The Experience API (xAPI) has been in production for more than a year now, and it is becoming more important for training and development teams to learn the ABCs of this important new set of technologies and approaches to tracking and reporting.

Free tools like Google Analytics can reveal important characteristics about online learner behavior, and help instructors and course developers make confident design and technology decisions. With a thoughtful analytics implementation derived from course learning goals, instructors can better understand what aspects of their course were successful and communicate this story to their businesses and institutions.

Medical education in North America is taught in a decentralized manner with in-class coursework delivered in small blocks and students gaining learning experiences in hospitals and other institutions outside of the university. Medical schools need a way to capture and analyze these experiences to get a true picture of a student’s readiness to treat patients. Furthermore, learning requirements are set to change for medical residents from set-year programs to a competency-based model. Current LMSs alone aren’t able to tie outside experiences to competencies.

Competency-based education within the University of Wisconsin System’s Flexible Option program allows students to demonstrate mastery of a subject area and earn a degree without adhering to a rigid course schedule. This shift in higher education is part of a larger move away from learning measured by seat time or credit hours to an evaluation of learning outcomes.

Regardless of your industry or job focus, learning management systems remain the central focus for corporate learning and the foundation upon which most types of traditional, informal, social, and mobile learning is built, deployed, and tracked. With numerous industry analysts announcing the death of the LMS, you can't afford to miss this critical update for today’s learning leaders, business decision makers, LMS administrators, and learners of all types.

Every year, we spend millions of dollars on training and development. One of the ways we can determine the value achieved is by using analytics to assess who is using the content, where, when, and how. But with all this data available, which data points matter? Deciphering the ways to analyze a program’s effectiveness can be confusing. And just because we have a lot of data, does that really make any of it valuable? 

Tracking learning and performance activities to be able to analyze them and interpret their value has always been a desire of learning professionals. Having this information naturally leads to the opportunity to refine the effectiveness of the learning experiences. Until now, this has been time and cost prohibitive.