SCO does not submit a value for cmi.core.score.raw

Report · Nov 20, 2007

I cannot figure this out. Can anyone shed some light? My LMS admin says Adobe should help and Adobe says the LMS admin should help. I am at my wits end. I am using C3. The project is audio, video vignettes and question slides with audio also. I am looking to send the interaction of each answered question to the LMS report (which my LMS admin says it can be done, he is working on that feature) and a basic score to the LMS report (which is what he is having problems with). He says it is Captivate. Thing is, at the end of the test, I get the appropriate scores on the results slide, it's just not communicating with the LMS properly. It is published SCORM 1.2.

This is the most recent email from my LMS admin...

The SCO interacts with the LMS's application programming interface, as it should, and sends data back to the LMS. BUT, in each instance the SCO does not submit a value for cmi.core.score.raw . This is always left as 0. cmi.core.score.raw is the variable into which Captivate should be putting the test score, and it's simply not happening. I can't say why, because the "guts" of Captivate SCO's are buried in supporting Flash files, not in accessible Javascript code. I've tested our LMS with other SCO's (not produced by Captivate) and they do submit a value for cmi.core.score.raw . This is also a key part of the SCORM 1.2 specification.

I sent him some tests with different settings and beyond that, I am clueless what to do. I do not know Javascript and this is all new to me. I have been on these boards for months learning so much and reading all about everything. I just can't seem to find my answer. I would appreciate anyone that could shed some light. This is my first time in Captivate and I'm not sure if I'm just missing something.

Thanks for any help.

Report · Nov 21, 2007

Do you have Captivate set to report quiz results (and to report the score) in the Quiz Manager?

If so, have you used the Advanced Interaction dialog to ensure that all (or at least one) of your objects has a possible score that is greater than zero?

Report · Nov 21, 2007

I've not used the quiz slide templates much so not sure what they send.
I wonder if they're setup to send interaction data (to record answers to
each question) but they should certainly send the final quiz score (and
indeed seem to work for most folks).
Whether the quiz templates can send interaction data may not matter if
your LMS can't support it yet anyway.

So what are the settings in your Quiz Manager?
For example, if you select 'Report complete/incomplete', then you
shouldn't need to send score.raw. If it's not setup that way, maybe try
that to see if it reports correctly. If so, then you've narrowed it down
to the scoring.

Captivate sends all it's data to javascript in the parent HTML page. You
are generating and uploading that HTML along with the SWF, right? If so,
your LMS Admin can edit that HTML JS to add various alerts and see
what's being sent to the LMS...
Erik

soconfuzed wrote:
> I cannot figure this out. Can anyone shed some light? My LMS admin says Adobe
> should help and Adobe says the LMS admin should help. I am at my wits end. I
> am using C3. The project is audio, video vignettes and question slides with
> audio also. I am looking to send the interaction of each answered question to
> the LMS report (which my LMS admin says it can be done, he is working on that
> feature) and a basic score to the LMS report (which is what he is having
> problems with). He says it is Captivate. Thing is, at the end of the test, I
> get the appropriate scores on the results slide, it's just not communicating
> with the LMS properly. It is published SCORM 1.2.
>
> This is the most recent email from my LMS admin...
>
> The SCO interacts with the LMS's application programming interface, as it
> should, and sends data back to the LMS. BUT, in each instance the SCO does not
> submit a value for cmi.core.score.raw . This is always left as 0.
> cmi.core.score.raw is the variable into which Captivate should be putting the
> test score, and it's simply not happening. I can't say why, because the "guts"
> of Captivate SCO's are buried in supporting Flash files, not in accessible
> Javascript code. I've tested our LMS with other SCO's (not produced by
> Captivate) and they do submit a value for cmi.core.score.raw . This is also a
> key part of the SCORM 1.2 specification.
>
>
> I sent him some tests with different settings and beyond that, I am clueless
> what to do. I do not know Javascript and this is all new to me. I have been
> on these boards for months learning so much and reading all about everything.
> I just can't seem to find my answer. I would appreciate anyone that could shed
> some light. This is my first time in Captivate and I'm not sure if I'm just
> missing something.
>
> Thanks for any help.
>
>

--
Erik Lord
http://www.capemedia.net
Adobe Community Expert - Authorware
http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Report · Nov 21, 2007

jbradley88: thanks for your reply.

