eBook Release - xAPI And Cmi5: Plan Now For The Future Of eLearning

Free eBook - xAPI And Cmi5: Plan Now For The Future Of eLearning
Summary: What is xAPI? How does cmi5 modify xAPI? Are you ready to move on from SCORM and plan for the future? Download LearnUpon's eBook about xAPI and cmi5 to find out more.

xAPI And Cmi5: Plan Now For The Future Of eLearning

Over the last couple of years, xAPI has emerged as the hot new standard for delivering online training. xAPI is often described as the next evolution of SCORM. While the SCORM standard isn’t going away anytime soon, xAPI has redefined some of the fundamental practices of tracking learning experiences. But what is xAPI? And why do so many experts believe it will soon become the default standard for eLearning content?

SCORM has been through many iterations. While it has evolved, its primary issue is that SCORM 1.2 (only the second version in its history, released in 2001) remains the specification commonly implemented with authoring tools and learning management systems. This indicates that, while SCORM is embedded in the industry and will be around for some time, development has stalled and other standards have an opportunity to step in. Other standards have emerged to challenge SCORM. Although xAPi was not originally designed to replace SCORM by itself but, with some further developments, it may have a part to play in doing so.

The eBook xAPI And Cmi5: Plan Now For The Future Of eLearning will explore how xAPI has risen as a challenger, and why now with cmi5 it has every chance of fulfilling SCORM’s original potential.

xAPI: The Basics

xAPI ecosystem
xAPI, which is also known as the Tin Can API, was officially released as version 1.0 in April 2015. Rustici initially chose the name “Tin Can” to describe the two-way conversations the technology would track as it made it easier for learning systems to communicate with each other. Upon it’s official release the name became the experience API -or xAPI- because of its focus on the learner’s experience

In the past, eLearning was set up to capture and measure the activities of learners against a very linear backdrop. This however does include areas where a person may have learned from ‘experiences’ outside of standard training. xAPI is doubling down on the principle that learning opportunities reside everywhere and that they come in many different forms, so you should track the full learning experience.

Enter cmi5

The cmi part of cmi5 stands for ‘computer managed instruction’, and it is essentially an extra set of rules that harnesses the benefits of xAPI (primarily to enable the capture of eLearning data from anywhere) whilst also adding focus to its otherwise broad, overly flexible specification. It is a profile of xAPI. The cmi5 specification helps to define the package specification for courses that are imported to an LMS and are using xAPI.

Ben Clark of Rustici Software has described how cmi5 augments xAPI as follows:

“xAPI is wide open, there’s so much this standard can do that people don’t know what to expect out of it and they don’t know how to track certain things consistently. cmi5 is there to put some of the rules back on top of xAPI. And even though the new standard does have more rules and provides more structure, Instructional Designers still have a wide open field to track whatever they want to.”

Being pitched as the true next generation of SCORM, cmi5 has started to gather momentum. As ADL have taken over the cmi5 specification there is a suggestion that this will prompt further evolution. With cmi5, ADL are writing the packaging and structuring specification that xAPI failed to cmi5 originated in 2010 as a project with the AICC. It’s purpose was to replace both AICC and SCORM in an effort to modernize and fix the standards used for eLearning content. The basis of the communication was originally a SOAP architecture. Eventually AICC agreed to focus on an xAPi profile as it had far more applications with that spec than it would with AICC. So the SOAP-based architecture was replaced with xAPI and the project was transferred to ADL. AICC subsequently disbanded in 2014.

What You Will Learn In The eBook xAPI And Cmi5: Plan Now For The Future Of eLearning 

In xAPI And Cmi5: Plan Now For The Future Of eLearning you will learn about:

  • What is xAPI?
  • How does xAPI work?
  • Should you use xAPI?
  • What is cmi5?
  • What are cmi5 benefits?

Download this full eBook xAPI And Cmi5: Plan Now For The Future Of eLearning and discover that xAPI is an eLearning standard that allows you to track learning activities of any kind, online or offline.

eBook Release: LearnUpon LMS
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