An overview of questions @MeganBowe and I recommend asking when considering your first big project with xAPI, and how the consortium that will steward xAPI will make this easier.

1. xAPI: Making Sense of
Industry & Practice
November 17, 2015
Megan Bowe & Aaron E. Silvers

2. How do I work with xAPI?

3. Competencies & Mindsets
Systems Thinking Integration Facilitation
A Maker Mindset
Assume you have permission to
tinker
Make, maintain and grow
useful connections
Surface goals big & inviting
enough to motivate action
Be The Change
Interrogate perceived boundary
conditions
Identify new paradigms
supported by both sides of
double-binds
Inspire others, modeling how to
navigate through shifting
paradigms
“Yes. And..”
Augment rather than change
discrete systems
Seek connections and overlaps
that add value beyond the
immediate context
Help others avoid negation

4. Who puts xAPI solutions together?
Technology Partners
Vendors, consultants, tool providers, etc.
Your Team
Stakeholders, team members, customers.

5. How xAPI solutions happen…
• Use a tool that is built with xAPI, natively, from the ground-up
( “Native” )
• Leverage an existing data source that is modified, extended or
translated into xAPI ( “Modified” )
• Build Your Own ( “BYO” )

6. Native Modified BYO
Technology
Partners
xAPI from
ground-up
APIs or other
data sources
that can
translate to xAPI
Whatever
You Want
Your Team
Balancing
wants, needs
and
sustainability
Creating &
maintaining
middleware
Practices,
Resourcing &
Scaling

7. Native Modified BYO
Technology
Partners
xAPI from
ground-up
APIs or other
data sources
that can
translate to xAPI
Whatever
You Want
Your Team
Balancing
wants, needs
and
sustainability
Creating &
maintaining
middleware
Practices,
Resourcing &
Scaling

8. Questions for technology partners
If there’s support for xAPI from the ground-up…
• What activities are designed?

9. Common Needs
Social Custom mobile applications Play existing courses Create new courses
Track/report progress
Off-the-shelf applications
integration
Testing Competency management
See the learner’s journey See content usage Work activities Sensors
Simulations Recruitment Compliance activity Reporting

10. Questions for technology partners
If there’s support for xAPI from the ground-up…
• What activities are designed?
• How are activities tracked?

11. “Recipes”
• Communities of Practice
• Controlled Vocabularies
• Domain Profiles

12. Questions for technology partners
If there’s support for xAPI from the ground-up…
• What activities are designed?
• How are activities tracked?
• What data points are in each statement?

13. Someone Did SomethingActor Verb Object
Context Result

14. Questions for technology partners
If there’s support for xAPI from the ground-up…
• What activities are designed?
• How are activities tracked?
• What data points are in each statement?
• How do I input or change endpoint credentials?

15. Prompt Hack Fixed
You’ll have a prompt to input one
or multiple LRS endpoint
credentials.
As an example, while there’s a
default configuration, there’s
JavaScript or other code as an
interface that can be amended
with knowledge of how the
technology works.
The technology is in a published
or executable-only state (a .exe
file, a .swf file — something
server side) that makes it difficult
if not impossible to change.

16. Questions for technology partners
If there’s support for xAPI from the ground-up…
• What activities are designed?
• How are activities tracked?
• What data points are in each statement?
• How do I input or change endpoint credentials?
• How does it rely on the LMS or other software applications?

17. Native Modified BYO
Technology
Partners
xAPI from
ground-up
APIs or other
data sources
that can
translate to xAPI
Whatever
You Want
Your Team
Balancing
wants, needs
and
sustainability
Creating &
maintaining
middleware
Practices,
Resourcing &
Scaling

18. Questions for your team
If considering a tool built with xAPI from the ground-up…
• Is what’s baked-in going to be enough?
• Does the right data align across tools?
• If not…
can we support our own unbiased reporting,
knowing the caveats?

19. Data Alignment Example
Storyline Lectora
Uses a fixed vocabulary to describe
a limited set of interactions with
xAPI
Allows for freedom of expression to
describe any interaction (or
operation) with an open vocabulary
for xAPI.

20. Data Alignment Example
Storyline Lectora
“Mark experienced Slide 19.”
“Mark read the contents of Slide 19
for 20 seconds.”

21. Native Modified BYO
Technology
Partners
xAPI from
ground-up
APIs or other
data sources
that can
translate to
xAPI
Whatever
You Want
Your Team
Balancing wants,
needs and
sustainability
Creating &
maintaining
middleware
Practices,
Resourcing &
Scaling

22. Questions for technology partners
If there’s support for APIs or other data sources that can translate to
xAPI…
• What APIs does the technology offer?
• Of these…
Can we capture the right activities?