Yes, set to report quiz results (and to report the score).

Yes, I have used the Advanced Interaction dialog to ensure that all of my objects have a possible score that is greater than zero.

Erik, I have emailed you personally...but to answer you...
You said: Captivate sends all it's data to javascript in the parent HTML page. You are generating and uploading that HTML along with the SWF, right? If so,
your LMS Admin can edit that HTML JS to add various alerts and see
what's being sent to the LMS...

Yes, he is getting everything and always comes back that Captivate does not work properly or that I have it set up wrong and to keep researching. I have done testing at www.scorm.com at the test track, it seems to work wonderfully.

I don't know where to go from here. I hope you get my email and that it doesn't go to spam.

Thanks you two!

Report · Nov 21, 2007

To do direct, remove the 'pasdespam' from the posted email address.
erik at capemedia dott net

If everything works as you expect at some other scorm-compliant tester,
then you have somewhat of a case that it's not your course (though I've
never tried www.scorm.com so no idea how valid/comprehensive it is).

If it turns out it's an LMS issue, how flexible are you on the LMS you
want/need/must use?
Erik

soconfuzed wrote:

> Erik, I have emailed you personally...but to answer you...
> You said: Captivate sends all it's data to javascript in the parent HTML page.
> You are generating and uploading that HTML along with the SWF, right? If so,
> your LMS Admin can edit that HTML JS to add various alerts and see
> what's being sent to the LMS...
>
> Yes, he is getting everything and always comes back that Captivate does not
> work properly or that I have it set up wrong and to keep researching. I have
> done testing at www.scorm.com at the test track, it seems to work wonderfully.
--
Erik Lord
http://www.capemedia.net
Adobe Community Expert - Authorware
http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.awaretips.net - samples, tips, products, faqs, and links!
*Search the A'ware newsgroup archives*
http://groups.google.com/group/macromedia.authorware

Report · Nov 21, 2007

Hi Erik et al,

I'm the administrator of the LMS that "soconfused" is using. I happened to stumble across this thread while spending the last several hours trying myself to figure out what's going wrong. (In fact, I've spent several days on this overall ... we've not merely been telling our client to "try again.")

We've turned on a number of reporting features in our LMS, and Captivate is simply not calling LMSSetValue ... ever. It does call LMSInitialize, LMSFinish and several other methods (so it's finding the API), but not LMSSetValue. We're confident that the API is correctly coded because other SCOs that we run ... including SCO's produced with FlashCS3 ... are interacting with the API without a problem.

When I look at the Test Track results mentioned above, I find that I can load both the Captivate SCO under discussion here and other SCO's produced with other authoring tools, and they'll all report out fine. One thing that's a little peculiar, however, is that Test Track renames most of the variables. So, for example, cmi.core.score.raw becomes cmi.score_raw . Evidently, that's their internal nomenclature for this variable. Try a search for "cmi.score_raw." You won't get a single hit. Then search for cmi.core.score.raw. Or read the ADL docs for SCORM 1.2 There is no question that this is the correct naming convention.

I can't say if Captivate is storing scores in cmi.score_raw as well, because Captivate is not calling LMSSetValue. It's not saving anything. It appears as if it may be using its own proprietary call to invoke the Ajax routines that communicate with the LMS, and I'm supposing that Rustici Software (who created the Test Track suite) have incorporated this into their API ... sort of a back door that bypasses LMSSetValue. But LMSSetValue is the SCORM 1.2 standard, and that's not getting called by this SCO.

I'd be glad to write a custom API to support this ... it shouldn't be difficult once I know what Captivate is looking for ... but there's no information from Adobe about how Captivate is storing data. (Again, Flash CS3 does it the correct way ... we have no problem integrating Flash SCORM 1.2 wrappers with our LMS.)

A google search on "LMSSetValue Captivate" or on "cmi.core.score.raw Captivate" also brings up a number of complaints from others.

