Experience API
Experience API (xAPI) is a revolutionary new eLearning technology standard that will allow us to gather and analyze significantly more learning data than previously conceivable. However, there is a lot of misunderstanding about what xAPI is and what has to happen in order for your company to start utilizing it.
The Experience API (also known as xAPI or Tin Can API in its early versions) is an information standard for documenting learning activities. It creates a uniform technological foundation for reporting on learning activities in the same manner across various software systems, such as "Arrine Gellard tried Sales Training 101" or "Max Dylan completed New Safety Training."
Application Programming Interface or API is a software phrase that refers to the interconnection of several technological systems. APIs allow two software systems to exchange information. The xAPI specifies how learning processes should be reported across various technological platforms.
The xAPI is only a data standard in and of itself. The xAPI also necessitates the creation of a database to hold a high number of actual learner interactions. The xAPI standard's designers advocate utilizing a Learning Record Store (LRS), which is a database specifically built to store records created by xAPI statements. The LRS may be integrated into an LMS or utilized independently (more common as of today).
You'll need analytics and reporting tools in complement to a database to assist you analyze and get insights from the data. Currently, data analysis possibilities are very limited. Despite the fact that the xAPI ecosystem of deployed apps and resources is still in its infancy, it has the ability to allow two areas of significant promise for future eLearning practitioners:
- Obtaining far more detailed data on individual student interactions outside of SCORM.
- Establishing a single repository to monitor informal learning activities outside of courses given via an LMS.
