What is..

xAPI?

The Experience API (xAPI for short) allows one system (the activity provider) to send a message (known as a statement) to another system (the Learning Record Store) about something a user has done.

What is...

an activity provider?

Any system where someone does something. Eg…

• Some learning content
• A customer relationship management (CRM) system
• A social networking system

What is...

a Learning Record Store?

A system built to receive statements
as defined in the xAPI specification

What is a statement?

A statement contains, at a minimum:

Actor Verb Object type Object

Example

Jo read book Running Lean

Why is xAPI important?

• What was life like before xAPI?
• What can we do now that we couldn’t before?

Before xAPI...

Anything we wanted to track had to be built as part of the LMS functionality, or needed a bespoke integration

Data remained inside the LMS

xAPI means...

Tracking data can flow from any system

Activity Provider examples

Rich data

The riches come when you start to
correlate data from multiple sources

Analytics examples

Things to think about

• Privacy
• Ownership
• Definitions
• Analysis

Privacy

Have you followed the data protection rules in your region?

Information Commissioner’s Guide to GDPR

Ownership

• How can an individual see what data
  you’ve collected on them?

• Can they ask for it to be deleted?

• Can they ask to move some or all data
  to another organisation?

• What are your data retention rules?

Definitions

Does your industry use standard definitions for:

• Activity types
• Verbs

Or even standard “profiles” for a
particular information model?

Use Standard vocabulary where possible

Define new vocabulary where necessary

Analysis

Do you have people who can
help you analyse the data?

Are they qualified/experienced in
data science or statistics?

Without them much of this data will be wasted

Getting started

• Design
• Aggregate
• Analyse

Design

1. Identify what you need to find out, what questions you want to answer
2. Identify where the data will be used, and by whom
3. Identify what will happen when those questions have been answered
4. Identify what data you need to support (1)
5. Map the data to the Experience API statement elements: Actor, Verb, Activity, Context, Result
6. Identify where the data for (3) will come from - the activity providers
7. Ensure that each activity provider can produce the required xAPI statements

Aggregate

Implement a Learning Record Store to begin
collecting and reporting on the data

If it’s built into your LMS, make sure it
can receive data from external sources

Analyse

Your data analysts will need to know how to use statistical techniques to draw meaning from the data and to test which effects are brought about by which changes.