DevLearn 801 xAPI: Where it's at & How to Get Started

Editor's Notes

• #4: Poll Question: Where are you on your xAPI journey? Stay standing if you can spell xAPI Stay standing if you know what the x stands for in xAPI Stay standing if you have sent an activity statement Stay standing if you have received an activity statement in an LRS Stay standing if you have made a business decision based on an activity statement you’ve received in the LRS
• #5: 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.
• #6: 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
• #7: 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.
• #9: “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.
• #10: 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.
• #12: The pace of change is slower than anyone wants. It’s picking up.
• #13: 1988 AICC formed 1993 AICC Runtime interoperability for LMS 2000 first version of SCORM 2009 last version of SCORM 2008 the Learning-Education-Training Systems Interoperability (LETSI) Federation was formed to investigate the next generation of SCORM requirements and use cases 2010, ADL began investigating new standardized experience tracking capabilities  2011, a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) contract and project to develop an “Experience API.” This project was branded as “Project Tin Can”  2013 xAPI V1.0.1 released 2014 AICC dissolves 2016 v1.0.3 (current)
• #14: 2008 the Learning-Education-Training Systems Interoperability (LETSI) Federation was formed to investigate the next generation of SCORM requirements and use cases 2010, ADL began investigating new standardized experience tracking capabilities  2011, a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) contract and project to develop an “Experience API.” This project was branded as “Project Tin Can”  2013 xAPI V1.0.1 released 2014 AICC dissolves 2016 v1.0.3 (current) IN THE LAST MONTH: ADL funding hiccups, DISC disbanded, IEEE standards body working on a working paper, work getting started on a Profiles specification
• #15: Heck, it was just earlier this spring that xAPI finally made it to ATD’s publications.
• #16: 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).
• #18: Remember this slide? This is the HARD part – committees of volunteers who commit their time to getting it right. Open source project … lot of moving parts … it’s going to take time. I personally feel that we get better results when we get more people in and working instead of building in an ivory tower and prouncing it from above.
• #23: HOW TO GET STARTED Pick a first project Platform & tools you’ll need to get started What I’ve learned in working with vendors & partners
• #24: HOW TO GET STARTED Pick a first project Platform & tools you’ll need to get started What I’ve learned in working with vendors & partners
• #25: You might set off on a big adventure … where you’ve got budget and visibility and someone to bust down silos (or that someone is you). … or you might set off on a day hike. Day Hikes are small projects that: Show real impact Help you figure out your data Prove your point Free or very low cost Things you can pick up and do without breaking other things.
• #26: August 31 kickoff, runs through Thanksgiving, xAPI Party in December in Detroit
• #27: Regardless of the size of the project you’re doing, you’re going to need tools to send data and a platform to receive it. List of free or almost free tools you can use to get started.
• #29: 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.
• #31: With xapiapps you’ll get transactions like
• #35: 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.
• #36: 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.
• #37: The Sidecare LRS is a nice happy medium to get started.
• #38: 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.
• #41: That’s awesome, but what do I do next?
• #43: 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.