Presenting The Benefits Of xAPI
Chances are you might also know that all of these terms refer to not three, but one single eLearning software or tech, which can help track, store, customize, and enhance online learning activities, both offline and online, making things much more efficient and easy when it comes to corporate eLearning. So what is xAPI, and how can it help track employee learning and performance? That’s what we’ll discuss in this article.
xAPI has made it into every recent eLearning trends list, and for good reason. It can help track online learning (eLearning) activities of employees and can improve learning analytics tremendously. What’s more, it’s easily integrated into any Learning Management System (LMS) and can even offer support to various digital learning approaches like social learning, team-based learning, gamified learning, etc. Let us now understand the various benefits xAPI offers in detail.
Tracking Employee eLearning Activities
Integrating xAPI into an organization’s eLearning framework helps track stats like multiple test scores, pages viewed, time spent, games and simulations, detailed test results, to name a few. What’s even better, xAPI can help track learners’ individual answers to assessment questions, results from every question attempt as well as the text learners feed to an open input question in any form of eLearning, be it interactive learning, offline learning, blended learning, social learning, mobile apps or team-based learning activities, as mentioned before. This can help build a clearer picture of the learning happening in the organization, and whether it is positively impacting the organization’s business. This way, it can be ascertained which eLearning courses or even single activities work best and which need to be discarded. Consequently, better eLearning courses are built.
Improving eLearning Analytics
Learning analytics is defined as the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimizing learning and the environments in which it occurs. The end-goal here, of course, is training employees better, so they can perform better and contribute to an organization’s growth. xAPI is, at its core, an interoperability specification that allows learning technologies to talk to one another. All the data xAPI collects is stored in an LRS (Learning Record Store), which can either be built seamlessly in a Learning Management System (LMS) or accessed separately. Having an LMS with a pre-built-in LRS is, of course, preferred as it can offer support to xAPI online training content while also performing the functions of an LMS to manage learning delivery. An LRS helps in easily creating leaderboards (if gamification of eLearning courses is desired), and can also help generate learning paths for individual learners based on how learners fare in assessments as well as other measurements stored in it (if adaptive learning is desired).
Supporting Modern eLearning Tools and Approaches
eLearning today utilizes a manner of tools and approaches including mobile learning. What this means is that xAPI can track learning stats and details even when employees/learners are using portable devices like smartphones, tablets, and laptops to access eLearning courses. As mentioned before, tracking happens both online and offline. Another great feature of xAPI is that data from old learning systems can be transferred to xAPI.
Thus, xAPI accomplishes the following things:
- It helps in connecting learning outcomes to business goals or objectives by helping organizations see a direct link between an employee’s learning journey and their progression.
- It reduces waiting time by creating a continuous feed to a Learning Record Store [LRS], storing xAPI statements concerning user activity, learning, behavior and, performance.
- It supports on-the-go or mobile learning by allowing users to access their learning platform anywhere, anytime while also tracking it.
- It helps personalize eLearning programs and courses by enabling them to access readily available content recommended for them without first having to sift through loads of content most of which is irrelevant to them.
- It makes eLearning a lot easier and more efficient and it is way better and much less prone to error than previous counterparts like SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model).
So, what are you waiting for? Make employee Learning and Development much smoother in your organization by integrating xAPI into your eLearning framework today.
