Use Cases

How are folks using the Experience API?

Litmos LMS

Litmos is a web based, SCORM certified LMS that now includes support for the Experience API via an installed Learning Record Store. As a xAPI adopter, Litmos is now able to receive and store xAPI statements from LMS launched courses, courses launched outside of the LMS, mobile and web apps, other Learning Record Stores and more. Litmos realizes that learning experiences happen everywhere (not just in the LMS) and they want to give their users the ability to easily track these experiences.

Tappestry

This little iOS app packs a power punch in metacognition and informal learning that can have a long reach, because it uses xAPI. Tappestry encourages people to reflect on their daily experiences to sort out what they did and how they learned from it. The app collects what was learned, photos, people involved, ratings, and categories. It also connects to social networks. Each Tappestry entry creates a xAPI statement that is sent to our Cloud LRS with the noun, verb, object and extension information for each event.

Learning events in Tappestry are shared among the person’s social connections in the app, or publicly. One use for this is a community of practice, where members are all passionate about the topic and curious to see what activities and content their peers are finding the most valuable. The statements of these events could be shared to any other LRS and analyzed to help the person start learning from where they are, rather than starting from the beginning and repeating information because one system is unaware of the other.

MapDeck

MapDeck aggregates all of the powerpoint slides from all the presentations at a single event, and makes them searchable. It also allows users to choose and order specific slides in an exported ppt deck or html flipbook to create their own personal conference reference deck.

Most of the possible actions in the interface generate xAPI statements. These statements include searching, selecting, reordering, previewing, creating, and sharing slides. These statements also include whether the user was on a computer or mobile device, a direct reference to each slide involved in the statement, the type of output for the mashed-up deck (HTML or PPT). These statements allow many possibilities for analysis of the person’s journey through the tool as well as which slides and topics held the most interest. Sharing these statements to another LRS can enable the other system to see what information the person has been exposed to and where their interest areas lie to propose better learning options.

MediaTechnics: BookOnPublish Multimedia Digital Publishing System

For over 15 years, BookOnPublish has been used to create innovative multimedia and interactive digital textbooks including eleven digital editions of the best-selling title, New Perspectives on Computer Concepts. Multimedia textbooks have proven to be both effective and popular with students and instructors, but getting results back to a SCORM-based LMS has always been something of a problem. xAPI technology eliminates that problem as it makes it possible for LMS/LRS systems to accept results from external activities, including BookOnPublish content running on a publisher’s server, a Mac or PC,or an Android or iOS tablet or smart phone.

BookOnPublish is currently being extended to support delivery of student results to xAPI compatible LRS systems so students can learn anywhere, anytime, and on almost any device, with results seamlessly delivered to the instructor’s preferred LRS using xAPI technology.

OnPoint Digital

OnPoint Digital provides an end-to-end solution for content creation, delivery and tracking to workers via virtually any delivery method including online, mobile devices, popular eBook readers, smart TVs and more. Formal learning assignments and informal learning interactions can be accessed via any Internet-connected computer, a mobile web app, or any of their highly customized native mobile app frameworks supporting all market-leading mobile and fixed location computing devices.

OnPoint Digital has worked with ADL and Rustici Software teams for more than a year, helping to shape the use of the Experience API especially in the areas of content tracking and informal social interactions. Version 5.0 of the OnPoint Learning & Performance Suite, a full featured LMS/LCMS released in July 2012, extends the functionality of their previous offline SCORM players by adding new Experience API support features that can track, trap and manage xAPI statements spawned from learning content, social interactions and other xAPI-aware functions. The v5 platform features an integrated Learning Record Store (LRS) as well as new support for xAPI-based game mechanics reporting using their new gamification feature set.

OnPoint’s CellCast Solution, a leading enterprise mobile learning platform, also offers Experience API support for tracking mobile learning activities.

Rustici Software

We take ping pong pretty seriously around here. We keep an office-wide “pong ladder” to keep track of the current office rankings. (Tim usually holds the top spot.)

This ladder used to be kept on a white board next to the pong table. Really scientific, huh? Well, over the past few months we decided that we should use the Experience API to start tracking our company’s pong results. Whenever a match is finished, the results are entered on a computer, and a xAPI statement is generated and stored in our public LRS, where you’ll find some statements like this: “Chris Tompkins experienced ‘Beating Tj at Rustici PingPong'”.

This is a good example of how one can track “real world” activities with xAPI.

Now we have a digital record of every pong match that happens. We can query the LRS and see everyone’s entire pong history. We can pick out certain milestones and matches that caused someone to improve. We can see which “training partner” works best in helping a specific person improve their skills.

What are some other things that can be done with the Experience API?

• Natural curiosity: A person can interact across tools (Twitter, blogs, articles, etc) and all of the activities could be captured in one place. Analysis can show a sum of activities that suggests more learning than its parts.
• Sometimes you just know the answer: A person can answer a question and receive a high community rating for the answer, showing they have knowledge in that area. This was a previously untrackable event suggesting knowledge that would have been missed, until now.
• Free-range learning: Learning happens everywhere and in many contexts. Mobile applications are well supported by the Experience API, people are freed from their computers because statements can be made from anywhere with or without a connection. Ask us about the xAPI iOS library. It makes things easy, really easy.
• Devices get responsibilities: A device can make a statement about the learner’s activities at certain checkpoints that show progress along a curriculum. Think of a car reporting when a student has completed the required practice time to receive a full license.
• Games matter: A lot is learned from a game, especially a serious game. The structure, progress, and achievements in a game are well suited to xAPI statements. The activities in a game experience can be collected and included a larger body of knowledge, giving games the credit they deserve.