SXAPI101 The Crawl, Walk, Run Methodology for Adopting Learning Analytics
10:00 AM - 10:45 AM Wednesday, October 24
Expo Hall: xAPI Central Showcase Stage
xAPI, big data, and analytics for learning and development have been revolutionizing the way training professionals build and evaluate their development programs. Implementing learning analytics for the first time can be a big task—especially where there are many business systems from which you need to collect data. Having a clear process to implement can help accelerate the outcome L&D has been waiting for: tying learning activities to quantifiable business outcomes.
Using a crawl, walk, run methodology can be invaluable in implementing learning analytics for your organization and gaining buy-in for this new technology. In this session, you’ll learn the basis of the crawl, walk, run methodology and how to gain quick data-driven wins within your organization. Within each step, you will discover how to easily incorporate Experience API (xAPI) to start getting rich behavioral data on learning activities. Finally, you’ll explore client case studies that parallel each step of the methodology that you can relate to your journey as well.
In this session, you will learn:
- The basis of the crawl, walk, run methodology
- How to implement xAPI easily within each step
- From client case studies that clearly parallel each step of the methodology
Audience:
Novice to advanced managers and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).
Technology discussed in this session:
Learning record stores, Experience API (xAPI), and learning analytics.
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David Keezel
Market Director
Riptide Software
David Keezel, a market director at Riptide Software, is a 23-year IT professional who spent the first decade of his career designing, building, and deploying technology for a large healthcare system. His last 12 years have been focused on business development, sales, and marketing for software companies that have served healthcare, financial, hospitality, retail, public safety, and government markets. David’s passion is solving real business problems with proven technology, along with leading and mentoring the next generation of workforce professionals.
106 Investigating Performance: Using Your Data Effectively
10:45 AM - 11:45 AM Wednesday, October 24
Montego DE
Access to learning-related data has grown dramatically over recent years. But just because you have a large volume of data doesn’t mean it necessarily provides value. While tools like xAPI make it increasingly easy to acquire data about learners’ activities, this information provides little benefit if you don’t know how to design to acquire meaningful data, interpret that data, or improve your learning design based on what you’ve discovered.
In this session, you’ll dive deep into how data should shape your learning systems design, including exploring the basic principles of how to use data effectively and how to design to provide meaningful feedback. To do this, you’ll look at outside inspiration from fields that are already doing this well: user experience design (UXD), web analytics, and business intelligence. You’ll also uncover some of the pitfalls of data collection and analysis, discuss using both qualitative and quantitative data, and address the difficulties inherent in finding valid measurements of learning.
In this session, you will learn:
- How to use your data and analytics to improve course design
- How to design to gather meaningful data
- How to define your learning data needs based on business and learning objectives
- Lessons, from fields like business intelligence and web analytics, about how to apply data principles to learning design
- Data analysis lessons from fields including business intelligence and web analytics
Audience:
Designers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).
Technology discussed in this session:
Experience API (xAPI).
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Sean Putman
Vice President of Learning Development
Altair Engineering
Sean Putman, a partner in Learning Ninjas, has been an instructor, instructional designer, and developer for over 15 years. He has spent his career designing and developing training programs, both instructor-led and online, for many different industries, but he has had a strong focus on creating material for software companies. Sean has spent the last few years focusing on the use and deployment of the Experience API (xAPI) and its effect on learning interventions. He has spoken at industry conferences on the subject and is co-author of Investigating Performance, a book on using the Experience API and analytics to improve performance.
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Janet Laane Effron
Managing Principal
Four Rivers Group
Janet Laane Effron is a data scientist who focuses on the creation of effective learning experiences through iterative processes, data-driven feedback loops, and the application of best practices in instructional design. She has worked on xAPI design projects related to designing for performance outcomes and designing both for and in response to data and analytics. Janet’s areas of interest include text analytics, machine learning, and process improvement. She is also the co-author of Investigating Performance: Design and Outcomes with xAPI.
SXAPI102 Identifying Competency Gaps with xAPI Analytics and Dashboards
11:00 AM - 11:45 AM Wednesday, October 24
Expo Hall: xAPI Central Showcase Stage
A high-consequence pipeline operator in the US delivers a large number of safety and operations–focused training using test scores to document compliance and understanding. With pure SCORM content, their insight into the performance of users at an objective level was limited. Even though students passed the test on a topic, some objectives were failed regularly, identifying issues in content, test design, and training processes.
In this session you’ll learn how, after enabling content and tests with xAPI, the group was able to identify competency gaps and export xAPI data into Microsoft’s Power BI software, allowing them to create analytic dashboards to track which objectives were and were not mastered. Finally, you’ll learn how they overhauled the safety training program to minimize the importance of overall test scores and require learners to master each identified objective. Failure to master an objective results in a review of the content until the learner satisfies all objectives. With this additional insight, senior leadership stated, “The ability to see these analytics puts L&D in a whole new light.”
In this session, you will learn:
- How the group used xAPI to track student interactions and assessments at an objective level
- How they created a series of visualizations and leadership dashboards to identify which students mastered or failed different objectives
- How they tracked SCORM CMI interactions using a SCORM-xAPI wrapper
- How LRS data, along with student demographic data from the LMS, was automatically ported to Power BI using Microsoft Flow
Audience:
Advanced designers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).
