xAPI for Opencast: The integration of OC in modern Learning Analytics frameworks

Vincente Goyantes

The Experience API (or xAPI) - previously called called Tin Can API - is a specification for learning technology that makes it possible to collect data about the wide range of experiences a person has. This API captures data in a consistent format about a person or group’s activities from many technologies. Very different systems are able to securely communicate by capturing and sharing this stream of activities using xAPI’s simple vocabulary.

Previous specifications were difficult and had limitations, but xAPI is simple and flexible. It lifts many of the older restrictions and it’s becoming the de facto standard of the industry. xAPI was created by a community effort fostered and supported by the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) program, the United States Department of Defense initiative that created SCORM more than 10 years ago.

In this talk we will present the basics about how xAPI works, our current activity developing a xAPI plugin for Paella, extending the xAPI-video-core (the xAPI video-related vocabulary) to include multi-stream player events and, finally, making possible to integrate Opencast with the new generation of Learning Analytics tools