Your 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 analytics to improve course design
• How to design to gather meaningful data
• About the potential pitfalls of data interpretation
• Lessons, from fields like business intelligence and web analytics, about how to apply data principles to learning design

Audience:
Novice and intermediate designers, developers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
xAPI and data analytics.

Education providers know that taking online courses isn’t the only way to learn. They want to invent new learning formats and experiences that better meet their members’ needs. However, the types of learning opportunities trackable by traditional learning management systems (LMSs) is limited. The Experience API (xAPI) specification is flexible enough to track a wide range of experiences, but it’s a new technology, and barriers to adoption still exist.

In this session, you will learn how the American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST) uses xAPI to collect learning data from high-fidelity medical simulations, giving you a roadmap to adoption within your own organization. See how, in its Difficult Airway Management live-learning course, CHEST uses xAPI to send activity statements from Laerdal simulators to a learning record store (LRS) in its CourseStage Health LMS.

In this session, you will learn:

• About the opportunities xAPI creates for education providers
• About the advantages and disadvantages of xAPI compared to earlier technologies like SCORM
• How to decide what you want to track, and how to translate those objectives into xAPI activity statements
• About technological best practices for building your API
• Which factors to consider when choosing a learning record store (LRS)

Audience:
Intermediate to advanced developers, directors, and senior leaders (VP, CLO, executive, etc.). To gain the most benefit, attendees should be generally familiar with professional education, learning management systems, and SCORM. Technical and/or programming knowledge may also be beneficial, but is not necessary for comprehension.

Technology discussed in this session:
Experience API, REST, JSON, CourseStage QIE, CourseStage Health LMS, Moodle LMS, ADL LRS, Learning Locker, and Laerdal Airway Management Trainer.

Do you struggle with how to prioritize all of your training requests? Are you able to say no to some projects, or do you just take on every one that comes your way? Do you want to bring more rigor to the processes and strategies your team uses to accomplish your training goals? Then there’s a tool you’ll want to use to analyze your work and back up your decisions—data.

In this session, you’ll learn how to empower your team to make strategic plans and choices based on facts. You’ll look at how to determine what data will best support the decisions you need to make. You’ll then investigate how to collect and analyze this data in a dashboard to help you better recognize trends and identify areas of strength and opportunity. Finally, data is helpful, but only if you can share it with others effectively, so you’ll also get tips for how best to discuss your findings with your team and partners to get better buy-in and results.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to determine what data will best support your strategic decisions and project planning
• How to create a dashboard based on collected data
• How to recognize trends and identify areas of strength and opportunity in your department
• How to use this information to prioritize and analyze your training requests

Audience:
Novice and intermediate project managers, managers, directors, and senior leaders (VPs, CLOs, executives, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:
Microsoft Office.

Going to RFP (request for proposal) for an LMS can be a daunting process. With all the special protocols, the nondisclosure agreements, and the thick cloud of secrecy that envelopes all parties involved, it can be frustrating and isolating. But once you accept that there’s no avoiding the pomp and circumstance of the process itself, you can begin to strategically position your company to choose the right LMS.

In this session, you’ll find out how best to avoid the common mistakes that can be made throughout the selection process. You’ll get tips that can help you effectively communicate your needs to vendors, and you’ll learn how to wade through sales pitches to successfully evaluate your requirements. While this session can’t completely solve the complexity of choosing an LMS, it can make the process easier to manage and more productive.

In this session, you will learn:

• What steps to take before the selection process begins
• How to determine what you really need vs. want in an LMS
• Whom to involve in the process
• How to write concise RFP requirements that will communicate what you want to your vendors
• How to make the most out of your vendor demonstrations

Audience:
Novice to intermediate managers, directors, and senior leaders (VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:
Learning management systems (LMSs).

Rapid responses to “Code Blue” resuscitation events are critical to patient outcomes. MedStar Health has developed several training interventions over time to improve performance, but data from these activities were captured in disparate tools or not collected at all. Without a centralized method for analyzing data, understanding the impacts of different elements of the training program was not possible. This illustrates a common problem in blended learning approaches.

This session will describe MedStar Health’s journey in developing an ecosystem of tools to collect and analyze data from multiple training interventions, including eLearning modules, instructor-led training, a part-task training app, and in situ simulations. You will learn how the Experience API (xAPI) and a learning record store (LRS) enabled this approach, and about the successes and challenges encountered in adopting these technologies. The session will also illustrate how aggregating data from these learning experiences provides insights into training effectiveness questions, such as how usage of the mobile part-task trainer affects performance in high-fidelity in situ simulations.

In this session, you will learn:

• How xAPI can enable a flexible ecosystem of learning technologies
• How to analyze multiple components of a blended learning solution
• Why it is critical to formulate meaningful questions early in the planning process
• About the challenges of adopting an LRS and the resources required to do so

Audience:
Novice to intermediate project managers, managers, and directors with a basic understanding of xAPI.

Technology discussed in this session:
xAPI, Watershed LRS, mobile games, and Training Evidence Systems/xapiapps.

