Category: Open Source + Standards

  • 2020 was all About xAPI Profiles (for us)

    2020 was all About xAPI Profiles (for us)

    Like many of you in 2020, Megan and I had to seriously change how we’ve managed our work/life balance, household, workflow(s). Here’s what we got done.

  • Filling in xAPI’s Most Important Gaps

    Filling in xAPI’s Most Important Gaps

    2017 is a year that is really testing our capacities and limits. Politics, natural disasters, cyber security threats, budgets… even ADL has hit some road bumps. We formed the Data Interoperability Standards Consortium (DISC) a few years ago specifically to hedge against disruptions to ADL’s capacity for spec stewardship so that the people who rely…

  • What is the plan for DISC, xAPI, and ADL?

    What is the plan for DISC, xAPI, and ADL?

    Towards the end of last year, our big announcement was the formation of the not-for-profit Consortium formed to handle the governance and address the evolution of xAPI with/for ADL. xAPI, being open-source and licensed as Apache 2.0, doesn’t require ADL’s permission for us to do this. That’s a feature, not a bug — we licensed…

  • With Gratitude…

    With Gratitude…

    Megan and I find ourselves grateful, as the year comes to a close. 2015 gave MakingBetter an amazing journey that was full of surprises. Most were wonderful and some were very scary. Through it all, we found ways to make our clients happy and successful doing work we believed in. When we had struggles and found…

  • The 3rd Gear

    As xAPI shifts into 3rd gear, with an early majority comes a need for a consortium that will steward xAPI into perpetuity — a table for other industries to sit and work out the ways xAPI will meet their particular needs. I’m talking about HR systems, medical devices, folks who make beacons and sensors, manufacturing, energy…

  • What You Missed at TRYxAPI – ATD ICE

    What You Missed at TRYxAPI – ATD ICE

    Riptide Software hosted a fantastic event on Saturday for the launch of TRYxAPI.com. The afternoon featured John Delano, Nick Washburn and myself leading a critically needed dialogue around the Experience API about what matters to executive leadership, and to a field that is still largely making sense of major changes happening in the learning & development field. Our…

  • xAPI Communities of Practice

    xAPI Communities of Practice

    Last year, ADL began organizing Communities of Practice around the design considerations and implementation of xAPI in different contexts. There are many ways xAPI can be applied — how one designs and develops best really depends on the use case. Yesterday, Ben Betts announced his leadership of a Badges Community of Practice, and I was both surprised and…

  • xAPI's Tipping Point for Both Community & Industry

    xAPI's Tipping Point for Both Community & Industry

    Since last year, I worked with IEEE to standardize the Experience API (xAPI) specification. Most of my work is with the IEEE-LTSC  but recently a few other IEEE standards groups expressed interest in using xAPI. These groups focus on developing personal health devices as well as the Internet of Things. They’re looking at xAPI because…

  • The Community Responds

    I hoped in my last post that the community would indeed respond with ideas, insights, opinions and concerns. Thank you for your comments on the post, the retweets and feedback on Twitter and for what I’m sure has been a lot of not-public rumination. The feedback thus far has been incredibly helpful and I will…

  • Standard Options Apply

    This post is for vendors, developers and implementers of the Experience API and for anyone who may one day create something with xAPI. The choices made soon will ultimately impact what you will be able to do with xAPI 3, 5 and 20 years from now. I’m going to lay out options for how we…