Duplicate entries and other things in Progress report

  • Hello
    I have come across an interesting problem with Cluevo’s recording of SCORM information.
    As I was testing some SCORM modules, I noticed that for some reason the number of attempts for modules, reported in the progress section of the cluevo reports, was not increasing despite redoing the module at various times. I spent a long time investigating this and discovered that this was because the modules were set wth the CLuevo settings to “Let user decide whether to resume or start a new attempt”. For some reason, though (maybe because of my lesson structure) the choice of whether to continue with the previous attempt or begin a new attempt was almost never given.

    One solution to this problem was to choose the following cluevo option: “Always start new attempts”. While this works ok and generates new attempts, it actually records TWO new attempts for each iteration of the module. This can be verified by looking at the Cluevo progress report. Two rows were simultaneously created in the database. On further investigation, it turns out that BOTH rows are created when the module is loaded. When the module is first loaded, both entries are identical When the module is completed, the SECOND row is modified and looks like attempt #14 in the attached file.

    Unfortunately, this information is both misleading and doubles the amount of space needed to store it.

    I have tried to investigate the problem by disabling all plugins. I have also created a brand new WP website with NO plugins running other than the 3 Cluevo plugins. The problem remains with both the “Always start new attempts setting” and the “Let user decide…” settings. Is this a problem with Cluevo or with me? (I would prefer it to be a problem with me but it seems to happen even with the modules provided in the Cluevo demo).

    Thank you dor your assistance

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 19 total)
  • Plugin Author CLUEVO

    (@cluevo)

    Hello,

    thank you for getting in touch.
    Could you provide us with some detailed information about your environment?
    What WordPress, Database, PHP and CLUEVO Version have you tried it with? Could you please check the site health status for warnings or errors?

    We will investigate this ASAP.

    greetings from Austria,
    Elias

    Thread Starter mlapl1

    (@mlapl1)

    Hello Elias

    Thank you for your prompt response.

    Yes of course. I am sorry. I should have included this in the first message.
    WP 5.7.1
    MySQL: MariaDB 10.3.28
    PHP 7.3.27
    Cluevo 1.6.2
    CLUEVO LMS Extension: Google Documents as modules 1.6.0
    CLUEVO LMS Extension: Video Tutorial Manager for YouTube (and other oEmbed providers) 1.6.0
    I get the following warning message about these last two extensions: One or more of your CLUEVO extensions are either not compatible or have not been tested with the currently installed CLUEVO LMS version. Please deactivate or update these extensions if you run into any issues.

    Please note that I did NOT disable these extensions as they are Cluevo extensions. I will disable them and try again – maybe there is an issue there. They appear to be the latest extensions available.

    All of my plugins and themes are up to date as is WP.
    There are no site health issues that I can identify – some recommendations for security and a recommendation to upgrade to PHP 7.4 (I will do that in a moment).

    Thank you so much for your assistance.
    Andrew

    Thread Starter mlapl1

    (@mlapl1)

    Hello again. I have disabled the extensions and upgraded to PHP 7.4.16. The problem continues. As I said, I have tested this on two different sites but same physical server.

    I have a picture of the progression screen showing an example of two rows generated but there is no simple way to attach it here.

    Thank you
    Andrew

    Plugin Author CLUEVO

    (@cluevo)

    hey mlapl1,

    what you discribe sounds like a bug. There are a couple of things that are checked when determining whether the choice to resume is given and one of them is the lesson/completion status the module reports.

    Would it be possible for you to send us one of your modules to run through our development environment?

    Also to I have this correctly: to reproduce the issue with the duplicate progress entries: install your module, set the option to always start new attemts to active and start a module. -> duplicate progress entries
    The other thing: install your module, allow to manually start/resume attempts and then no progress entries are generated?

