Articulate Quizmaker and Presenter with Moodle?
20 Comments Dave blogged on Sunday, March 19, 2006 at 1:53 PM.
It seems like lately a lot of people have been asking if Articulate Presenter and Articulate Quizmaker work with Moodle. For those of you that don't know Moodle is a course management system (CMS) - a free, Open Source software package designed using sound pedagogical principles, to help educators create effective online learning communities (that definition came from moodle.org, I have no idea what pedagogical means). For more information on Moodle please visit http://www.moodle.org.
The good news is that Moodle has a SCORM module which allows you to upload any standard SCORM package, which includes Articulate Presenter and Quizmaker content, to include in your course. Both Articulate Presenter and Articulate Quizmaker are certified as SCORM compliant by an independent ADL certification expert which means without having to do anything special Articulate Presenter and Quizmaker will work and report results to Moodle.
The reason this question has come up so often is that Moodle, like many Learning Management Systems, is very complicated and difficult to learn. In the brief video below I have included a demonstration on how to integrate Articulate Presenter content (with an embedded Quizmaker quiz) into Moodle.
As you can see in the demonstration Articulate Presenter and Articulate Quizmaker can work with and report results to Moodle.
Note: Moolde can be a very complicated system to install, like many other Open Source applications, if you are not an advanced computer user. I would recommend getting the help of an advanced user before attempting to install and user Moodle.
For more information on this subject please visit the following sites:
Articulate Presenter SCORM certification information.
Articulate
Moodle
Moodle and SCORM
The good news is that Moodle has a SCORM module which allows you to upload any standard SCORM package, which includes Articulate Presenter and Quizmaker content, to include in your course. Both Articulate Presenter and Articulate Quizmaker are certified as SCORM compliant by an independent ADL certification expert which means without having to do anything special Articulate Presenter and Quizmaker will work and report results to Moodle.
The reason this question has come up so often is that Moodle, like many Learning Management Systems, is very complicated and difficult to learn. In the brief video below I have included a demonstration on how to integrate Articulate Presenter content (with an embedded Quizmaker quiz) into Moodle.
As you can see in the demonstration Articulate Presenter and Articulate Quizmaker can work with and report results to Moodle.
Note: Moolde can be a very complicated system to install, like many other Open Source applications, if you are not an advanced computer user. I would recommend getting the help of an advanced user before attempting to install and user Moodle.
For more information on this subject please visit the following sites:
Articulate Presenter SCORM certification information.
Articulate
Moodle
Moodle and SCORM
AICC
Articulate Presenter SDK (2:03)
Articulate
Dave,
This is an excellent example of Presenter being used within Moodle.
One nice feature of Articulate Presenter is that you can set the player to be "resizable" for users. Meaning, the player can be minimize and maximized, with the resolution adjusted accordingly.
One drawback to Moodle is the way it "presents" a SCORM module created with Articulate...its framed in an HTML window, so the resizing that was "published" with an Articulate presentation, becomes a non-feature in Moodle, as Moodle doesn't simply show the Articulate player in native form.
Hey Mark,
Try the feature inside of AP that allows you to launch it in a new window:
1. Open up the presentation in PPT
2. Go to Articulate>Player Template Builder>Launch presentation in new window
This should launch it in a new window even in Moodle.
Note this only works in later versions of moodle (Moodle 1.5.3 and later).
Dave,
What is the advantage of using scorm with moodle versus just using a link to my AP presentations and manually loading them to a separate folder?
I believe the advantage is that if you choose SCORM tracking and reporting will occur, where as if you just use a link you won't be able to track student progress. I am not sure on this one because I am not really a moodle expert, but that would be my guess.
what setting do you need to use to ensure that the track facility works in Moodle?
Hello Anonymous and Bruce,
If you want to get Articulate content working with moodle all you need to do is publish from AP/QM as SCORM 1.2, then upload the zip package to moodle as shown in the demonstration on my site. Well, that is how it is supposed to work. However, in Moodle 1.6 I have not been able to get the SCORM module to work at all, with any SCORM content, even content not created by Articulate. If you are having specific issue with Moodle it is best if you try to follow up in there forums, as they are the LMS experts.
Articulate presenter/quizmaker combo content as SCORM 1.2 works fine in moodle 1.6 and 1.7.
Except that if you enter a course in review mode then articulate seems to still send the new score to moodle and moodle then happily the results and overwrites the previous ones.
Spoke to Gabe today about it and await the result from the developers.
I think that I'll probably have to stop letting students see the answers to the quizzes on completion as theyre going to cheat otherwise!!!
Hello,
"Except that if you enter a course in review mode then articulate seems to still send the new score to moodle and moodle then happily the results and overwrites the previous ones."
Actually this is expected behavior.
