This document discusses getting internal buy-in for xAPI from various stakeholders within an organization. It outlines common challenges stakeholders may present and provides suggestions for how to address those challenges. Stakeholders discussed include C-level executives, managers, IT, learners, and learning and development teams. Suggestions focus on how xAPI can help meet stakeholders' needs such as improving performance, reducing costs, ensuring data security, and making training more engaging. Resources for learning more about xAPI implementation are also provided.
2. Our Assumption: You’re ready.
You believe “completions” don’t equal “performance
improvement”
SCORM doesn’t provide the data that you need
xAPI is no longer just a buzz word
Our Assumption: Your organization may not be.
AdobeStock 1198289_28006956
3. You have an uphill climb ahead
C-Suite
Management
IT
Students
Learning & Development
Vendors
7. How to succeed at sales
I have dog hair all over
EVERYTHING!
A vacuum cleaner
might help.
8. How to succeed at sales
I have crummy data
about EVERYTHING!
xAPI
might help.
9.
10. How this session is going to work
Here’s my
challenge.
Here’s how I
can help
with xAPI.
11. Teach our people to be
• “Productive”
• “Efficient”
• “Innovative”
AND PROVIDE EVIDENCE
Support the “modern learner”
Fix our ineffective tools
• Elearning
• Instructor-Led
• MOOC
Here’s my
challenge.
C-Suite
12. We can only improve what we
measure:
• Define behaviors & skills
• Measure in context with xAPI
• Data interoperability
• Feeds from systems, IoT
xAPI exists outside the LMS
Examine training activity more
closely so we can optimize it
Here’s how I can
help with xAPI.
C-Suite
13. Reduce training time and cost /
Minimize time away from the job
Improve performance
Improve employee retention &
engagement survey results
Here’s my
challenge.
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Managers
14. iStockPhoto 30393054
In-line training can reduce time and
cost:
• Allows learning & performance data
in one place
• Show the impact of learning on
performance
Continuous feedback loop
Purge all the boring training Here’s how I can
help with xAPI.
Managers
15. Don’t need any more solutions
to support
Must lower costs
Data security trumps user
functionality
Here’s my
challenge.
IT
16. cmi5 can help you “sell” xAPI
• Get rid of SCORM pop-up windows
• Distributed content
• Mobile friendly
• Learning context
To have cmi5, you must have an LRS
Here’s how I can
help with xAPI.
IT
17. Support
• Cloud Based options
• Easier than SCORM
Costs
• Free options (pilot project?)
• Can REDUCE system integration
costs
Security
• CAN be secure
• Ask your vendor
Here’s how I can
help with xAPI.
IT
18. Save me from boring training
Improve my performance
Don’t spy on me
Make my transcript relevant
Here’s my
challenge.
Learners
19. iStock Photo 16342268
Kill the boredom since we can track
more than just elearning now
• BYOD: micro, social, games,
simulations, adaptive, inline
Improve Performance
• Skill feedback loop
• Train for need only: personalized
Data privacy
• Don’t spy on me
• Who owns the data?
Here’s how I can
help with xAPI.
Learners
20. I don’t see how it’s different from
SCORM
If I have to work with IT,
it won’t ever get done
My LMS isn’t ready.
Here’s my
challenge.
L & D
21. Current Developer Tools
• Sean Putman’s State of the Tools
• Life in a Post-SCORM World Part 2
xAPI Quarterly
Working with IT
• It’s not that hard. JSON, RESTful
• Consider existing resources
LMS / LRS roadmapping
• Where on the roadmap?
• Short term LRS for a project Here’s how I can
help with xAPI.
L & D
22. Vendors
We can do all the APIs!
SCORM wasn’t ever relevant to us.
Is this going to stick?
Here’s my
challenge.
23. There’s one API to rule them all
• Minimize 1:1 APIs
• This is early adopter time
• Lots of tools to help you get started
Yes, SCORM had limited relevancy.
• Partner with the right client
• Be ready to move, then adapt
xAPI is getting traction
• Developer tools
• LMS/LRS platforms
Here’s how I can
help with xAPI.
