Therewere more than 20 Experience API (xAPI) vendors at the Learning TechnologiesConference and Exhibition this month in London. As far as I know, this event isthe biggest learning technology conference in Europe, and the over 7,500attendees came from all over the EU and beyond.
The cleargrowth in the number of worldwide xAPI vendors shows that the specification issteadily gaining adoption. As an exhibitor, I asked nearly every professional Ispoke to, “Do you know about the xAPI specification?” Often the answer was “no.”However, I have been asking that question at conferences for the past threeyears and I am definitely getting more “yeses” at every conference we attend.As much as some of us are living and breathing xAPI daily, xAPI is still in theearly adoption phase—but it’s gaining by leaps and bounds.
London isa dense and busy place with much to do, but the siren song of xAPI and freebeer made for an excellent post-conference xAPI event on February 1. Thesold-out London xAPI Barcamp packed the reservedmeeting space of the Britannia Pub in Kensington (Figure 1) with almost 60people. The Britannia is a fantastic traditional pub with cask-conditioned “realale” and all the UK pub menu fixings, like haggis and Scotch egg. The event wasexpertly organized and run by Martin Cousins of LearnPatch fame. Martin wasthe local-to-London coordinator who put it all together.
Figure 1: The BritanniaPub, Kensington, scene of the London xAPI Barcamp
The 1.5-hour round-robin format Martin presided over had each of thespeakers seated at a table with 8 to 12 attendees for 10 to 12 minutes. Speakersthen moved clockwise to the next table and repeated their presentations untilall tables had conversations with each of the speakers. It was kind of likespeed dating for xAPI, and it worked! The conversation could be anything xAPI.Martin served as timekeeper; he would stand on a table, tapping his glass andkindly asserting, “OK, excellent, we must keep the speakers moving along … shutit! Time to move on now.” I think I laughed out loud each time we switchedtables. The challenge was that after 10 minutes of conversation, everyone’sattention was fully engaged and Martin had his hands full with the task ofgetting us all to stop the immediate conversation and get on to the next.
Figure 2: TheBarcamp in session
Commonconversation threads
Here are the key themes that I took away from the Barcamp:
- xAPI is still in early adoption, but interest is growingand it is becoming more sophisticated. Conversations are happening around thexAPI/learning record store (LRS) use case with forward-thinking people who knowwhat is possible and know what they want for their organizations.
- The interest from the market is growing, and key casestudies are coming online to build interest and trust from those on the fenceabout moving into the future with xAPI.
- The lack of adoption still seems to be tied to an “olderguard” in L&D that is less interested in change and/or technology. Duringone of my table conversations, an attendee stated the LMS industry enjoystelling customers what they can and cannot do.
- Interest at the Learning Technologies Conference and theLondon Barcamp reinforced that xAPI can help solve real challenges and bridgegaps between legacy technology and new technology for learning science andpedagogies.
One attendee noted that the different xAPI-expert speakersrotating from table to table all had their unique angle or lens on xAPI and thechallenges, opportunities, etc., they are facing. Yet they still did not hearany repetitive points or conflicting positions.
The speakers
The listof speakers participating in the Barcamp was a veritable who’s who in xAPItoday, most of whom are commercial LRS vendors. It really is hard to go wrongwhen you get a group of passionately committed professionals in a room andprovide free beer and appetizers. Overall, thefeedback was that it was great to hear from a broad group of seven differentxAPI practitioners on their view of the specification and the current state ofthe business and industry adoption. Thesewere the speakers:
- Aaron E. Silvers, designer, technologist, andstrategist (@aaronesilvers). Aaron helped develop SCORM, and he led and guidedxAPI to 1.0 release.
- Ben Betts, CEO, HT2(@bbetts). HT2 creates learning and performance software that changes the waybusinesses and individuals experience learning.
- Luke Hickey, CEO, DominKnow(@dominKnow). DominKnow is a learning company that builds software and trainingsolutions.
- Margaret Roth, chief businessdevelopment officer, Yet Analytics (@margaret_h_r). Yet Analytics builds xAPI/LRS experiential data technologies forhuman-capital analytics.
- Mike Rustici, CEO and founder, Watershed (@mikerustici).Watershed LRS and services provide expertise in eLearning conformance as wellas learning and development analytics.
- Nick Washburn (me), director,learning division, Riptide Software (@RiptideLearning). Riptide Elements’ product line helps customers providesmarter learning and analytics.
- Tim Martin, CEO, Rustici Software(@timpmartin). Rustici Software is the leading provider of products andservices to assist with xAPI and SCORM conformance.
Update on DISC(Data Interoperability Standards Consortium)
AaronSilvers is the president and executive director of DISC, and he provided a DISCstatement for this article:
“WithxAPI’s growing, global adoption and its uses across governments, militaries,healthcare providers, and higher education institutions, it is critical thatthis open and transparent approach to working with data continues to grow andmature. Being in the UK for the LT conference … highlighted just how broad andinternational the xAPI community is, with stakeholders, practitioners, andvendors wanting to work together and tackle big challenges. DISC members suchas HT2 Labs, Riptide Software, and Yet Analytics are champions of xAPI’s growth,and I could not be more thankful to be able to count on them as partners in theimportant work we’re undertaking together to grow the community and continue tomake xAPI easier to work with to deliver better insights, built on reliabledata.”