    Thread Starter mlapl1

    (@mlapl1)

    Hello again

    Thanks for the response. I am happy to share my modules. I may need a day or two to get things ready – if I send you what I amusing it may seem confusing. I will prepare a range of simple modules, basically compiled in SCORM 1.2 and 2004 (4th edition) and also with the “Let user decide whether to resume or start a new attempt” option switched on and off in the authoring system. I typically use Lectora 17 or 18 and Articulate 3. I have experienced the problems no matter which authoring system I use. I have not tried to empty the database and start again.

    I have not followed up the “Let user decide whether to resume or start a new attempt” option as thoroughly as the “Always start new attempts” option.

    Please let me know how to get the zip files to you etc. I am also happy to give you access to my test site as admin.

    Best to you
    Andrew

    I AM NOT ABLE TO DELETE THIS POST – Please see the next one.

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by mlapl1.
    Thread Starter mlapl1

    (@mlapl1)

    Hello again

    Thanks for the response. I am happy to share my modules. I may need a day or two to get things ready – if I send you what I amusing it may seem confusing. I will prepare a range of simple modules, basically compiled in SCORM 1.2 and 2004 (4th edition) and also with the “Let user decide whether to resume or start a new attempt” option switched on and off in the authoring system. I typically use Lectora 17 or 18 and Articulate 3. I have experienced the problems no matter which authoring system I use. I have not tried to empty the database and start again.

    I have not followed up the “Let user decide whether to resume or start a new attempt” option as thoroughly as the “Always start new attempts” option.

    Please let me know how to get the zip files to you etc. I am also happy to give you access to my test site as admin.

    The problem seems to appear no matter how simple the SCORM file is. I have tried using just a 2-page empty file properly configured to SCORM and the problem is still there. As I said previously, the two rows appear as soon as the file is loaded and the scores etc are changed as soon as the variables are changed inside the module. In ther words, the rows seem to be created initially independently of the contents of the module. The system does not wait for the close/exit signal to be sent by the module.

    Best to you and thanks again. Your help is very much appreciated.
    Andrew

    Thread Starter mlapl1

    (@mlapl1)

    Hello again
    I have created two minimalistic SCORM 1.2 modules.
    Both consists of a front page displaying text and a Next button
    A second page displaying text and an exit button. The exit buttons sets the SCORM variable AICC_Score o 100 and AICC_Lesson_Status to completed. It then sends an exit/close signal to the LMS or website.

    Both modules are written in Lectora18. The only difference between the modules is that one is set to give the choice to continue from where a student has stopped.

    When I set the module setting in cluevo to “Let user decide whether to resume or start a new attempt” a row is added to the cluevo Progression – attempt #0
    If I run the lesson with Lectora 18 set to give a choice of whether or not to start, a Lectora message will appear (not the cluevo message that I have seen before). If I choose to start from the beginning, attempt 0 is modified but no additional attempt is recorded.

    If I use the CLuevo setting: Always start new attempts, then two rows are produced as I described previously. I am happy to share these modules, but have no idea of how you would like me to send them to you. Please advise.

    Best wishes
    Andrew

    Plugin Author CLUEVO

    (@cluevo)

    Hey Andrew,

    sorry for the late reply. I’ve beeen trying to reconstruct your issue with one of our modules but I can’t seem to reproduce the case you are describing. It could be something to do with the scorm parameters, if you could send us your test modules we can compare them with our modules.

    As for the progress itself: An attempt is started as soon as a module opens and scorm parameters should only be saved on module exit or when the module sends the commit command.

    Thread Starter mlapl1

    (@mlapl1)

    Hello again.
    I am happy to send you the test modules. I have made them available through pcloud.com (expires in about 24 hours)

    https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZQVLeXZYkM06gENo7SPTXrhjQjL4SWClgyX and
    https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZl0LeXZz1eYMTyFqu8BoqFbOppQyRAaFHV7

    These are Lectora-produced files.

    Thank you
    Andrew

    Thread Starter mlapl1

    (@mlapl1)

    The duplication persists with Articulate-produced modules and also ma module produced by Adapt Learning.

