TOPIC:

Is a "Stop Tracking" page essential when tracking using LTI/xAPI? Will things work without one?

Hi Neil
The answer might depend on why you are asking? Tom and I have discussed this and would comment as follows:
The stop tracking page was introduced in response to the various browser security changes where the onunload event could no longer be relied upon to send data back to the LMS/LRS. This is especially a problem with embedded LOs. In addition to this in Xerte 3.10 you will now see a save session button appear in footer of tracked resources. In theory this new button could be used instead of the stop tracking page as long as learners are instructed to use it before closing.
As to whether the Stop tracking and/or save session button is essential I think it arguably is if you want the best possible reliability of sending the data and not relying on the onunload event across all browsers.
BTW not sure if you are currently testing things on your test server and that’s behind your question? I applied additional updates to the test server today as we have been fixing some issues with LTI and grading as well as SCORM exports etc. However that's still not finished because there is an issue which is possibly due to the test server not being public facing.
HTH
Ron

The reason I ask is that I have a number of resources that I'd like to be able to use simultaneously as tracked and non-tracked resources. So, the scenario would be, I have a tutorial plagiarism that can be accessed via:

• a link on our Intranet pages (e.g. xerte.cardiff.ac.uk/play_12345)
• a tracked LTI/xAPI link within a Blackboard module (e.g. xerte.cardiff.ac.uk/xapi_launch.php?template_id=12345)

If a "Stop Tracking" page is necessary, I'd need to figure out a way to adapt it so that it doesn't just appear as some random page for students who are not using the tracked version or the resource.

The stop tracking page should always be at the end of the resource.
The new save session button will only appear in tracking mode and will be in the footer on every page. So the save session button doesn't appear in normal play mode.
The low tech way you could deal with this is just to use suitable wording on the stop tracking page to cover both use cases.
You could possibly detect if in tracking mode and vary the message on the stop tracking page accordingly.
Longer term perhaps we'll look at adding an optional property to only show the stop tracking page in tracking mode.

So I think I've mostly resolved this now. For example (see page 20 in each version):

• Standard - xerte.cardiff.ac.uk/play_14271
• Tracked - xerte.cardiff.ac.uk/xapi_launch.php?temp..._id=14271&group=test

However, the final page of this resource is a feedback form. In this case it doesn't make sense to have this page before the "stop tracking" page - however, on the tracked version the page navigation is disabled once you click the stop tracking button.

I suspect I know the answer here, but is there any way to keep the page navigation enabled here so users can get to the feedback page in tracked mode?

Hi Neil,

Yes, you could solve it by changing the text that is displayed after the Stop tracking button is pressed (switc, and either include (with some script) a link to the next page, or enable the nextBtn again (with some script) or both