Technology discussed in this session:
Microsoft’s Power BI will be discussed as one of many valuable business intelligence tools for analyzing xAPI data. Business intelligence tools can also be used to combine and compare xAPI data with other data sources for robust visualizations.
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Art Werkenthin
President
RISC
Art Werkenthin, president of RISC, built his first learning management system (LMS) in 1988 and now has over 25 years' experience working with LMS in the oil and gas, retail, finance, and other industries. Art is keenly interested in the xAPI specification, and RISC was an early adopter of this technology. Interested in expanding the xAPI to the LMS, Art has served for the past three years on the ADL cmi5 committee. In 2015, RISC demonstrated the first implementation of a cmi5 runtime engine embedded in its LMS. Art has presented on cmi5 at several conferences, including mLearnCon, DevLearn, and xAPI Camp.
STRS103 Learning Ecosystem Success: 5 Plain and Simple Smart Hacks
12:15 PM - 1:00 PM Wednesday, October 24
Expo Hall: Strategic Solutions Stage
Learning is an intrinsically human activity that happens in many places and in many ways. It doesn’t matter how great or feature-rich any one learning system is; learning will never happen in just one place. The modern learning ecosystem not only recognizes this reality but embraces it to support the learner wherever and however he or she learns best.
Getting started on the journey to a learning ecosystem can seem daunting. So technical, so expensive, so involved and exhausting! But it doesn’t have to be. In fact, you’ll learn five smart hacks for making your journey towards a more mature learning ecosystem easier. These are simple, do-able hacks. You’ll start with a definition of a learning ecosystem—both for beginners and advanced audiences—and get into real, simple, tactical activities you can consider now.
In this session, you will learn:
- A functional definition of what a learning ecosystem is and the reasons companies are implementing them.
- To choose interoperable tools to begin with. Even if you’re not jumping into an ecosystem yet, put interoperability on your requirements checklist for any systems you pick up. You’ll be so happy later down the line.
- To set up a learning record store (LRS). An LRS sets you up to future-proof and standardize your data.
- To make measurement part of your world. The old carpenter’s adage says, “Measure twice, cut once.”
- To have single sign on (SSO) in place. It gives your learners a seamless experience and standardizes reporting.
- To have a “launch-support-improve” campaign. It’s more than adoption at this point, it’s about using the learning ecosystem for one of its key advantages—setting you up for continuous improvement.
Audience:
Designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VPs, CLOs, executives, etc.).
Technology discussed in this session:
N/A
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Rose Benedicks
CEO
Dashe & Thomson
Rose Benedicks is a renowned learning design expert and CEO of Dashe & Thomson. She has won awards for her learning experiences and is recognized for her approach to workplace challenges. She excels in aligning learning with business needs and proving the ROI of well-designed learning experiences. She holds a masters in instructional systems technology from Indiana University, is a leading presenter in the industry, and teaches instructional technology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
SXAPI103 A Deep Dive on Implementing xAPI in Learning Games
12:15 PM - 1:00 PM Wednesday, October 24
Expo Hall: xAPI Central Showcase Stage
Dig-It! Games had a maintenance headache with a dated Cold Fusion data collection system and some data reporting into various applications in the cloud. The data was siloed and lacked any form of normalization to make it interoperable for aggregation and analysis. It was time to change old practices for new, and after a requirements gathering exercise, the team decided to prototype with xAPI. Existing xAPI profiles provided a solid baseline of verbs and activity types, etc., but xAPI contextual data lacked any form of structure. Most industries have a common vocabulary and standards, but xAPI profiles do not address context.
In this session you will learn how, with support from the National Science Foundation, Dig-It! embarked on a research project to create a methodology, tools, and vocabulary for using xAPI in learning games in one industry (K-12) that could be replicated in other industries. Find out how they created a framework for the xAPI specification that combined with existing profiles and libraries for a great launch point to address the problem. You will learn how the framework solved the silos and proprietary nature of learning data from games, and how within 30 days they had a pilot reporting learning data from a JavaScript game to a learning record store. Ultimately, it solved the main problem of creating a solution for collecting data, was basic, and created other challenges.
In this session, you will learn:
- How the team planned and developed the GBLxAPI.org open-source project
- How they developed a global vocabulary catalog with over 450 permanent URIs for use with the extensions and over 2,000 additional URIs for US-only standards
- About their API for Unity to simplify xAPI use in games and simulations
- How their data is now visualized in a third-party BI tool with widgets, dashboards, and export options
- How it’s now easier to share meaningful data with researchers, which ultimately could increase the use of learning games in industries
Audience:
Advanced designers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).
Technology discussed in this session:
Free Unity API for integrating xAPI into learning games and simulations developed using the Unity 3D game engine. Free Excel sheet for organizing and planning learning outcomes in learning games. Tools for reporting xAPI data, including use of AI bots.
