Political intrigue. High stakes drama. Inside baseball. This post is about something that is important but not exciting.
tl;dr
Facts: Next week, the IEEE LTSC xAPI TAG will be taking a vote about if and which aspects of xAPI 1.0.3 to propose to the broader IEEE for consideration as a standard.
Opinions (mine):
- Somewhat important: standardization matters in that many organizations (particularly some outside the US) will care that xAPI has (eventually) been blessed by IEEE.
- More important: the nexus of xAPI work is moving toward this group, and it’s active.
I’m firmly amongst the xAPI pragmatists, seeking shorter term gains and use cases where xAPI is legitimately better than other solutions. This active group, the TAG, is crucial in that it will be able to explore and innovate allowing the utility of xAPI to grow beyond what is currently well supported. Simply, xAPI and its supporting technologies are already useful but not yet sufficient for everything people hope it can be. The work matters, and it needs a home. This seems to be that home.
The Details
The details come with full credit to Shelley Blake-Plock and Avron Barr for their clarity and content.
- The TAG is considering multiple potential standards related to xAPI 1.0.3, ranging from xAPI data model and bindings to profiles, conformance and LRS behaviors.
- Members of the TAG will write Project Authorization Requests (PARs) for each proposed standard, delineating purpose, need and scope.
- PARs will then go through the IEEE approval process over a period of several months and steps.
- Working groups may begin work prior to that formal approval in the LTSC, based on the assumption that the PARs pass.
