As adoption of xAPI takes hold, the convergence of working and learning offers instructional designers the opportunity to do more than ever before. xAPI allows for more robust tracking of the learning process, including learning that happens outside the LMS and on the job. As actual data is integrated with learning metrics, you can tailor the process to individual needs and draw useful conclusions about the learning as a whole.

You’ve spent lots of time and money on your most recent L&D project. Now executives want to know: “Was it effective? What’s the ROI?” Do you know how to answer? If the answer is “no,” you’re not alone. One of the things many instructional designers struggle with is the dreaded evaluation. Even those who know the theory inside and out often struggle to put it into place.

Many learning and development professionals are shifting away from an overreliance on outcome-based evaluation models, such as the Kirkpatrick evaluation model, in favor of advanced evaluation models that drive actual use of findings and organizational learning. If you’re in the beginning stages of this transition, though, you may be wondering what other approaches are out there and how best to translate them from theory to practical use.

You’re excited about the promise of an xAPI-enabled world, but you’ve got a learning management system, a catalog full of SCORM-based courses that you need, and a handful of learning tool vendors that don’t use xAPI. What if you could get the most out of an LMS and an LRS at the same time as you move to your next-generation learning and performance infrastructure?

Good courseware will use multiple elements such as video, audio, interaction, and good old-fashioned reading. You struggle to balance all of it until it’s a finely harmonized symphony of information, waiting for a person to take it all in. But are any of those activities or videos you’ve worked on actually helping anyone learn? How can you show the relationship between the activities and performance?

The Experience API is a marvelous enabling technology that can give you a rich picture of an individual’s learning path. Since it captures experiences in a consistent format, it opens the door for mobile, social, or offline learning. But xAPI is a terrible place to start when writing an RFP. It should not be the reason you’re buying software. xAPI is a feature—you should be buying a solution.

Business leaders expect learning efforts to deliver impactful results while minimizing disruptions to key processes. They expect performance to improve—not for learning to become more effective—and for learning practitioners to demonstrate results for learning. They also expect L&D to seamlessly integrate learning into business activities while effectively minimizing the use of available resources. Because of this, learning practitioners are entering a brave new eLearning world full of creativity and opportunities to drive integrative business value.

After the blood, sweat, and tears you put into designing a learning experience, how do you know it made a difference? Ideally, you can measure Kirkpatrick Levels 1 ­– 4 following your education and be confident of your impact. More often, measuring changing behaviors in the real world is trickier due to issues like cost, or access, inherent in many performance environments (e.g., healthcare). What tools can bridge that gap?

As learning systems mature, there is an even stronger need to personalize and integrate them. This is possible thanks, in part, to APIs (application programming interfaces). Many learning professionals hear about APIs in their daily workflows but don’t know much about them, which prevents them from being able to comprehend the true potential of these important features.