You’re excited about the promise of an xAPI-enabled world, but you’ve got a learning management system, a catalog full of SCORM-based courses that you need, and a handful of learning tool vendors that don’t use xAPI. What if you could get the most out of an LMS and an LRS at the same time as you move to your next-generation learning and performance infrastructure?
This session will start with the learner-facing tools that will capture your xAPI data: eLearning, mobile tools, performance support, social and informal activities, and data sources from the business. You’ll review your options when it comes to LRSs and how they work (or don’t work) with your LMS. Will you work with a standalone LRS? A front-end xAPI solution with a built-in LRS? Or an LRS that is aligned with your LMS and your current learning infrastructure? You’ll hear real-world stories of three different xAPI implementations to help you plot your organization’s course toward your next-generation learning ecosystem.
3. xAPI is …
X = experience
API = application programming interface
Specification for sending, storing, retrieving
activity about learning and performance
experiences
Not so much “next generation SCORM”
as it is “what will replace SCORM.”
Experience API is
…
Tin Can API is …
6. Why xAPI?
Measurement & analytics
Move data across courses, platforms, functions
Record more than just course data
Personalize learning
Track activity of multiple people at once
Offline storage
7. What can you do with xAPI?
• Learn more about the learning experience – not just elearning
• Learn more about the performance
• Correlate learning with performance
• Offer more targeted training
• Support performance in better ways
• Use data to learn with others
• Compare performance and learning across learners
• Deliver and track training outside of the LMS
9. STEP 1:
Send the
data
Use your current elearning authoring tools
Get your product vendor to send the data
Use xapiapps to assemble things that aren’t xAPI
into a thing that is
Write some custom code
10. AUTHORING TOOLS
Out of the box:
• SCORM-like transactions
• Individual page views
• Actions and triggers (depends)
With a little JavaScript:
• Any action or trigger you want
More info:
www.xapiquarterly.com (Sean Putman), xAPI Cohort Fall 2017 results
THIS LIST IS INCOMPLETE
THIS LIST IS GROWING
11. MISC OTHER OPTIONS
Not really “authoring tools,” but very deep
learning experiences, LMCSes, etc. that send
xAPI data.
THIS LIST IS INCOMPLETE
THIS LIST IS GROWING
12. First tool we’ve found outside L&D that uses xAPI
THIS LIST IS INCOMPLETE
THIS LIST IS GROWING
14. Riptide Elements : xAPI Statement
Inspector
The xAPI Inspector
allows developers and
xAPI practitioners to
view, validate, and copy
xAPI statements as
they are sent to a
Learning Record Store
(LRS).
This extension displays
both the full statement
and a simplified header
highlighting the actor,
verb, and object for an
easy-to-read version of
the statement.
https://learning.riptidesoftware.com/
21. LEARNING RECORD STORES
Out of the box:
• Data storage & retrieval
• Visualizations & reporting
Connecting to analytics
• Tableau, Microsoft BI, Envision BI, etc.
UP TO DATE LIST OF CONFORMANT LRS:
https://adopters.adlnet.gov/
THIS LIST IS INCOMPLETE
THIS LIST IS GROWING
22. LMSes WITH LRS INSIDE
Out of the box:
• Learning management functions
• SCORM
They may struggle with:
• Accepting statements from outside the LMS
• Reporting data in extensions
UP TO DATE LIST OF CONFORMANT LRS:
https://adopters.adlnet.gov/
THIS LIST IS INCOMPLETE
THIS LIST IS GROWING
23. LMSes THAT CONNECT TO YOUR LRS
What you can expect:
• xAPI statements from courses & experiences
• Non-SCORM LMS activity, too
THIS LIST IS INCOMPLETE
THIS LIST IS GROWING
24.
25.
26. Start where
you are
Launch xAPI record providers from the LMS*
(cmi5):
• Digital Chalk
• Learndash
• Moodle (with plugin)
• Other non-xAPI LMS
Send xAPI from triggers in a SCORM course
Export SCORM data from LMS to LRS
* This is an incomplete list.
27. Wait for
your LMS to
adopt xAPI
Offer to beta test.
Get a sidecar LRS for your special projects and
new projects.
• Two sets of reports
• Export xAPI “Completions” LMS
28. Start
shedding
SCORM
Stop using SCORM where you can.
If you have to, build for SCORM knowing you’ll
use xAPI.
• Flexible tools that do both
• Follow best practices for xAPI now
(xAPI Quarterly)
Start asking the “x” question.
30. FORMING STORMING NORMING PERFORMING
xAPI needs geeks Geek-free tools emerge
Communities of Practice work to define usage
Conformance & Certification emerge
Project Tin Can Specification Standard
More common
than SCORM
Is xAPI ready for prime time?
31. Get started!
www.torrancelearning.com/xapi-
cohort
Free 12-week, vendor-neutral learning-by-doing-in-teams experience.
Weekly web meetings 2-3pm ET (recorded). Winter/Spring & Fall
Ad hoc teams form to tackle a project together and provide weekly report-
outs.
33. Community-driven effort to highlight xAPI use by:
• Tools
• Platforms
• People
• Spaces
• Events
* Implies no conformance, certification or
warranty.