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Stuart Claggett
COO/CTO
Dig-iT! Games
Stuart Claggett is the COO/CTO at Dig-iT! Games, a mission-based game developer and publisher with a goal of having a positive impact on education by harnessing the power of game-based learning. Stuart leads the open-source xAPI initiative GBLxAPI.org, which aims to simplify and standardize how educational games collect meaningful data for developers, educators, and researchers. He is also the co-researcher for developing the supporting context library catalog as a model for improving interoperability of data using xAPI. Stuart received the Hammer Award from the White House Office of the Vice President (VP Gore) for technology innovation.
206 xAPI: An Introduction for Instructional Designers
1:15 PM - 2:15 PM Wednesday, October 24
St. Croix A
As adoption of xAPI begins to take hold, it allows for more robust and interesting tracking of the learning process. As actual performance and results data are integrated with learning metrics, designers will have the necessary data to tailor the learning process to individual needs at the same time that they can draw more useful conclusions about learning as a whole across a wider population.
After a brief introduction to xAPI and what’s new about it from the instructional design side, this session will cover three key areas that impact instructional design: (1) identifying learning data needs, data sources, and meaningful visualizations that answer organizational and L&D questions; (2) making choices about infrastructure—how and when to work with your LMS, your LRS, or both; and (3) models for taking advantage of xAPI across a variety of learning vectors: formal and informal, social and private, formative and summative, predictable and variable.
In this session, you will learn:
- To identify new challenges in your work as an instructional designer
- To describe the impact that xAPI can have on your organization’s learning and performance strategies
- To identify data needs and likely sources within the organization to meet
- To choose one or more first projects that leverage xAPI’s capabilities beyond what’s available in SCORM today
Audience:
Designers, developers, and managers.
Technology discussed in this session:
Experience API (xAPI).
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Megan Torrance
CEO
TorranceLearning
Megan Torrance is CEO and founder of TorranceLearning, which helps organizations connect learning strategy to design, development, data, and ultimately performance. She has more than 25 years of experience in learning design, deployment, and consulting . Megan and the TorranceLearning team are passionate about sharing what works in learning, so they devote considerable time to teaching and sharing about Agile project management for learning experience design and the xAPI. She is the author of Agile for Instructional Designers, The Quick Guide to LLAMA, and Making Sense of xAPI. Megan is also an eCornell Facilitator in the Women's Executive Leadership curriculum.
SXAPI104 Beyond the LMS: Using xAPI to Measure Help Platform Usage
1:15 PM - 2:00 PM Wednesday, October 24
Expo Hall: xAPI Central Showcase Stage
The learning experience (LX) team at LLamasoft meets the learning needs of customers as they use the company’s software to solve problems. Prior to this project, they had limited insight into how internal and external users navigated the help system, and they were unable to analyze whether, and when, users watched the videos the team produced. Without this information, they could not measure the utilization and reach of their tutorials. They wanted to know whether this was a worthwhile investment of time, and whether users found the videos useful. Upon further evaluating the help platform, they realized that this lack of visibility extended to search terms and page views.
In this session, you will learn how the team mapped out key touch points within the help system from which to collect data and the code to generate xAPI statements. You’ll learn how they made a prototype where they added packaged scripts into the help system that sent xAPI statements from the HTML-based help content. Using xAPI, they could now see the search terms used, which helps them understand what topics users are really looking for. Insight into users’ video viewing behavior can help to show whether users are finding the videos to be useful, and what the reach of each video is. Finally, it allows for page view data about a user’s session, which provides insight into how they navigate through the system and helps the LLamasoft team accurately shape future developments and deployments of their software to customers.
In this session, you will learn:
- How the team mapped key touch points to create a strategy and collect data
- About their prototype for sending xAPI statements from help content
- How the data they collected allows them to conceptualize at a deeper level about the importance of looking at learning experiences
- About the impact of collaborative teams that provided a path to understand how learning materials affect the actual use of the software
Audience:
Advanced designers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).
Technology discussed in this session:
xAPI.
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Andrew McGuire
Learning Experience Designer
dRofus
Andrew McGuire is a learning experience designer at dRofus, where he specializes in developing engaging content and tracking learner experiences. He has been working in eLearning development for the past five years. Before joining the world of eLearning, Andrew taught English at the college level for seven years. He has an MA in English composition from Northeastern Illinois University.
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Ryan Hicks
Director, Learning Design and Education Services
Workforce Software
Ryan Hicks’ unconventional path to becoming a learning professional includes years as a musician and band manager, a BS in industrial engineering, and a decade in supply chain design. His balanced approach of optimism and skepticism has led to the development of multiple learning & development organizations and professional credentials. As a lifelong student, he embraces the adage that “change is the only constant.”
306 How Are We Measuring Learning?
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM Wednesday, October 24
Bermuda AB
Often, when companies are faced with an issue or problem, the solution they lean toward is training. With training being a billion-dollar industry, companies invest large amounts of capital in the development of their employees. One aspect that is often neglected, however, is measuring the impact of the training on the employees and the company.
In this session, you will learn more about how JetBlue University uses industry best practices to measure the effectiveness of their training, and how the company works closely with their design and development team to improve training programs for crew members.
