cmi.suspend_data element size

Report · Feb 19, 2009

Our LMS - SkillPort - has asked us to change the cmi.suspend_data element for one of our courses (mainly a quiz) to 4096. They say it's over 5800 characters.

I'm not familiar with the cmi.suspend_data setting. How do you access it? How do you change it? My colleague suggests that it's probably automatically generated when we work through the "SCORM 1.2 RTE" step of the SkillPort Compatibility Toolkit.

Have you run into any issues regarding cmi.suspend_data ? What can you recommend?

Thank you!

Report · Feb 19, 2009

Hi,

One suggestion regarding setting suspend_data size is that SET it to MAXIMUM possible. SCORM 2004 latest version spec says 64KB.

If LMS supports SCORM 1.2 then it might only support 4096. I think this should be default and may not need specific setting.

Thanks,
Deepak

Report · Feb 20, 2009

Deepak,
Thank you for this information; however, I need more information for my particular problem. Perhaps I should be more specific:

I developed a SCORM 1.2 course using Adobe Captivate 3. I prepared this course for our LMS, which is SkillPort. During my course development and LMS preparation tasks, I did NOT change any settings related to the cmi elements; in fact, I don't even know how to find and make changes to these elements. But after the SkillPort developer received my course, he said the cmi.suspend_data was over 5800, and it needed to be 4096.

Now I have two questions --
1. If the cmi.suspend_data element affects only courses that allow bookmarking, then I could tell our SkillPort developer to ignore the incorrect cmi.suspend_data setting, because this particular course does not allow bookmarking anyway. However, if the cmi.suspend_data element also affects other things, then I should find out how to change it to 4096. So, what does the cmi.suspend_data element affect?

2. If I do need to change the amount of the cmi.suspend_data, WHERE do I find this element and HOW do I change it?

Thanks again, to you or whomever else knows what to do.

Jan

Report · Feb 20, 2009

Hi Jan

While I'm no LMS guru and I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night (so I can't claim to be one) I think you might find the following area interesting or possibly what you are looking for.

Click Quiz > Quiz Preferences > Reporting node

In Captivate 3 there is a button labeled Settings... in an area labeled LMS Customization Settings. Click it.
In Captivate 4 there is a button labeled LMS Customization Settings. Click it.

You may wish to try enabling the option "Never send Resume Data".

Hopefully Deepak or another will also have an idea of how to change the size of what you are asking.

Cheers... Rick

Report · Feb 20, 2009

Rick, thanks for your idea; however, I don't think it is appropriate in my case. The Captivate help explains that the "Never send Resume Data" option means:

"User’s activity in the quiz is not reported to the LMS. This means that details like
session bookmark, progress, and question attempted are not sent to the LMS."

And in our case, although we don't want a bookmark to be sent to the LMS, we DO want the "Pass" report and the score to be sent to the LMS. So I'm thinking that I should NOT select the "Never send Resume Data" option.

If I'm misunderstanding anything, please let me know, because these "Advanced" settings are all new to me.

Jan

Report · Feb 20, 2009

suspend_data is where all 'things' you want tracked between sessions are
stored - like bookmarks, quiz responses, etc.
It's nothing you can set on the lessons side - it's an LMS-specific
thing. The LMS developers choose how many bytes the suspend_data field
can hold.

Captivate will jam as much info into that suspend_data variable as it
can to meet your tracking requirements. It sounds like your lesson is
storing "over 5800" bytes/characters. SkillPort's suspend_data field in
their 1.2 API apparently can't accept that much data.

So you can either ask SkillPort to increase the allowed size of that
field, or you can reduce the items your CP project is tracking so that
suspend_data field doesn't get filled-up with so much info.
HTH
Erik

--
Erik Lord
http://www.capemedia.net
Adobe Community Expert - eLearning
http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.awaretips.net - Authorware Tips!

Report · Feb 20, 2009

Erik, thank you for explaining what suspend_data means and who is able to change it. Very helpful info!
...just a few follow-up questions:

-- Since the purpose of "suspend_data" is to track things BETWEEN SESSIONS, could I and SkillPort simply ignore the 5800 - 4096 size conflict, since we are requiring the learners to complete the quiz in ONE session (i.e., they cannot bookmark it and come back later).

If your answer to that first question is I must nevertheless still make changes, then...
-- When you advise that one solution would be for me to "reduce the items that my CP project is tracking," do you mean "reduce the number of quiz questions"? (My course has 36 questions) Or do you mean "make the questions shorter"? Or do you mean reduce the number of things on the score page? Or something else?

Thanks again!
Jan

Report · Feb 20, 2009

I don't know if the error can be ignored without issue. If their LMS is
reporting that the amount of data the lesson is trying to send is too
large, it may not save any of it. Or even if it does, it may only save
the first 4096 bytes...so when that data is sent back to the LMS on
resume, it will be incomplete (and cause problems with the lesson's
resume/playback?).
If the LMS is just reporting the field is too long but saves it all
anyway then, yes, I'd suspect you could ignore the error without
ill-effect (?).

I'm not sure what aspects of the CP Quiz Preferences come into play
here. As Rick suggests, checking "Never send Resume Data" would make
sense in this case, as the suspend_data field *should be* specifically
used for the lesson to load back-in any data it collected on a previous
launch.

There are other SCORM fields/variables for the lesson to send quiz data
and results to the LMS. The status and score should NOT be a part of
that suspend_data tracking. In fact, the LMS wouldn't even be able to
report those results if the CP lesson was sending back status and score
in that field.