You’re excited about the promise of an xAPI-enabled world, but you have a learning management system (LMS) and a host of SCORM-based courses that you need. You’ll need to make some strategic decisions, stay flexible, and manage the transition over time. What if you could get the most out of both an LMS and a learning record store (LRS) at the same time as you move to your next-generation learning and performance infrastructure?

This session will quickly review what an LRS is and how it’s different from and similar to the LMS you already have. You’ll review your options when it comes to LRSs and how they work (or don’t work) with your LMS. Will you work with a stand-alone LRS? A front-end xAPI solution with a built-in LRS? Or an LRS that is aligned with your LMS and your current learning infrastructure? The decision you make here is a crucial one as you plot your organization’s course toward your next-generation learning ecosystem.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to identify the benefits of an LRS both in contrast to and in combination with your LMS
• How to evaluate your LRS options
• About potential options for your next-generation learning and performance infrastructure
• How to identify key partners in your business to engage as you migrate from SCORM to xAPI

Audience:
Intermediate to advanced designers, developers, project managers, managers, and directors. A basic familiarity with xAPI will be helpful, as this session will not cover “what is xAPI.”

Technology discussed in this session:
The Experience API (xAPI), learning record stores (LRSs), SCORM, and learning management systems (LMSs).

All groups within an organization need some way to demonstrate their value. However, unlike sales, L&D generally doesn’t have hard data to measure results. In the past, most learning departments have been limited to measuring only whether their users had accessed their programs—not the strongest metric of how their work contributed to the organization. But L&D isn’t the only group that faces these measurement challenges. Marketing also has similar barriers to finding data that shows its value, but some have found creative solutions to this issue. What can L&D learn from marketing when it comes to measurement?

In this session, you’ll uncover how the work of Nielsen, a company that specializes in marketing analytics, can help you rethink measurement in L&D. You’ll learn more about a Nielsen framework called “Reach, Resonance, and Reaction” that describes how consumers react to marketing campaigns. You’ll then explore how to apply this framework to L&D and get a broader perspective on your learning analytics. By the end of this session, you’ll have a new view on how you can measure and share the value of the work you do with your broader organization.

In this session, you will learn:

• What the Reach, Resonance, and Reaction framework is and how it applies to learning
• How to take a broader view of the learning process and how each part can be measured
• Which parts of the learning process have often been ignored by data analytics
• How to identify opportunities for capturing new data to support the Reach, Resonance, and Reaction model

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers, managers, directors, and senior leaders (VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:
This session explores analytics from a platform-agnostic perspective.

Analysts and L&D experts agree that there is a massive shift happening in the world of learning technology. Data suggests that the LMS category is in the late stage of eLearning’s product lifecycle, but what’s next? Analysts like Ambient Insight, Brandon Hall, and Bersin by Deloitte are in agreement that the market can expect to see rapid migration to “more efficient knowledge and learning transfer products.” Join this session to learn five key reasons why the LMS is failing L&D organizations; the role that the LMS can still play in a modern learning ecosystem; and when to consider a full replacement of the LMS vs. selecting add-on technologies to help modernize. You’ll also hear about examples of organizations that have successfully made the shift.

When a new LMS administrator joined Whole Foods Market, she found herself in a decentralized organization right in the middle of scoping out a new LMS implementation. In only six months she would need to take this project from the early stages all the way to a systems launch. While not everyone may face this exact situation, if you’re considering implementing a new LMS, chances are you’ll experience many of the same pain points and challenges she had to face to make the launch happen.

In this session, you’ll learn more about how Whole Foods Market made this quick LMS deployment work and what those experiences can teach you about implementing your own new LMS. You’ll get insight into the steps you’ll want to take to help your LMS launch run smoothly, including how to plan and manage the transition from a legacy system, conduct stakeholder interviews, assemble your launch team, create standard operating procedures, and gain the buy-in you’ll need for a successful deployment. In addition, you’ll explore how to navigate the unique challenges and opportunities you may encounter when implementing an LMS in a highly decentralized and collaborative organization.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to rapidly deploy a large-scale learning management system successfully
• Tips from agile methodologies to establish roles and responsibilities, prioritize your high-value elements, and start releasing slices as soon as possible
• How to modify your stakeholder interview process to ensure the right configuration decisions are being made for the organization as a whole
• How an LMS content audit can help you set standards in a solutions blueprint
• Why you need to define basic system governance

Audience:
Novice to intermediate project managers, managers, and LMS (or other platform) administrators.

Technology discussed in this session:
Learning management systems (legacy systems and new systems), Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, Microsoft Word, and Google Docs.

LMS rollouts are never easy, but add a global implementation and a tight timeline, and this challenge could seem insurmountable. But Intuit didn’t want to just meet the basic requirements of this LMS rollout—the company also wanted to see how a more user-centered design approach could make this system more approachable and enjoyable for its audience.

In this case study session, you’ll find out how Intuit made its LMS rollout succeed. You’ll take a closer look at the best practices, common pitfalls, and critical insights that the team learned from their experience with designing and delivering an award-winning learning program around their LMS implementation. In addition, you’ll see how delivering a high-quality user experience was a key part of their plan, and you’ll explore the necessity of thinking of your users first rather than last when launching an LMS.