In this session, you will learn:
- How JetBlue University uses survey data collection to obtain feedback from crew members about training
- How JetBlue University develops and measures crew member learning through knowledge-based assessments
- How JetBlue University develops and measures crew member learning through skill-based assessments
- How JetBlue University incorporates operational data to measure training impact in the operation
Audience:
Designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).
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Curran Merrigan
Senior Analyst, Assessment and Evaluation
JetBlue
Curran Merrigan is a senior analyst at JetBlue. He attended graduate school at the University of Central Florida and graduated with a master of science in industrial/organizational psychology. Curran began his career with JetBlue as an analyst on the assessment, measurement, and evaluation team. He was later promoted to a senior analyst position on the same team, overseeing more of the strategic assessment of JetBlue.
SXAPI106 Closing the Loop: When Learning Experience Meets Work Experience
3:15 PM - 4:00 PM Wednesday, October 24
Expo Hall: xAPI Central Showcase Stage
Halliburton is one of the leading global oil and gas services companies. It has more than 50,000 employees and 14 product service lines, which means any improvement in efficiency is a major win. Its oil and gas exploration clients and internal Halliburton employees use Landmark software to identify drilling locations and make technical decisions on how to drill, an activity that can take up to 40 percent of their work time. That’s why it’s so important to help these users learn how to best use this software: so they can not only find the best locations for drilling and make the best technical decisions, but also identify them more quickly by leveraging everything the software has to offer. In order to develop resources to help these users, it’s important to be connected to the field and to understand how people are working and learning. The better you understand the process as applied in reality, the better you can evaluate the data and see if you are missing anything.
In this session, you will learn how a Halliburton team approached the exploration of new, innovative learning strategies by first using an online survey tool with embedded video content from their Kaltura video platform and added questions to assess learning. You’ll then see how they combined the experiences from their Halliburton software, Kaltura video platform, and online learning activities into one dashboard using xAPI and the Watershed learning analytics platform. In addition to understanding how people are using the software, they can identify who isn’t and why. Through Kaltura and Watershed, they have a 360-degree view of what’s going on and how training has a real-world impact on users’ behavior.
In this session, you will learn:
- About Halliburton’s dashboard using xAPI and the Watershed learning analytics platform
- How Kaltura and Watershed provided a 360-degree view of how training has a real-world impact on users
- How they improved the way users interact with the software through training, as well as measured the training’s effectiveness
Audience:
Advanced designers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).
Technology discussed in this session:
Kaltura, Watershed LRS, and xAPI.
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Amir Bar
Global Advisor
Halliburton
Amir Bar is a global advisor for Halliburton focusing on knowledge and processes analytics. His experience includes building online learning environments and merging them with operational data. Outside of the oil and gas industry, Amir serves as a board member of the Houston Branch of the International Dyslexia Association (HBIDA) and an adjunct lecturer in the graduate school of technology and education at the Kibbutzim College. He holds an undergraduate degree in psychology with focus on industrial organization psychology and a master’s degree in human resource development (HRD).
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Yair Leshem
Sr. Director of Product and Business Development
Kaltura
Yair Leshem, the senior director of product and business development at Kaltura, has over 15 years of product management and business development leadership in global markets, various industries and a range of technologies—online video, SaaS, enterprise and higher education, cyber, mobile, and consumer electronics. Yair defines himself as a dreamer with a practical attitude and a realistic approach, focused on creating value, generating revenue, accelerating growth and delivering results. At Kaltura, Yair helps companies and education institutions increase productivity and bring more value to their users via various video products and workflows.
SXAPI201 Creating a Data-Driven L&D Team—an xAPI Case Study
10:00 AM - 10:45 AM Thursday, October 25
Expo Hall: xAPI Central Showcase Stage
From an organization-wide executive directive to become more data-driven, a retail corporate L&D team took an internal look at their own data practices. Realizing that they had an overwhelming lack of transparency into their learning initiatives and a great amount of data that had gone unused, the team developed a transformation vision to create a single system of record for learning to enable observability, granularity, and accountability for all team members. The team was committed to the vision of xAPI; however, the data and information they needed in order to make actionable change for their learners was locked away in non-interoperable formats, and they recognized the need to develop a data strategy and implementation plan.
In this case study session, you will see how the organization’s L&D team created an xAPI data roadmap to not only achieve early wins when it came to the executive business objectives, but also begin work on a scalable plan to build out a modern, flexible ecosystem that has the needs of learners at its center.
In this session, you will learn:
- About the data strategy development process
- How to connect an organizational goal to a department-level strategy
- What an xAPI implementation looks like from a planning and timeline perspective
- How data sources, integrations, and learning record stores work together
- What the results of a unified xAPI learning ecosystem can look like
- Best practices, look-fors, and gotchas in the xAPI implementation process
Audience:
Designers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VPs, CLOs, executives, etc.).
Technology discussed in this session:
xAPI, learning analytics, data dashboards, learning record stores, LMSs, data integrations, HRISs, learning tools, and data sources.
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Margaret Roth
Chief Customer Experience Officer
Yet Analytics
Margaret Roth is the chief customer experience officer at Yet Analytics, a Baltimore-based company that provides tools and solutions to improve learning and talent development. Margaret is interested in the development and design of connected learning environments that leverage xAPI and blended learning. Her background is in experiential education, curriculum design, teaching, and team development. She is the VP of community impact for the Junior League of Baltimore, a member of the SXSWedu Advisory Board, and a co-founder of EdTechWomen. Margaret received her BA in English and environmental earth science and her MA in teaching from Johns Hopkins University.
