Limiting Attempts on SCORM assignments (especially Captivate)

[Robert_Stefanek]

Hello there!

We're using some SCORM files from a third-party content provider. Our institution would like to learners to pass these courses with an 80% on the exam and limit them to 3 attempts.

We've noticed that when exam attempts are limited to 3 in the course authoring tool (Storyline, Rise, Captivate) that it doesn't play well with the SCORM LTI in Canvas. Canvas doesn't seem to recognize the exam limit in the SCORM file, so you can take the course infinitely. Canvas will only record the highest score.

We got our content provider to get creative with the SCORM settings, and if they limit the course to a single attempt and set it to bookmark on the results screen, we can limit users to a single attempt if we also set the submission attempts in the Canvas assignment settings to Limited/1. Then, we create a Mastery Path to open a second or third attempt to learners if they score less than 80%. That's how we get to our 3 attempts.

If Storyline files are set to either Passed/Failed or Passed/Incomplete, this solution seems to work well enough, even if it's a little cumbersome.

However, Captivate courses mess with the Mastery Paths feature because they send a score to Canvas with every page view. In other words, as soon as a learner begins the course, it starts sending Canvas a 0% score with every page few and makes the next attempt available in the Mastery Path. It's super confusing to learners.

Does anyone have either suggestions for how to fix our Captivate issue, or a better idea for how to limit exam attempts to 3 when using SCORM Assignments? We may have 1500+ people in a class, so solutions can't be administratively time consuming.

Thanks!

[englishskills50]

I'm wondering why there is so little support or dialog on this--on creating SCORM packages and using them in Canvas. 

I have kind of he opposite problem. I want students to retake the SCORM assignment, and I'd like Canvas to give them the most recent score. But when I make assignments with SCORM in Canvas, and students retake the assignment, the gradebook show only their first score. It doesn't replace the first score with newer scores. 

I can't find any documentation related to this. Instructure doesn't seem very helpful in supporting SCORM integration. 

[Robert_Stefanek]

Thanks for the reply, englishskills50! Yes, the lack of response or support for SCORM packages is disappointing.

We have had limited success getting Canvas to keep the highest score (but not necessarily the most recent score if that's your goal) if we're using SCORM files built specifically in Rise. Storyline is occasionally wonky, and Captivate is just no.

SCORM 1.2 seems to play better with Canvas than SCORM 2004, I believe because it sends less information to the LMS.

I'll take the opportunity of your response to provide an update:

The above plan to limit attempts in my OP didn't work. SCORM files + Mastery Paths ended up being way too wonky--you'd have first and third attempts unlocked but not second attempts and all sorts of random things going on. Instead, we attempted to just give people unlimited attempts and just keep the highest score, but the grade reporting was still unreliable: sometimes it would work, but sometimes a lower score would stick in Canvas and not be overwritten by a higher score. This was most often the case with Captivate files, but occasionally with Storyline files. (Again, we were able to get this to work with Rise files for whatever reason--but that wasn't an option with our content provider.)

What we ended up having to do was get permission from our content provider to modify the source files ourselves. We cut off the exams, rebuilt them as New Quizzes in Canvas, and republished the exam-less files as SCORM 1.2 and uploaded them either a page or an ungraded assignment using SCORM 1.2. In other words, we had to abandon any attempt to track attempts or record scores for Storyline or Captivate SCORM files.

[englishskills50]

Thanks for explanation, Robert. 

I don't seem to recall having this issue with Classic Captivate.  Which Captivate are you using?

[Robert_Stefanek]

I'm using Captivate 2019. But I haven't built the files in question. They were built by our content provider and I'm merely modifying them. They're super wonky.

It sounds like we're having different but possibly related problems. Your Captivate files will only record the first score and not replace it with newer scores (either lower or higher?). My Captivate files sometimes replace a lower score with a higher score, but not always. (And I'm pretty sure I've see a lower score replace a higher score and then *that* will stick in Canvas.)