    Now… I have tried the Articulate module on a completely different server. When I set Module Settings to “Let user decide etc…” it works well when the user chooses to start from beginning and adds a new attempt. When user chooses to continue, it does not add a new attempt – it may change the last entry – I cannot test that with this module.

    When the Module setting is “Always start new attempts” then it creates two entries and completes the second one. I have not tested the Lectora files on this server.

    PHP is also 7.4

    Thanks for your help
    Andrew

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by mlapl1.
    Thread Starter mlapl1

    (@mlapl1)

    Summary. On the new platform:
    Articulate seems to work correctly when Module settings give a choice of where to start
    Articulate does not work correctly when Module settings force new attempts (creates 2 rows)

    Lectora does not work correctly when Module settings give a choice (only one entry no matter how many attempts)
    Lectora does not work correctly when Module settings force new attempts (produces two entries).

    Maybe Lectora settings need to be tweaked but the duplicate rows in mysql seem to occur with both Articulate and Lectora when Module is set to force new attempts.
    Well… that narrows it down a bit I guess.
    Best regards
    Andrew

    Plugin Author CLUEVO

    (@cluevo)

    Hey Andrew, thanks for the modules. I’m going to run them through our systems and get back to you!

    Plugin Author CLUEVO

    (@cluevo)

    Hey Andrew, I’m really sorry this is taking so long, but I’ve been heavily involved in some other projects and I’m having a hard time dedicating the amount of work to this that it deserves.

    I’ve just installed both your modules and with the ‘continue’ module I can’t reliably trigger the resume function (prompt inside the module). From what I’ve seen though: This module does not seem to set the scorm parameter for suspend data, we use that to determine if we can let the user resume or start a new attempt. This module seems to store it’s state inside the browser and it looks like it uses that to show the continue screen from within the module independent of any scorm parameters.

    What’s happening with the ‘new’ module is, I think, that the module properly sets the lesson_status to completed. On the next attempt the user /should/ be asked whether they want to continue or not, but it looks like the lms skips the prompt because there is no suspend data and defaults to just opening the module with the current scorm parameters. I think the exact behaviour is something that we can probably make customizable through settings. I think there is a case for both defaulting to the current state or just starting a new attempt. Because the way some modules store resume data (like yours in the browser) there is a need to allow multiple ways to handle this. Some modules enter a view-only state when loading them as ‘completed’ and I think this is something people might still want to do.

    What I couldn’t replicate were duplicate progress attempts. If I configure to let the user select between resume/start new it always seems to re-use the current attempt. If I configure to always start new attempts I get an attempt for every time I start the module.

    Again, I’m really sorry it’s taking this long to get back to you, but it looks like things are improving around here and I can properly dive in again soonish. In the meantime, I’ll start planning to add some settings to customize the behaviour for these cases.

    Greetings,

    Chris

    Thread Starter mlapl1

    (@mlapl1)

    Dear Chris

    My turn to apologize for the delay in getting back to you. I have been very busy and this posting does not reliably inform e of new responses so I have to monitor it manually.

    Thank you for the information. In relation to the first part of your response, I will look at it later.

    As for the second part, you say:
    If I configure to always start new attempts I get an attempt for every time I start the module.

    Well… what happens to me consistently – <u>and on totally different servers</u>, is that I get TWO entries (both in your report and the database): one on entry into the module which is only partially filled and one on completion of the module which appears fully completed. It has been such a long time that I believe I sent you an Articulate 3 module. I also use Lectora and the behaviour seems similar. I am happy to send you Lectora modules if that is helpful. Also, for what it’s worth, typically I use SCORM to track progress, not to keep scores – that may happen later as we do different kinds of activities.

    No need to hurry on my account, this is a long-term project for me.

    Thank you and all the best
    Andrew

    Thread Starter mlapl1

    (@mlapl1)

    Hello
    I noticed the update and the changelog. I noticed that there was mention of the reporting function. Does this change fix the fault that I reported in this series of postings (assuming it was a CLuevo issue to begin with)?

    Thank you for any advice.
    Andrew

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 19 total)
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