23. Twitter maps easily, but…
• Should we use hashtags for
for context?
• Is location important?
• Do we need to track every
tweet?

24. Questions for technology partners
If there’s support for APIs or other data sources that can translate to
xAPI…
• What APIs does the technology offer?
• Of these…
Can we capture the right activities?
• What data will fill in the gaps in information we need?

25. Native Modified BYO
Technology
Partners
xAPI from
ground-up
APIs or other
data sources
that can
translate to xAPI
Whatever
You Want
Your Team
Balancing wants,
needs and
sustainability
Creating &
maintaining
middleware
Practices,
Resourcing &
Scaling

26. Questions for your team
If considering a tool built for APIs or other data sources that can translate to xAPI…
• Can we get enough from this/these APIs?
• How much value will we get from this system?
• What resources will we have…
• to do custom API development?
• to keep up our code with the different specs, ongoing?
• to build the translation layer?

28. Native Modified BYO
Technology
Partners
xAPI from
ground-up
APIs or other
data sources
that can
translate to xAPI
Whatever
You Want
Your Team
Balancing wants,
needs and
sustainability
Creating &
maintaining
middleware
Practices,
Resourcing &
Scaling

29. Questions for technology partners
If your technology partner will build whatever you want…
• What learning experience are you designing?
• What interactions are needed to support the learning experience
design?

30. Native Modified BYO
Technology
Partners
xAPI from
ground-up
APIs or other
data sources
that can
translate to xAPI
Whatever
You Want
Your Team
Balancing wants,
needs and
sustainability
Creating &
maintaining
middleware
Practices,
Resourcing &
Scaling

31. Questions for your team
If you can build whatever you want…
• What learning experience are you designing?
• What interactions are needed to support the learning experience design?
• What interactions are needed but don’t evidence or disprove the learning
experience?
• What recipes exist?
• What is the data model and information architecture it should conform with?
• What is our ability to support this at scale?

33. How do I vet technology
partners for xAPI projects?

34. When considering technology partners…
• Consider the know-how and investment of those who contribute to the
actual spec
(example: https://github.com/adlnet/xAPI-Spec/graphs/contributors)

35. When considering technology partners…
• Consider the know-how and investment of those who contribute to the
actual spec
(example: https://github.com/adlnet/xAPI-Spec/graphs/contributors)
• Consider those who can demonstrate xAPI interoperability
(example: http://tincanapi.com/2015/04/16/tale-three-lrss/)

36. When considering technology partners…
• Consider the know-how and investment of those who contribute to the
actual spec
(example: https://github.com/adlnet/xAPI-Spec/graphs/contributors)
• Consider those who can demonstrate xAPI interoperability
(example: http://tincanapi.com/2015/04/16/tale-three-lrss/)
• Consider those who stay current with the spec
(example: http://tincanapi.com/2015/04/16/tale-three-lrss/)

37. When considering technology partners…
• Consider the know-how and investment of those who contribute to the
actual spec
(example: https://github.com/adlnet/xAPI-Spec/graphs/contributors)
• Consider those who can demonstrate xAPI interoperability
(example: http://tincanapi.com/2015/04/16/tale-three-lrss/)
• Consider those who stay current with the spec
(example: https://github.com/aaronesilvers/IEEE/blob/master/
2014_State_of_xAPI_Tools_Survey_Responses.csv)
• Consider those who won’t lock you into one size fits all
(example: http://connectionsforum.com/case-studies/)

38. This seems like a lot… right?

39. Today's Adoption Challenges
For many, xAPI is really hard. Today, instructional designers, business
analysts, data scientists, engineers and front-end developers must do a
lot of manual labor to work with xAPI.
There are conformance quality concerns. There are lots of products
that claim to support xAPI, but how they use xAPI varies. Some vendors
build their support for xAPI in ways that are different from what other
vendors do, let alone different from the spirit and/or conformance with
the spec. This impacts data interoperability.
xAPI must scale across verticals. xAPI has applications beyond just
learning & development. To truly be useful to the whole enterprise, it
needs to be easier for businesses, vendors and consultants alike to
identify products that use xAPI the same way, and it needs to be easier
for everyone to follow best practices.