In this session, you will learn:

• How Intuit launched an LMS within 60 days (and what you can learn from its journey)
• Critical tips on how to get buy-in from key stakeholders, including leadership and IT
• How to build a vision for your LMS implementation
• About the importance of building a user-focused experience

Audience:
Novice to intermediate project managers, managers, directors, and senior leaders (VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:
Learning management system (LMS) design.

L&D professionals often search for detailed, credible learning measurement coupled with an engaging and highly effective learning experience—a pairing that can be achieved only by revisiting L&D’s approach to creating content. By embracing the adaptive learning methodology, while continuing to leverage the sound instructional design principles and emerging technological innovations that have helped you succeed in the past, you can achieve a new level of training sophistication, intelligently adapting the learning experience to each learner based on their actions, decisions, and abilities.

This session will explore what true adaptive learning is, how deep learning measurement contributes to this approach, and how to leverage this methodology to enhance training engagement and effectiveness within your organization. To go beyond theory and into application, you’ll dive deep on two advanced case studies that show how adaptive learning has successfully been used in healthcare and finance. You’ll also discuss the emerging role of the learning architect and the importance this role will have in the future.

In this session, you will learn:

• What true adaptive learning is, including why it’s a crucial component in the next generation of training
• About the principles of adaptive learning that create highly effective and cognitively engaging training content
• How to avoid common pitfalls by identifying the keys to achieving deep learning data and avoiding the shortcomings in shallow measurement techniques
• How to communicate the value of better training design to business stakeholders

Audience:
Intermediate to advanced designers, developers, managers, directors, and senior leaders (VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

Technology discussed in this session:
Adaptive training development tools and big data technologies (including IBM Hadoop and various processing libraries).

Most eLearning designers and developers are starved for information about the efficacy of their solutions. Many of the existing models for evaluation and measurement aren’t easy enough to implement; and when they are implemented, they aren’t providing quality data.

In this session, you’ll learn more about why evaluation isn’t as effective as you want it to be and what you can do to improve it. This panel of experts and practitioners will look at the shortcomings of current evaluation models, discuss practical alternatives and solutions that can work right now, and debate what L&D professionals can look to do differently in the future.

In this session, you will learn:

• Why evaluation is so difficult right now
• What methods can be applied immediately to improve the feedback loop
• About evaluation options provided by new technologies and new methodologies

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers, managers, directors, and senior leaders (VP, CLO, executive, etc.).

The Experience API (xAPI) can improve the ways you create and deliver content, track interactions, and measure performance—and not just in theory. Years of momentum have resulted in numerous use cases for teams seeking to leverage xAPI to better track, measure, and manage their learning efforts. The challenge now is not whether xAPI can be used in your learning environment, but which ways you will choose to use it out of the multitude of options available to you.

This session will discuss what xAPI really is and how it’s being put into use today. You’ll explore how progressive teams are leveraging xAPI to improve learning, streamline tracking, automate tasks, and drive engagement via modern authoring tools and an LRS. You’ll also look at how LMSs are undergoing transformations to support these trends as well. Throughout this talk, you’ll uncover how authoring tools, LMS platforms, mobile apps, and IoT endpoints are being connected to leverage the power of xAPI. You’ll even take a closer look at the basic challenges teams face in implementing xAPI. Armed with knowledge and the proverbial Swiss Army knife of xAPI functions, this session will help you begin to “slice, saw, tweeze, and pick” your way through any training obstacles you face.

In this session, you will learn:

• Which authoring tools and learning platforms best take advantage of xAPI and cmi5
• What the basic structural and design tenets of an xAPI-based solution are, and the best-practice approach to implementing them
• About new use cases to apply tracking to nontraditional learning assignments and interactions
• About technical challenges you’ll need to overcome with LMS integration, security, mobile, and more
• About the importance of cmi5 and its future impact on learning

Audience:
Intermediate to advanced designers and developers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Examples of how xAPI is used within a variety of content authoring tools, how statements are collected using both integrated and remote learning record stores (LRSs), and how xAPI statements can be applied to traditional training and informal learning interactions.

Most eLearning tools out of the box publish to xAPI, but you still have to package up the course and upload it to your LMS, not really taking advantage of xAPI’s true potential of tracking learning no matter where the learning content may be.

This session will cover the basics of an xAPI statement: how to create a statement and how to trigger and send statements from Articulate Storyline and Adobe Captivate. With this integration, you can upload your Storyline and Captivate courses to any location and get a greater level of tracking through xAPI.

In this session, you will learn:

• About the basics of xAPI statements
• How to generate statements
• How to trigger custom statements within Articulate Storyline and Adobe Captivate

Audience:
Novice to intermediate designers, developers, project managers, and managers.

Technology discussed in this session:
Articulate Storyline, Adobe Captivate, and the xAPI specification.

Participant technology requirements:
Laptop running Articulate Storyline or Adobe Captivate.