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First steps to a learning analytics experience

Learning Analytics is defined as a “field associated with deciphering trends and patterns from educational big data, or huge sets of student-related data, to further the advancement of a personalized, supportive system of higher education” on the 2013 Horizon Report.

For this purpose, the Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative, best known as the stewards of SCORM, have been working on a new specification named the Experience API to facilitate the recording of all the learning events.

Tin Can API


SCORM has been the de facto e-learning standard for packaging e-learning content to be delivered to LMS but has some drawbacks that the new specification tries to improve. The Experience API (also known as the Tin Can API) defines a more flexible way to record the learning experiences. That is, taking the elearning out of the browser like on native mobile apps, a solid security using OAuth or the ability to track games, simulations or even real world experiences, among other improvements.

This API captures data, in the form of statements, about a person or group’s activities from many technologies. Then a central Learning Record Store (LRS) stores learning records from different platforms, and the data stored can be accessed by LMS, reporting tools, or other LRS to be processed and analysed properly.

Many companies and products, such as Blackboard or Sakai, have adopted this de facto standard already. So we’ll have an eye on it.


About this post

This post was first published on LibTechNotes, a blog from the Library team at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya to share our everyday findings, solutions and inspirations.

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