40. How hard is xAPI for Activity Providers?
• Conflicting vocabulary
• Profiles/CoPs/Recipes inconsistency
• Manual processes
• Content use cases are favored

41. Who's really using xAPI as specified?
• Most differences among the major LRSs
are easily resolved, but there are many
products claiming to be “xAPI
Compliant” which may not support xAPI
the way you’d expect, clouding xAPI’s
value proposition.
• Some Activity Providers (read: authoring
tools) take liberties with valid-looking,
but completely unusable, identifiers
for verbs and activities — this is
invisible to folks who use the tools but it
makes poor quality data.

42. Who's on the fence about using xAPI?
• In the US
• Industrial/Manufacturing
• IT and Business Intelligence
• Energy and High Stakes
Compliance

43. Who's on the fence about using xAPI?
• Outside the US
• Medical
• Financial
• Government
• Military

44. How do we address all that?

45. The Data Interoperability Standards Consortium
(DISC)

46. Starting in 2016, DISC will address...
Vocabulary Profiles Partnerships Certification Stewardship
• Federated registry
and associated APIs,
freely available for
individuals; fee-
based for products
• Maintained and
managed
• Schema to validate
profiles
• Recognize and
document
community-of-
practice activities,
normalizing profiles
by domain (vs global
approaches)
• Relationships with
stakeholder groups
wanting to leverage
xAPI in their own
specs
• Supporting interests
beyond just US DoD
• Identifies software
and hardware that
conforms to
requirements of the
xAPI specification
• Guarantees xAPI’s
value proposition
• Supports xAPI’s
relevancy to market
needs
• Provides resources
and vehicles to
support xAPI
adoption

47. RENEW YEARLYCERTIFICATION
Concept: Certification
APPLICATIONIMPLEMENTINDUSTRY KNOWLEDGE
Vendor is
interested in
offering a
product or
service using
xAPI.
Vendor
makes
contact with
DISC with
request for
information.
Vendor
develops
xAPI
functionality
in their
product or
service.
Vendor
applies for
certification
testing of
their product
or service.
Vendor
successfully
earns a
digital badge
certifying
product
authentically.
Vendor
renews
certification
annually to
keep current
with any
changes to
xAPI.

48. Workstreams
INFORMATION CERTIFICATION SPECIFICATION COMMUNICATION
Federated
Registry
Index of
Certified
Products
Maintaining
Requirements
Third-Party
Testing
Program
Maintenance
Strategic
Evolution
Communities
of Practice
Working
Groups
March 2017 January 2017 June 2016 January 2017 January 2016 April 2016 January 2016 January 2016
Supporting Vendors Informing Customers Delivering Market Relevance Engaging Contributors

49. Summary: Year One Deliverables
• Certification
• Requirements
• Licensing
• 3rd Party Testing Program
• Design and Development Tools
• Security Guidelines

50. So… what’s my roadmap to
begin working with xAPI?

51. 1) Describe the Dream
• What outcomes happen as a result?
• How are people learning or working?
• What problems are solved?
• How far out is this future?
• What might change beyond this?

52. Know Your Roles and Goals
• Who are you responsible for helping within your organization?
• What do they need help with?
• What and/or how do you help them?
• What do you want to be better?
• What do you want to learn about what is currently happening?
• What do you want to do differently?

53. 2) Define Gaps Between Today and the Ideal
• What capabilities exist vs. what capabilities are needed?
• What do people “do” vs. what they “need to do?”
• How do today’s business requirements match with business goals for
the ideal?

54. Sort Out Your Statements
Pretend you’re interviewing a SME for something you want to support…
1. What do they do first?
2. Second?
3. Etc…
• What do they do when they get stuck?
• How do they get unstuck?
• How does this activity play out when done well?
(what does good look like?)
• How does this play out when mediocre or subpar?

55. 3) Sketch It
• What are the workflows?
• How do existing tools support the workflows?
• What new tools are needed?
• How does this model fit with stakeholder expectations?
• What are the critical paths and how are they prioritized?
• How can this model be simplified/scaled/phased?
• What dependencies are inherent? What dependencies are external?

56. Gather Your Resources
• What tools do you have access to?
• Who is available, and with what skills?
• Which systems do you have control of?
• Which require approval to make changes?

57. 4) Put a Plan Together
• What is the technical approach?
• How will the system(s) and/or service(s) architecture work?
• What do the interfaces look like?
• How will success be defined?
• What is the project plan?

58. Prioritize
• Of the the projects you could do, what will positively impact business
objectives most?
• Of the projects you could do, what will positively impact organizational
culture and internal needs?

59. 5) Reach Out
aaron@makingbetter.us
http://makingbetter.us/