More info:
www.xapi-ready.com | http://www.cafepress.com/xapi_ready
34. ROB HOUCK
UL, Director of Technology
Innovation
rob.houck@ul.com
MEGAN TORRANCE
CEO, TorranceLearning
mtorrance@torrancelearning.com
Hinweis der Redaktion
They say that the easy way to learn is from others’ mistakes. The hard way is from your own mistakes. The tragic way is not learning from either.
xAPI is …
X = experience
API = application programming interface
Specification for sending, storing, retrieving activity
Some say that xAPI is next gen SCORM
Like my smart phone
SCORM only tracks 5 boring things
There are three “parts” to xAPI: The Learning Record Provider, the Activity Statement and the Learning Record Store.
The Learning Record Provider is what’s sending the data – if it’s an elearning situation, then the activity provider is the course.
You are the one doing the thinking here.
The content is what you’re talking about. Again, if we’re talking about elearning, the content is … your content.
The Activyt Statement is the format with which we’re sending the data. To be honest, the funnel doesn’t really hold up well as a metaphor.
And we’re pouring all these statements into a Learning Record Store, which is a database that stores it all. At some point it may or may not have to mix in with some legacy content and data in order to make sense.
“X” for Experience, not LAPI – “learning” … track all sorts of things.
And here’s the thing: you can do all of these things without xAPI. You just build them yourself. The technology is there – actually, its existed for years and some of you are already doing this.
When you do these things with xAPI you are using an interoperable platform for communication – you can add and change pieces, vendors, platforms with far greater ease.
That’s because it’s all about interoperability. You’re building a large platform … not continuing a bunch of silos held together with bailing twine and bandages.
But that’s a completely different story for a different day.
Few other industries have attempted this degree of interoperability. This is the real positive legacy of SCORM – it has allowed this industry to boom.
Out of the box, you can expect data that’s a lot like SCORM, plus individual page views, question answers and a few other things you couldn’t get with SCORM. dominKnow and Lectora support a wider variety of statements based on actions and triggers. All of these tools you can add custom JavaScript to action triggers and send statements to the LRS.
ADD SLIDE: For example, our project with University of North Carolina – see us at DemoFest – where we have custom JS added to all sorts of actions in a Storyline course – question sets individually and totals, downloading resources, entering text on screen.
With xapiapps you’ll get transactions like
With the integrated approach, a single platform does all the things, including both SCORM and xAPI. It’s all the things that you have come to expect from your LMS provider, with xAPI thrown in, too.
One of Megan’s clients has a major integrated learning management system and that platform is adding xAPI support. This means that all the work they did in the last two years to select and implement a major piece of software doesn’t have to be undone, or they don’t have to start over in order to support xAPI projects they have waiting in the wings.
Rob’s clients use xAPI-enabled training to train non-employees, where they access the training completely outside the LMS. The integrated LRS permits tracking of the training no matter if the user takes the course on the LMS as an employee, or on a website for business partners… it’s integrated and seamless from a reporting perspective.
The managed system approach usually puts the LRS at the center of a whole set of systems all talking together. The core system desired around and optimized for xAPI, that then lets you get best-of-breed tools to hook into it. Since you don’t have to be confined to just elearning courses in an LMS for tracking, you you’re tracking things that happen in the real world, and you’re able to go out and do all sorts of things outside your LMS and that pretty well rocks.
One of Megan’s clients currently doesn’t have a strong LMS. In fact, their LMS is so “weak” within their organization that the L&D team is using a Wordpress site as a Content Management System from which to offer training – not a WordPress LMS, mind you. An internally hosted Wordpress site. They’re bringing on an LRS product that will be a hub for xAPI transactions from courses launched from the WordPress LMS. And as they bring on other xAPI conformant tools – right now we’re putting in a Curatr learning platform for a key customer group – all of that will feed back into the LRS.
The Sidecar LRS is a nice happy medium to get started.
Out of the box, you can expect data that’s a lot like SCORM, plus individual page views, question answers and a few other things you couldn’t get with SCORM. dominKnow and Lectora support a wider variety of statements based on actions and triggers. All of these tools you can add custom JavaScript to action triggers and send statements to the LRS.
ADD SLIDE: For example, our project with University of North Carolina – see us at DemoFest – where we have custom JS added to all sorts of actions in a Storyline course – question sets individually and totals, downloading resources, entering text on screen.
This is my super-un-scientific way of testing for xAPI conformance. If I get this when I search an LMS vendor’s site, I then do also search Experience API, Tin Can API and then, just to be safe, SCORM. If I come up blank, I make the call that this is not an xAPI conformant or ready LMS
Ask your LMS provider – it’s entirely possible that they’re planning on implementing LRS support within the year. In this case, you have a few options. You can sit and wait, and you could offer to beta test. (Megan) is a huge fan of being a part of your vendors’ beta testing process – there’s a lot of bonus points you can gain with your vendors and you can call in some chips.
In the meantime, you can get a “sidecar” LRS for all your xAPI projects, something that you’re planning to discard once your LMS capability comes online. It’s a nice hedge against the promises of integration for the future that your LMS vendor makes. You’ll have two sets of reports in the meantime and you may need to export your xAPI “completions” to your LMS in case you need a single point of truth and reporting. But it’s not the worst thing in the world.
You’ll want to make sure that you’re careful to keep your login information – your actor definitions – consistent between the two systems so that your hair doesn’t fall out trying to match up your data.
Wikipedia: Dr Bruce Tuckman published his Forming Storming Norming Performing model in 1965. He added a fifth stage, Adjourning, in the 1970s. The Forming Storming Norming Performing theory is an elegant and helpful explanation of team development and behaviour (US spelling: behavior).
Included with this session is a sheet you can use to assess (roughly) various components of your organization’s ecosystem to see if you’re ready.