Vendors
You have an uphill climb ahead, and it may seem like you’ve got resistance coming in all directions.
ASK: Who’s got Csuite issues? Management? IT? (go through the list)
So who’s a sales person?
Most of us are not in sales. Sales isn’t our thing.
So here’s how sales works. Let’s say you’re selling vacuum cleaners, going door to door. The deep secret you may not know is that you can’t just knock on a door and some one hands you money and you give them the vacuum cleaner. In fact it’s more likely that they call the police on you because no one sells vacuums door to door so you must be up to something.
Sales works when you ask the customer what they need to accomplish. Then you figure out how and if your product delivers on that. Don’t sell a vacuum … sell them a clean house (or faster chores, or better allergen control)
Megan: In fact, all my first xAPI projects in the first two years were in situations where there was no preexisting LMS or SCORM solution. No one asked for xAPI. No one said “replace my SCORM.” They wanted to find out what 3rd graders in a museum were doing relative to the state science curriculum standards.
C-SUITE
The C-Suite doesn’t care how you do it, they just want to improve productivity, efficiency and innovation. Improve the bottom line.
It’s hard to show anything new to the changing student base. They are used to YouTube, SnapChat, Facebook. They get their news from Twitter (shudder). The send hundreds of text messages a day. They play video games. (hmm, are those last two an opening?)
The tools we have today are not working.
E-LearningFace it: No matter how many cool widgets you drop in your e-learning, you’ll never hear an employee say “Oooh, I can’t wait to get started on that new e-learning module today”. With traditional learning, we are re-arranging deck chairs on the titanic.
Instructor-LedIt’s a toss-up whether instructor-led training is more or less impactful than e-learning. Studies go both ways; probably depends on the type of student. A blended offering is probably best.
MOOCThe passing rates for MOOC’s is pretty low. Generous estimates put it around 40%. Can you sell that to the C-Suite?
C-SUITE
If we want to improve an employee’s skills, we first have to measure those skills.
xAPI allows you to measure skills in context. This means you monitor performance in the place where that performance takes place.
For example, your accounting systems can send statements to xAPI, as well as your training systems.
Obviously SCORM cannot do that.
If you can measure, you can train on only those things that need improvement (cost savings).
xAPI exists outside the LMS to support the modern learner who doesn’t want to log into the LMS
Courses … courses aren’t the problem. Some of them may be. But right now you don’t know which ones. It’s how we measure our courses (or not) that clouds our ability to discern which ones are effective and which are not.
MANAGERS
Managers want:
Reduce training time and costTraining is often viewed as a “cost”, with no clear impact on the business
Improve PerformanceDo more with less.
Improve RetentionIn-line training, micro learning, gaming, simulations… all can work to improveemployee satisfaction
If they could, they’d make you improve performance with no training at all!
MANAGERS
Imagine if your training could be “in-line” with an employee’s daily activity, instead of an “event”. (ex: Adam Mentor)
xAPI can be used as a systems integration point, getting performance data from in-line systems, and learning data from training interventions
Use micro-learning, gaming, simulations, mobile, etc. based on observed performance
IT – These guys are overworked and tired!
IT
IT
Another Solution to Support-If your LRS is in the Cloud, it is not (necessarily) another system to support.-Easier to support than SCORM
Costs-There are free LRS options and trial options. Run a pilot project to demonstrate effectiveness.-Use xAPI to integrate systems means no middleware! (PDF Annotator example)
Security-xAPI can be as secure as you want to make it. -Use HTTPS-Use signed statements-Use OAUTH
LEARNERS – these guys are bored … and overworked, too
LEARNERS
BoredomxAPI allows you to bring all kinds of new tools to bearbecause you can finally track it
Performance-Using the feedback loop, you can provide trainingjust when it is needed. -You can avoid training the student on things they already know
Data PrivacyYou may need a serious discussion BEFORE tracking student information-You need to show the student the benefits of tracking their performance in context.-Who owns the data? Student? Company?