First off, why does SumTotal make it so difficult to find out info on their LMS??
OK, my tracking of session time is fine. I pass that time to the LMS and it updates the "Time in Topic" field. On course relaunch, I read in total_time just to note in the course what the previous time is. Nothing else is done with it. That time is exactly what is the the "Time in Topic" field.
Now there is a "Elapsed time:" field that updates after each launch as well, but that time seems to be a multiple of the session_time. I am unsure why this occurs or if what I am doing has impact on this field. Ideas?
The attached file contains screen cap of the LMS screen and the other is the course screen with debug info where you can see the total_time read in from LMS.
I've been having my own little wrestling matches with SumTotal (7.6) the last few weeks... not fun.
SumTotal provides documentation in their CPC (stands for "Customer Productivity Center" I think), but I believe they charge for access if you don't have it already.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but SumTotal uses their own proprietary 'elapsed time' function, not the SCORM version; I've noticed the transcripts for my courses all display elapsed time (just like your screenshot), but I don't track time in my course code.
FYI (in case you haven't seen the documentation): SumTotal provides *two* SCORM APIs: the standard SCORM API and an "extended" SCORM API that provides additional (proprietary) features/functionality.
- philip
PS: I notice you use SumTotal's course player. Just curious: have you considered using your own, or do you prefer using theirs?
I use my own course interface system, but it takes some extra config in my manifest and course JavaScript to get it all to work in SumTotal. It's a pain, especially because I usually don't have to worry about that stuff when I use other LMSs. I was really surprised at how much extra work I had to do to get things going in ST.
The screen shot of the course is actually my course, not the ST course player. I built the Flash interface to emulate the LMS look/feel to keep it clean.
I have the data in the manifest file to disable the player similar to what is found here: http://www.articulate.com/forums/articulate-presenter/4918-how-turn-off-sumtotal-player.html
But I do notice it still says "SumTotal Content Player" in the title bar of the browser. Is there a way to remove that? I know my course is within multiple framesets, so maybe I am doing something wrong in the manifest.
Are you using html/JavaScript for your course? Not Flash? Is the JavaScript due to LMS issues?
So far, everything I have done has worked as expected. Only the Elapsed Time thing is the puzzle. I will look into the multiple APIs you mentioned.
Well my customer does have access to the CPC and provided the "WorkingwiththeAPIforSCORMExtensionsinSumTotal.pdf" I will take a look and see if has any details. Let me know if you need it Philip.
After viewing the document, the main part of the extended API is to remove the content player and also add in an exit method which posts data and closes the player.
There are other methods to allow for navigation between SCOs as well.
I have two different course interfaces: one HTML/JS, one Flash.
Thanks for the offer about the API PDF; I have access to the CPC, so I've already been digging through all their documentation.
I don't recall what the titlebar says in my course (it probably says SumTotal Content Player, too). You can probably change it using DOM scripting.
That reminds me: one of the things I've been playing with is what I call my SumTotal Explorer Tool... it examines the structure of the frames and window/opener relationship. It's helped me get some of my JavaScript commands working again. For instance, to close the popup, you can't use window.close(), self.close() or top.close(). The trick? Use window.top.close()
Cool about window.top.close(). Will try that. I used parent.parent.parent.close(); I know, bad, bad.
As for the documentation, I think I may have discovered the "Elapsed time" issue. In the "TotalLMS 7.2_Technical Guide.pdf" document, on top of page 70 there is a paragraph that talks about the elapsed time not functioning properly when the browser is closed if "Optimized for TotalLMS" is selected in the LMS. Still looking into it.
Have you run into similar issue with "Elapsed time"? What I tried based upon the one paragraph in "TotalLMS 7.2_Technical Guide.pdf" is to not close the browser window in the course, but require the user to close it. The "Elapsed time" is still recording 60x the "Time in Topic".
My next attempt may be to load the "Extended API" that TotalLMS uses. There is an Exit function in there that 'may' fix that. I dislike taking stabs in the dark at issues like this.
Well I just tested another course, not mine, with the Total LMS 7.2 that is not using the Content Player. It is also causing issues with the the "Elapsed time". It is tracking "Time in Topic" correctly, but multiply that time to get the "Elapsed time".
The customer is FINALLY submitting a ticket to SumTotal.
I was able to gain access to Total LMS 7.2 from within my old company. Their system tracked the "Elapsed time" correctly. So it appears that the issue is with my customers setup and not anything I am doing wrong. Woo Hoo!!!!