Most people in the learning and development field didn’t choose the profession because of a deep love for statistics, and few have ready access to data scientists for consultation. But the availability of an ever-growing body of data highlights the value of a fundamental understanding of data collection and analysis. Learning data will only provide valuable, actionable information if curated and evaluated strategically.

Too often, learning is evaluated based upon one of two measures: whether learners like it, and/or how much it costs to produce. Unfortunately, the former isn’t useful, and the latter isn’t critical. Yet, increasingly, actions will have to be documented, and measurement is key. There are meaningful metrics for learning, but they should be about whether they are helping the organization. Kirkpatrick, ROI, impact—to make sense of these, you need to know some core concepts.

Learning professionals all struggle to measure the transfer of skill from the classroom to the job, especially with geographically dispersed learners. Designers need advice on how to solve this measurement challenge and involve managers in the solution. How do you observe and assess your remote employees performing critical job competencies?

Digital badging is gaining traction in varied corners of the learning and development space from traditional academic environments to organizations and more. However, due to its relative novelty, there are some significant adoption barriers to those incorporating badging strategies.

Designing open and digital badges for evidence presented in curated learning ePortfolios, endorses and verifies the claims that a learner makes in this digital narrative—these claims are made against badge criteria and standards that have been co-designed by key stakeholders in the learning journey. Dartmouth College designed and developed badging to track the portion of a course that focused on digital scholarship skills where students could receive both a grade and a badge for each assignment, which would earn a progress badge, and completion of an entire training sequence or practice sequence would earn a completion badge.

How do you know if the money spent on training and development is worth it? One of the ways find out is by using analytics to assess who is using content: where, when, and how. Deciphering the ways to analyze a program’s effectiveness can be confusing. There is a lot of talk about big data, but what does it all mean? And just because there is a lot of data, does that really make any of it valuable?

As adoption of the xAPI begins to take hold, the convergence of working and learning offers instructional designers the opportunity and the challenge to do more than ever before. The xAPI allows for more robust and interesting tracking of the learning process, including learning that happens outside the LMS and on the job. As an instructional designer, are you ready to step up to this challenge?

Learning in an eLearning module is generally assessed through multiple choice questions, rather than measuring demonstrations of target behaviors. When you design eLearning, you build in knowledge checks. All too often, these quizzes are reading comprehension tests rather than authentic assessments of skills. You need to test the target objectives to ensure you meet the goal of the program.

SCORM, the xAPI, cmi5, and a host of other learning data standards exist and have widespread acceptance in the learning community. How can these standards extend beyond the learning world into the realm of enterprise technology? What the industry needs now is a distinct and real conversation on how to align learning technology with the technology used by the rest of the enterprise.

A badge is a symbol or indicator of an accomplishment, skill, competency, or interest. Badges provide evidence of learning that happens in and beyond formal learning settings. Unlike transcripts or resumes, badges give prospective employers, schools, collaborators, and other learners a more complete picture of knowledge, skills, and abilities of the badgeholder. As with degrees, certificates, and credentials, a comprehensive ecosystem surrounds and supports badges.

As the financial and operational benefits of big data become more apparent to business leaders, the demand for accountable and impactful learning is growing. Learning portals, MOOCs, the xAPI, social media, and collaboration tools provide new channels for learning delivery, yet most learning departments are stuck measuring the traditional four levels.