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Allie Tscheulin
VP Business Development
Yet Analytics
Allie Tscheulin is the VP of business development at Yet Analytics. She is passionate about demystifying the Experience API (xAPI), the open-source data specification, so professionals and organizations can get the most from their learning initiatives. Allie works with organizations to design, develop, and execute learning and performance analytics to better employees and learners alike.
406 Using xAPI to Personalize and Adapt Learning Content to the Learner
10:45 AM - 11:45 AM Thursday, October 25
St. Croix A
For so long, learning has been one-sided. Everyone gets the same course and same content, no matter what they have already learned or experienced. xAPI gives you greater details and insights into what the learner does, but where do you go from there? How do you adjust and change content based on learners’ xAPI history?
This session will not only cover how you can use xAPI data to track learning activities, but also how you can pull that data into your course to create a personalized and adaptable course that changes to fit each learner’s needs. It gives the right content to the right person based on what you already know about the learner.
In this session, you will learn:
- xAPI basic structure
- How to send xAPI statements
- How to get data back from the LRS
- What you can do with that data
Audience:
Designers, developers, and managers.
Technology discussed in this session:
xAPI and JavaScript.
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Jeff Batt
Founder
Learning Dojo
Jeff Batt has 15+ years of experience in the digital learning and media industry. Currently, Jeff Batt is a Learning Experience Designer for Amazon. He is the founder and trainer at Learning Dojo, a company dedicated to training you to become a software ninja in various eLearning, web, and mobile-related software applications. He was also the program manager of DevLearn for The Learning Guild. Jeff often speaks on developmental technologies such as xAPI, HTML5, augmented reality, mobile development, eLearning development tools, and more.
SELT202 Did They Learn It? Do They Know It? Can They Do It?
11:00 AM - 11:45 AM Thursday, October 25
Expo Hall: eLearning Tools Stage
Did they learn it? Do they know it? Can they do it? Most organizations use assessments as part of talent development initiatives, promotions, compliance, onboarding, or recruitment. The stakes are substantial: Decisions made based on the results can impact both the reputation and financial well-being of the organization, as well as the lives of its employees.
Well-crafted assessments (tests, quizzes, and exams) provide valuable data for evaluating and documenting the impact of your learning programs. Assessment results you can trust enable you to make powerful, informed, defensible business decisions. Join this session for a deep dive into all things assessment to ensure your programs are having the most impact. You will learn strategies for developing assessments that are both valid (they measure the right knowledge, skills, or competencies) and reliable (they are consistent in the measurement) to provide stakeholders with actionable, defensible results for informed decision-making.
In this session, you will learn:
- How to distinguish between different types and uses of assessments
- About reliability and validity
- How to analyze and interpret results
- How to improve the effectiveness of questions and assessments
- How to use assessments for improved learning outcomes
Audience:
Novice to advanced managers and senior leaders (VP, CLO, executive, etc.).
Technology discussed in this session:
Questionmark OnDemand.
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Julie Sherman
Business Development Director
Questionmark
Julie Sherman is a business development director at Questionmark and works with Questionmark’s global corporate clients to support their unique assessment initiatives, helping them to implement reliable and trustworthy assessments that result in breakthrough learning and the support of their overall business objectives. Julie has over 10 years of experience in the eLearning space and knows that the cornerstone of successful learning and performance is the effective use of assessments. Julie takes great pride in helping organizations prove the success of their training programs through assessment management.
SXAPI202 Don’t Just Repave SCORM Cow Paths with xAPI—Demand More
11:00 AM - 11:45 AM Thursday, October 25
Expo Hall: xAPI Central Showcase Stage
A hospital system had an instructor-led course that they needed to move online, but wanted to keep aspects of the learner-to-learner communication that was possible in the instructor-led course. The organization asked the SmartBuilder team to replicate this functionality in an online course by allowing learners to see live statistics showing how other learners answered the same questions. xAPI allowed the team to provide an innovative solution to this challenge.
In this session, you’ll learn how you can use xAPI to go beyond typical data tracking (e.g., score, completion, pass-fail) to report and analyze custom data. You’ll also find out how the less frequently used Activity Profile API can be used for learner-to-learner collaboration, and how the State API can be used for two-way communication with an LRS. This session will share some examples of both APIs in action and talk at a high level about how the content was developed, without using scripting.
In this session, you will learn:
- How you can send a variety of custom xAPI data to an LRS for analysis and reporting, without needing to use JavaScript
- How xAPI’s State API and Activity Profile API allow you to retrieve data from an LRS and share data across learners for polling, leaderboards and other collaborations
- How to use cross-domain communication between a local LMS and a remote LRS, so you can launch your content from your LMS while taking advantage of new xAPI capabilities
Audience:
Designers, developers, and managers.
Technology discussed in this session:
xAPI, SmartBuilder, and learning record stores.
