. Now. you don't need a full blown LMS like Blackboard, you could use a simple plugin like GrassBlade xAPI Companion to Launch Captivate Tin Can content on WordPress.

Alternatively, you could use a single user information, (or may be a form?), to get the users info, and launch the Captivate content with using the TinCan's url format. Here is a guide for it: http://scorm.com/wp-content/assets/tincandocs/Incorporating-a-Tin-Can-LRS-into-an-LMS.pdf

If you do it yourself on a html page, these would be the steps:

1. Unzip the package.

2. Find the tincan.xml file.

3. Read it to know the launch file.

4. Build the url (Check the PDF above)

5. Launch the launch file in browser along with the URL string.

I hope that helped.

- Pankaj

[garemoko]

Hi,

Sorry I didn't see this post earlier. Here's a rough and ready video guide I made a few months back:

http://garemoko.github.io/Tin-launcher/Tin_Can_with_captivate.swf

It ends a bit suddenly at the end because I hit the 5 minute limit and then didn't have time to re-record because my kids had woken up!

There's also a load of Tin Can and Captivate resources at http://tincanapi.co.uk

Andrew