SO my guess is you can indeed check that "Never send Resume Data" option
and still get the results you need, especially if bookmarking is not
something you want to happen - so every time users launch this lesson,
it will be like they're launching it for the first time (as far as the
lesson itself appears to the user).

IF that doesn't work and for some reason checking that option does
affect the tracking you need then, yes, the next best option would be to
reduce the number of questions so the amount of info in that
suspend_data field is reduced.

Finally, tracking interactions will significantly add to the
suspend_data field, I suspect, as I think that means the lesson sends
the question text and the selected answer back to the LMS (so 'shorter'
questions' may work but less-likely?)
HTH!
Erik

Janatwork wrote:

> -- Since the purpose of "suspend_data" is to track things BETWEEN SESSIONS,
> could I and SkillPort simply ignore the 5800 - 4096 size conflict, since we are
> requiring the learners to complete the quiz in ONE session (i.e., they cannot
> bookmark it and come back later).

> do you mean "reduce the number of quiz
> questions"? (My course has 36 questions) Or do you mean "make the questions
> shorter"?

--
Erik Lord
http://www.capemedia.net
Adobe Community Expert - eLearning
http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.awaretips.net - Authorware Tips!

Report · Feb 20, 2009

Great observations and insights! Thank you!

What I'm trying: I actually changed two of the Reporting settings in Quiz Preferences --
- Under Settings, I selected "Never send Resume Data"
- Under Reporting Level, I switched my selection from "Interactions and score" to simply "Report score."
...and I sent the course back to our LMS. I'll keep you posted regarding whether the cmi.suspend_data value now stays within SkillPort's 4096 range... Stay tuned...
--Jan

Report · Feb 20, 2009

Jan,

I always have something to add - but these guys provided more than enough
information...

OK - I'll still comment.

There are multiple types of Data sent to an LMS. This includes Core Data
such as:

- Score
- Status
- Location
- Time

In addition, there is another TYPE of data that can be sent to an LMS:

- Interaction Data

Interaction data tells an LMS how a learner answered a question in the
content.

When *any* file "resumes" or takes a learner back to where they left off -
that is simple "bookmarking". But what pages did the learner view before?
Perhaps they viewed *all* of the pages and simply left off at the page
stored in the location field. How did they answer any of the questions?
It's this other "data" that I like to call "state data" where content
remembers "state" information or what kind of state did the learner leave
the file.

When you SEND data to an LMS - some of the data can be returned. This
includes the 4 data types I outlined above. However, interaction data can
NOT be retreived from an LMS. So, if content wants to remember "state" data
and/or remember how learners answered specific questions in the content -
this is stored in yet another field:

- Resume Data (also known as suspend data, also known as core_lesson)

Captivate will send iCore data and will send interaction data, when you
enable tracking in the Quiz Manager. It sill NOT send the resume data, if
you disable that (as recommended). So the LMS will receive the status and
score from the content. However, each time the learner launches the content
from the LMS - the learner will *always* start from slide 1 and the content
will not know how the learner progressed in earlier sessions.

The recommendations here to "Not send Resume Data" is a good one. You
should not mess with attempting to crunch data (though if you can increase
the size of that field in the database - that will work, too). To send less
data in the Suspend Data - don't have as many interactions or trackable
objects.

Regards,

Andrew

Report · Feb 23, 2009

Andrew, this is excellent information. It clarifies terms, functions, and options that I've been wondering about, but I couldn't find in Captivate help or our LMS support documentation. Thank you! (For my future reference, do you happen to know of a book or resource that explains these types of eLearning/LMS functions that you've explained?)

Since we don't have a need for the course to report "state" data for each question, it does seem like the best solution to select Captivate's advanced option "Never Send Resume Data." (Do you think it was "overkill" that under the Quiz Preferences' "Reporting Level" catagory, I de-selected the "Interactions and score" option and selected the "Report score" option?)

One last question (not directly related to this issue, but something else I've been wondering about) is when we view report data (i.e., the core data) from a learner's quiz, what does the value in the Location field mean? It seems to be a number.

Thanks again. You've been a great help!
Jan

Report · Feb 23, 2009

Jan,

You can either google my name (Andrew Chemey) or search my name on
Adobe.com or check out some articles I've written for ConnectUser.com. I'd
bet that Adobe.com probably contains older material that may be relevant for
you. There was a book by Carol Fallon that might have helped. It is dated
(though useful). I don't know much in terms of books these days that might
clear up some of these terms, etc.

If I understand you - I recommend sending score as a percent and not just
score. "Percent" represents a percentage - so the "raw" score is a percent
out of 100. "score" sends score as "raw, max, min". The raw score might be
8 or the score (for AICC) might be 8,10,0. This is only an example, but
this means that the maximum score a learner could get is 10 - so 8 out of 10
means an 80%. Depends on your system - but it might be easier to understand
the percentage and not the raw score.

Location is the page (or slide) number the learner is currently viewing.

Regards,

Andrew

Report · Feb 26, 2009

The problem has been solved. And the course and its quiz are loaded to the LMS and working well. Thank you to everyone -- Rick, Erik, Andrew -- for your clarifications and suggestions!

The solution (for this particular course where we didn't want to allow bookmarking and where we wanted the learners to complete the quiz in ONE sitting) was for me to select "Never send Resume Data" in the quiz preferences and to also select "Report score" for the Reporting Level.

Our SkillPort LMS contact said there was no longer a cmi.suspend error, because, in fact, no data at all was collected by cmi.suspend_data.

Thank you!

Report · Jan 25, 2010

Is there any workaround to determine whether you have already reached the suspend_data element size requirement?

cmi.suspend_data element size

1 Correct answer