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Robert Penn
President
SmartBuilder
Robert is the president of SmartBuilder, a provider of award-winning eLearning authoring software and services. Robert has over 15 years of industry experience creating eLearning solutions and applications. Prior to SmartBuilder, Robert led project teams at Gemini Consulting, helping to design and implement structural change programs for global clients. Robert also has hands-on experience in training and professional education through his work at Accenture, where he developed and conducted training programs throughout Europe and Asia on emerging technologies.
SXAPI203 Outside the LMS: Four Creative Ways to Send Data
12:15 PM - 1:00 PM Thursday, October 25
Expo Hall: xAPI Central Showcase Stage
Sometimes you have to get creative to gather the data you need for your digital learning project. xAPI opens up the ability to track all sorts of activity that happens outside the LMS, but sometimes the “how” of getting that data calls for a bit of creativity.
In this session, you’ll look at how to capture data about classroom sessions, simple sensors, images and paper worksheets, and surveys. You can use this data to provide a complete picture of activity on a learning transcript, in learning analytics, in personalizing learning experiences, and triggering other actions or assignments. Four simple xAPI-based solutions will be shared in this fast-paced session: a simple classroom session roster that sends an xAPI completion statement to an LRS; a SurveyGizmo approach that captures weekly progress updates and can match that data up with Slack activity data to get insights about team productivity; a mashup of RocketBook and xAPI that can record flip charts and workshop activities as xAPI statements; and a simple conference door sensor that lets people know when the room is in use and sends an xAPI statement to an LRS.
In this session, you will learn:
- About options for capturing data outside of an LMS using xAPI
- About real examples of using xAPI to track data in a wide variety of situations
- What xAPI statements were used to create these examples
- How to rethink what actions you can capture, both digitally and in the real world, with xAPI
Audience:
Designers and developers.
Technology discussed in this session:
xAPI, SurveyGizmo, LRS, LMS, and RocketBook.
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Megan Torrance
CEO
TorranceLearning
Megan Torrance is CEO and founder of TorranceLearning, which helps organizations connect learning strategy to design, development, data, and ultimately performance. She has more than 25 years of experience in learning design, deployment, and consulting . Megan and the TorranceLearning team are passionate about sharing what works in learning, so they devote considerable time to teaching and sharing about Agile project management for learning experience design and the xAPI. She is the author of Agile for Instructional Designers, The Quick Guide to LLAMA, and Making Sense of xAPI. Megan is also an eCornell Facilitator in the Women's Executive Leadership curriculum.
506 My xAPI Year: An Implementation Story
1:15 PM - 2:15 PM Thursday, October 25
Barbados AB
xAPI holds enormous promise for bringing data-driven decision-making to the practitioner’s level—if you can make it happen in your organization. Countless sessions attempt to address how xAPI data can assist with ROI, but few outline an actual implementation of xAPI from the ground up. So what does a real xAPI implementation story look like, and what lessons can you learn from it to inform your own use of xAPI?
In this session, you’ll hear the story of how xAPI was implemented in a highly conservative, risk-averse industry in one year. You’ll find out how Travelers training teams partnered to get buy-in from stakeholders, implement projects that proved xAPI’s potential, develop apps that lowered the barrier to entry for non-technical developers, and establish best practices for data capture. This is a story that people looking at xAPI should hear. Learn from these successes, avoid these mistakes, hear that it can be done, and learn how.
In this session, you will learn:
- About xAPI’s barriers to entry for non-technical training professionals
- Ways of making it easier to “do xAPI” without a lot of technical training
- About activity ID and data formulas that facilitate reporting, reduce risk of data overlap, and align strategy at an enterprise level
- About the different kinds of ROI that can be achieved with xAPI data
Audience:
Developers, managers, senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.), and application developers.
Technology discussed in this session:
xAPI, JavaScript, and learning record stores (LRSs).
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Becky Goldberg
Learning Analyst
Travelers Insurance
Rebecca Goldberg has been involved in internal training at Travelers Insurance for more than a decade. She’s worked on all levels of training planning, design, development, and delivery, presenting a wide range of topics (from application training to soft-skill development) to diverse audiences (entry-level to executive). She strives to deliver training products that motivate learners to seek out educational experiences, and which use technology as a tool for increasing knowledge transfer and retention.
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Marc Casavant
Learning Solutions Developer
Travelers
Marc Casavant is a learning solutions developer at Travelers. He is a dynamic web designer-developer and graphic artist with comprehensive experience building and maintaining engaging websites and web applications. Marc is experienced in hiring, directing, and mentoring junior designers and technicians, and his extensive volunteerism has led to a passion for helping others. Responsible for creating learning solutions for the Travelers Business Insurance talent development and learning team, Marc specializes in working across multiple disciplines to craft user-centered applications.
513 Five Components for Measuring the Impact of Learning
1:15 PM - 2:15 PM Thursday, October 25
Montego DE
The many ways to measure the business impact of learning are becoming increasingly sophisticated, yet many L&D professionals are struggling to even get started. Marketing departments are increasingly adept at measuring their contribution to financial performance, but why are we so much slower at proving our worth?L&D increasingly has to justify its existence, so how do we rise to the challenge?
