Testing SafetySkills Course Licenses in 3rd Party Systems

SafetySkills Course Licenses

SafetySkills offers SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004, and AICC version 4 compliant Course Licenses. This means that we follow a set list of guidelines outlined for how our content should operate and communicate with your Learning Management System.

eLearning content is unlike streaming video in the sense that it communicates back and forth from the content, to the user’s computer, to the LMS, and back again to report details such as, but not limited to:

  • Lesson Location
    • Where the user is in the course, allowing the user to leave in the middle of the course and return where they left off
  • Total Time
    • How long the user has spent in the course overall
  • Session Time
    • How long the user has spent in the course during this specific sitting
  • Score
    • Has the user properly answered the course questions
  • Lesson Status
    • Reports if the course has been started or if it is completed or failed

The SCORM-1.2, SCORM 2004, and AICC version 4 guidelines specifically outline what values the course and LMS should send and/or receive for each action. As long as the course and the LMS follow those guidelines, they should “plug and play” seamlessly. However, if the course and/or the LMS are not following those guidelines, and therefore not sending/receiving the proper values at the proper times, users may experience issues with the course not launching, bookmarking or completing properly.

How can you know if your SafetySkills course license  is communicating properly with your LMS provider?

Test it! It is essential when you upload any of SafetySkills courseware into another provide that you fully test it to ensure it is functioning as you would expect before assigning out to your users.

HOW to test:

  • A key item in testing is determining what devices/browsers you are anticipating your users accessing the course from.
  • Different devices and internet browsers may interact with the course differently.
    • We have a set list of minimum/recommended requirements for our LMS/Courses that can be found here: SafetySkills LMS Minimum and Recommended Technical Requirements
    • Your LMS provider may have a different list of compatibility requirements that you’ll need to be aware of and test accordingly.
    • For example, if you anticipate your users needing to take the course on an iPhone 10 using the Safari browser, we strongly recommend testing the course functionality on an iPhone 10 in the Safari browser to ensure it performs as expected. That being said, there are different versions of the Safari browser, so it is up to you how granular you want to get with this testing process.
  • It’s not required that you test with EVERY device and browser combo out there (we know how daunting of a task that is) but we do recommend that you test on the devices and browsers that you expect to support before launching to your users.

WHAT to test:

Now that you have identified what devices/browsers you will be testing, we’ll go over what items we recommend testing with your course on each device/browser combo.

  • Launch
    • Assign the course to yourself in your LMS provider and launch the course to ensure it launches as expected.
  • Audio
    • Can you hear the audio that is playing in the course?
  • Bookmarking
    • Does the course return you to the spot where you left off in the course last?  If you exit a SafetySkills course before the end, when you re-launch the course at a different point in time it should return you to the beginning of the last slide that you were on.
  • Time tracking
    • If you expect time to track with each interaction, you’ll want to make sure the time values match your experience in the course both when you exit mid-course and at the very end.
  • Test Questions
    • We suggest answering questions incorrectly and then correctly to ensure the behavior in each instance is expected.
      • Does an incorrect response kick the user back to a previous frame?
      • Are you able to try to answer the question again?
      • Does the course let the user proceed when the question is answered correctly?
  • Completion
    • When you reach the end of the course, does it complete with the values you would expect?
    • Does the course mark with the completion values you would expect to see? Examples might be:
      • Did the total time record properly?
      • Did the lesson status record properly?
      • Did the score record properly?

What do you do if you experience unexpected behavior with the SafetySkills Course License?

Please reach out to the your Training Success Manager or the SafetySkills Help Desk! The SafetySkills Help Desk is available at [email protected] or by phone at 888-844-3549, option 2.