So, apart from suggesting that these folks dump us, can anyone shed some light on what may be going on?

Thanks

Ron Rosell

Report · Nov 26, 2007

Captivate passes all values and calls all functions to the parent HTML
file. It doesn't make any direct SCORM calls itself. So anything that it
may or may not be doing should be discernible from the parent HTML file
that should be published with the Captivate SWF file.

I'm no JS whiz by any means so not real sure how to decipher all this
stuff. A sample HTML file I grabbed has one 'SetValue' line:
"...else if ( strFSCmd == "LMSSetValue" || strFSCmd=="SetValue") ...."
so something in there is somewhat trying to do what you need?

So if you know from your LMS logs/debug that LMSSetValue is not being
called, then examine the CP file's HTML code. A common 'fix' for similar
problems is to switch the 'API Order':
"var g_intAPIOrder = 0; // Way to search for API object (0 - starts
with bottom up; 1 - starts top down)"

It could certainly be a bug with Captivate or how the file was put
together. I would encourage 'soconfused' to create a very basic
Captivate file with, say, just one scored interaction and see if it can
record to the LMS. Perhaps that will help determine where the current
one is failing?

Finally, as I understand it, CP tries to set SuspendData after each
slide. Are you seeing those updates in your LMS? If it's making all
those other calls, then it could be a CP issue...but I'm not sure how to
further diagnose it...
Curious as to what you find!
Erik

RonLMS wrote:
> Hi Erik et al,
>
> I'm the administrator of the LMS that "soconfused" is using. I happened to
> stumble across this thread while spending the last several hours trying myself
> to figure out what's going wrong. (In fact, I've spent several days on this
> overall ... we've not merely been telling our client to "try again.")
>
> We've turned on a number of reporting features in our LMS, and Captivate is
> simply not calling LMSSetValue ... ever. It does call LMSInitialize, LMSFinish
> and several other methods (so it's finding the API), but not LMSSetValue.
> We're confident that the API is correctly coded because other SCOs that we run
> ... including SCO's produced with FlashCS3 ... are interacting with the API
> without a problem.
>
> When I look at the Test Track results mentioned above, I find that I can load
> both the Captivate SCO under discussion here and other SCO's produced with
> other authoring tools, and they'll all report out fine. One thing that's a
> little peculiar, however, is that Test Track renames most of the variables.
> So, for example, cmi.core.score.raw becomes cmi.score_raw . Evidently, that's
> their internal nomenclature for this variable. Try a search for
> "cmi.score_raw." You won't get a single hit. Then search for
> cmi.core.score.raw. Or read the ADL docs for SCORM 1.2 There is no question
> that this is the correct naming convention.
>
> I can't say if Captivate is storing scores in cmi.score_raw as well, because
> Captivate is not calling LMSSetValue. It's not saving anything. It appears as
> if it may be using its own proprietary call to invoke the Ajax routines that
> communicate with the LMS, and I'm supposing that Rustici Software (who created
> the Test Track suite) have incorporated this into their API ... sort of a back
> door that bypasses LMSSetValue. But LMSSetValue is the SCORM 1.2 standard,
> and that's not getting called by this SCO.
>
> I'd be glad to write a custom API to support this ... it shouldn't be
> difficult once I know what Captivate is looking for ... but there's no
> information from Adobe about how Captivate is storing data. (Again, Flash CS3
> does it the correct way ... we have no problem integrating Flash SCORM 1.2
> wrappers with our LMS.)
>
> A google search on "LMSSetValue Captivate" or on "cmi.core.score.raw
> Captivate" also brings up a number of complaints from others.
>
> So, apart from suggesting that these folks dump us, can anyone shed some light
> on what may be going on?
>
> Thanks
>
> Ron Rosell
>

--
Erik Lord
http://www.capemedia.net
Adobe Community Expert - Authorware
http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.awaretips.net - samples, tips, products, faqs, and links!
*Search the A'ware newsgroup archives*
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Report · Mar 03, 2008

I cannot get Captivate's SCORM 1.2 output to even cal LMSInitialize() on the ADL CTS.

I have read and implemented the recommendations here with no joy.

Any help greatly appreciated.