In this session, you will learn how to use a five-step model for measuring the impact of learning. You’ll start by investigating ways to gather your data and discover that you can get started more easily than you may have expected. You’ll then explore strategies for getting to know your data and make sense of it. Next, you’ll find out how to operationalize your data in ways that are efficient and will save you from spreadsheet doom. You’ll follow that by looking at the options you have for exploring your data—how to look at it holistically, ask questions, and investigate surprises. Finally, you’ll discuss approaches for experimenting with your data and building on what you’ve learned.
In this session, you will learn:
- Current trends in learning impact measurement
- The role of data analytics in L&D
- The difference between traditional measurement approaches and big data
- How to build a great business case for future L&D investment in measurement
- Practical tips for getting results from your measurement and data analytics projects
Audience:
Designers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VPs, CLOs, executives, etc.).
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Rose Benedicks
CEO
Dashe & Thomson
Rose Benedicks is a renowned learning design expert and CEO of Dashe & Thomson. She has won awards for her learning experiences and is recognized for her approach to workplace challenges. She excels in aligning learning with business needs and proving the ROI of well-designed learning experiences. She holds a masters in instructional systems technology from Indiana University, is a leading presenter in the industry, and teaches instructional technology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
SXAPI204 Case Study: Tracking and Analyzing US Army Training with xAPI
1:15 PM - 2:00 PM Thursday, October 25
Expo Hall: xAPI Central Showcase Stage
This US Army Basic Rifle Marksmanship case study began in 2013 with a white paper discussing training challenges. There was no uniform mechanism for collecting the available data from the various proprietary live ranges, and data was often abstracted to the unit level. They wanted to find better ways to provide meaningful feedback and training at the individual level and have the ability to securely aggregate data sets for analysis. If data from live fire exercises could be captured, correlated at the individual level, and made easily available for data mining, then the US Army could benefit from a wide array of analysis focused on live fire training. In addition, trainees could receive relevant and timely feedback: not only detailed training records, but also automated feedback or remediation based on their results delivered on-demand.
In this case study session, you’ll explore how xAPI connectors were created to parse the proprietary training data into xAPI and begin to enable the data collection and analysis the US Army required. You’ll discover that these connectors are not difficult or complex, and they prove the ability to take training performance data from multiple systems using xAPI and an LRS. This program allows for a standard practice of capturing xAPI data from live marksmanship systems, but you’ll also see how this approach can be used in other business training situations. This case study is an effort of the Army Research Lab (ARL) with senior research scientist Greg Goodwin.
In this session, you will learn:
- How xAPI connectors can parse proprietary training data into xAPI
- How this system analyzes the data stream for performance patterns and provides feedback to the trainee
- How this approach shows the ability to provide automated tutoring
- About the parallels that can be made for any business training case
Audience:
Developers, managers, senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).
Technology discussed in this session:
xAPI and open-source big data tools (Elastic Stack/Kibana).
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Nick Washburn
Chief Product Officer
5th Logic
Nick Washburn, Chief Product Officer at 5th Logic, has over 15 years of experience working with high-tech entrepreneurs, in distance learning, and for some of the world’s top brands. Nick is a member of the workgroup that created the Experience API (xAPI), and he continues to work in and be involved in research and development for xAPI/LRS strategies for today’s learning enterprise. Since 2005, Nick has led the development of award- winning distance learning solutions used by the Fortune 50/500 and US Department of Defense.
SXAPI205 Using xAPI to Track Learning Across Systems
2:15 PM - 3:00 PM Thursday, October 25
Expo Hall: xAPI Central Showcase Stage
Kraft Heinz is the world’s fifth-largest food and beverage company, with over 200 brands in nearly 200 countries. The company needed a way to effectively disseminate information and train its workforce regarding its products, while also ensuring that the solution could dynamically change due to the short shelf life of the content.
In this case study session, you’ll see how Origin Learning was able to solve this challenge with a combination of two tools and xAPI. You’ll examine the team’s development process, how having a defined xAPI strategy allowed them to meet Kraft Heinz’s training and reporting needs, and key insights that you can bring to your own work.
In this session, you will learn:
- How to leverage the strengths of an enterprise CMS and LMS using xAPI
- How to track learner progress outside a pre-defined learning path
- About the future of eLearning, with a focus on xAPI
Audience:
Developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).
Technology discussed in this session:
xAPI, Microsoft SharePoint Online, and Cornerstone OnDemand.
Shanmugam Karuppusamy
Senior Director—Technology
Origin Learning
Shanmugam Karuppusamy, the senior director of technology for Origin Learning, is a seasoned learning technology professional with over 20 years of experience in roles in IT education, programming, and technology consulting. As a technology leader, Shan has handled large teams working on a variety of learning technology projects for Fortune 50 clients catering to industries including banking, healthcare, and manufacturing. He played a key role in teams that won Brandon Hall Awards for developing powerful mobile learning apps. Shan’s been associated with Origin for the past nine years and has spearheaded many interesting projects.
606 Evidence of Impact: How Metrics Drive a Learning and Performance Ecosystem
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM Thursday, October 25
Jamaica AB
Do the executives who fund learning and development care how many courses you have? Or how many students? Or the number of class hours you’ve delivered? Actually, they may react negatively to those numbers. Most of the time, when people are in training their productivity is zero. The key question is how to get to Level 4 and measure actual impact.