I have gotten this question before, and here is the response that I normally use to explain it. Basically the problem is that LMSs don't handle the data intelligently...or at least that is my understanding.
-When you launch a course in SCORM, there are several "modes" in which it can be launched. These modes are normal, browse and review. Normal means that it is just a normal attempt for credit. Browse means that the learner is "just looking". Review means that the user has previously completed the course and it now coming back to review the material.
-In most LMS's after you have completed a course, it moves to your transcript or is otherwise permanently completed.
-In some LMS's, there is no concept of permanent completion (which sounds like is the case with yours), the LMS just reports back whatever the course says. Furthermore, the LMS leaves it up to the user to decide what mode to launch the course in.
-Currently if we resume a presentation and the user chooses to start from the beginning, we explicitly reset the user's status to incomplete. We do this by design, re-taking a presentation is a valid use case. If you ask 10 people what the appropriate behavior is when you go back into a presentation, 5 will say you're old status should persist, 5 would say you should start over (so you can get a higher score on the second attempt). In reality, the LMS should manage this process (like Articulate Online does), but unfortunately in some LMS cases (and maybe other's) that isn't always the case.
-Technically, if the course is launched in review mode, you shouldn't mess with the lesson status. It's not good practice, but it also shouldn't matter unless the LMS wants it to matter.
Ups... Sorry I forgot to remove the location... Can you do that for me ???
Not really sure on that one. Basically that message is saying the content can find the LMS's API. Do you get other content to work, or is it just isolated to Presenter and Quizmaker content? If you don't have other content I can probably post some Captivate content which will point to the issue being with the content, or with the LMS.
Dave, I can't see the video. Do you remove it?
Should be fixed now.
HI, I'm also using moodle. I have issues with moodle not being able to find some scorm packages. I searched the moodle forum and it seems this is a common problem. There were a view rather involved suggestions as to how this could be overcome. Just wondering if you have any suggestions.
Hello Andy,
It has been quiet awhile since I played with Moodle, but in my general experience I had problems with:
1. Different builds of Moodle being very unreliable. I would try to find a build that someone has verified works.
2. Some platforms it would work on, others it wouldn't. I could never get moodle to work on a Linux system, despite the fact that is what it was developed for.
Hope this helps.
Hi Dave, I'm Newbie. I've tried your instructions for publishing Quizmaker to SCORM successfully. But, that was from Admin side (I mean, the Quizmaker will be displayed below the main menu. When I tried to login as Student, the Quizmaker didn't appear. How to use SCORM object from Student side ? Thanks in advanced Dave.
Dave,
I am using Quizmaker to create a survey, adding it to my ppt stack using Presenter and finally uploading the course on Moodle. However, after attempting the survey, I am not able to see the report anywhere in Moodle (or may be I am looking at the wrong places). Please help me extract the survey reports from Moodle. (Btw, I have very little programming knowledge.)
Thanks
Ruchi
Dave,
This is very useful indeed.
I am curious to know the meaning of the LMS metadata fields (Reporting/Tracking) that appears when we publish the course in Articulate.
I have taken a grab and you can view the complete post with the grab here:
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=99926#p453289
By default, the settings come as is shown in the attached file; note that under the LMS course information, the Title comes as Assessment. If I keep this default setting while publishing, than after uploading on Moodle, the content page for the SCORM comes as:
Assessment
> IPcenter Overview
which is not how it should appear.
It should come as:
IPcenter Overview
> IPcenter Overview
So, before publishing, I have to change this settings to the name of the module.
Can you explain to me what the fields in the LMS course information and the LMS Lesson SCORM information sections stands for? and where exactly does this information appear or is used?
Thanks,
Ruchi
Looks like I need some help. While trying the instructions that you've posted, I'm getting an error message. After I choose the Articulate zipped file within Moodle and click Save Changes, the error message reads "Manifest not found" next to the Course Package section. Any idea what I might be missing?
Hi Cpaolini,
I can think of several reasons this might happen:
1. You aren't publishing for LMS>SCORM. Make sure you publish from AP as LMS>SCORM.
2. Use the ZIP function from Articulate Presenter. If you are using an external zipping program there can be several problems...moodle doesn't like the compression used by that zip program, the imsmanfest.xml is not at the root of the zip file, etc.
3. Bad version/installation of moodle. Moodle versions are often very, very unstable.
If none of those suggestions help, feel free to contact our support department as they have a moodle server that they can test with.
-Dave
First off - Articulate products are terrific! They have made creating and publishing e-learning modules easy & fun.
That said, articulate online proved to be a bit out of our price range because we will be furnishing e-learning to all of our clients and their employees.
I have noticed the same problems a lot of ppl note with moodle.
Does anyone have an LMS they can recommend that might work for me?