Learning and performance ecosystem solutions tend to be more direct, effective, and instantly available, especially when they include components built into the workflow. These solutions are capable of generating a good deal of data. The trick is to identify what data is most useful in building a chain of evidence that explains the solution’s impact on business productivity. This session will introduce a framework for identifying the right business metrics and targets, deciding what learning and performance solution data to track, and developing evidence of the solution’s impact.
In this session, you will learn:
- How to describe a learning and performance ecosystem
- How to work with a customer or sponsor to articulate a human performance problem
- How to discover the business metrics negatively impacted by the problem
- How to identify solution data that could provide evidence of positive impact
- How to use analytics to monitor the solution’s impact over time
Audience:
Designers, developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).
Technology discussed in this session:
Learning management, talent management, performance support, knowledge management, expertise location and management, social networking and collaboration.
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Steve Foreman
President
InfoMedia Designs
Steve Foreman is the author of The LMS Guidebook and president of InfoMedia Designs, a provider of eLearning infrastructure consulting services and technology solutions to large companies, academic institutions, professional associations, government, and military. Steve works with forward-looking organizations to find new and effective ways to apply computer technology to support human performance. His work includes enterprise learning strategy, learning and performance ecosystem solutions, LMS selection and implementation, learning-technology architecture and integration, expert-knowledge harvesting, knowledge management, and innovative performance-centered solutions that blend working and learning.
706 xAPI 201: Move from Experimentation to Mastery
8:30 AM - 9:30 AM Friday, October 26
Antigua B
You have a conceptual understanding of xAPI but don’t know how to graduate from playing with xAPI to using it for serious business. How do you handle security? Can you be confident that systems work together in a trustworthy fashion? What is a profile, and how does it allow for consistent meaning-making? This session will provide a 201 for xAPI so you can kick off your first project with confidence.
This session will address three core considerations to help you get started with xAPI: security, trust, and profiles. When it comes to security, you’ll learn the basics regarding authentication for both launched and non-launched learning content. You will learn how to build trust using statement signing, infrastructure, and encryption, which will help you rest assured when it comes to the veracity of statements. You’ll also learn the basics for using profiles in your organization so that you can create meaningful reports based on consistently expressed activities.
In this session, you will learn:
- Best practices regarding security, trust, and profiles, and why they are important for xAPI-based systems
- How cmi5, OAuth, and server-to-server communication affect security
- How to guarantee trust through statement signing, private keys, and encryption
- Best practices for leveraging profiles that allow your systems to make meaning from statements and explore the business impact of learning
- How to ask informed questions and assess vendors who support xAPI to ensure their platform suits your needs
Audience:
Developers, managers, and senior leaders (directors, VP, CLO, executive, etc.).
Technology discussed in this session:
eLearning standards (xAPI, cmi5, AICC, and SCORM) and their impact on eLearning platforms (LMSs, LRSs, gamification platforms, authoring tools, learning systems, etc.).
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TJ Seabrooks
Chief Technology Officer
PeopleFluent
TJ Seabrooks is the chief technology officer at PeopleFluent, where he leads the engineering and technology organizations. TJ is influential in the evolution of eLearning standards–he played an integral role in the contribution to two Broad Agency Announcements (BAAs) awarded to Rustici by Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative (ADL), and has been a key contributor to the xAPI specification since 2012. TJ has an MS in computer science from Vanderbilt University and a BS in computer science from Mount Vernon Nazarene University. He is based in Nashville, Tennessee.
806 Using an LRS to Unify Your Data
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM Friday, October 26
Antigua A
User data can be difficult to manage and track when using different platforms and delivery methods for your content. Data reporting across numerous sources can be disjointed, hard to centralize, and overwhelming to analyze in a meaningful way. Different LMSs don’t always provide user data in the same manner or use the same metrics; the same user taking the same course on different LMSs could create completely different user reporting.
In this session, you’ll discover how to use an LRS as a central repository for all user data and how that will benefit your builds. You’ll learn how to send data to an LRS using code. You’ll also find out how to centralize all data reporting and how that consistency in reporting structures increases efficiency and saves money when trying to extrapolate user data. Using two case studies, you’ll be able to see how even wildly different delivery methods can lead to consistent user data in the LRS.
In this session, you will learn:
- What a learning record store (LRS) is
- How to send data to an LRS
- How an LRS saves time and money
- How a flexible reporting system makes data retrieval and dissemination easier.
Audience:
Designers, developers, and managers.
Technology discussed in this session:
Learning Locker, XAPI, JavaScript.
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Tony Jimenez
Instructional Designer
Trifoia
Tony Jimenez is an instructional designer with Trifoia. Tony has been involved in eLearning for over six years, and has considerable experience in authoring software and various learning management systems. He has been integral in the building of online learning environments for Trifoia, including building courses for more than fifteen different grant-funded projects. Previously he was a security forces member in the US Air Force, where he completed two overseas deployments. Tony holds has two associate degrees from Lane Community College and an instructional design certificate from Oregon State University.