In the last couple of weeks, we’ve started to get some great questions about getting oriented to working with the Experience API. For Megan and I, we’ve been so involved from the ground floor (as a lot of the community is) that we sometimes forget that people are finding out about it anew… all the time.

One question we received was pretty basic: Is there a discussion group around xAPI that is already a great place for having discussions about it?

Well, there are several. I’ll give a run-down of those I know and I hope, through comments and other feedback I can add on to this list.

General Discussions

While general discussions (ie not vendor-specific) happen almost everywhere, these forums and mailing lists have the most to offer people in terms of what people are generally talking about with xAPI.

ADL Mailing Lists

Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL), which is the organization that has hosted  its development, has two main mailing lists:

xAPI-Spec is concerned with the nuances of the specification itself, and if you’re a technical developer working to implement the API into your content or media, your web application, your device… really any kind of technical implementation, this is the mailing list you should hit first, as the most knowledgeable people who are involved with the technology use this list.

xAPI-Design is a mailing list focused on a growing community of practice around designing with xAPI. These are people who are openly participating in open cohorts hosted by ADL to experiment with ideas that use the API to approach real-world challenges.  Even if you’re not participating, it’s a good place for discussion around what you can do with the API that isn’t just an off-the-shelf solution.

LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn has three groups I’ve found that are focused on the Experience API. There is not much discussion happening on them, and there is generally a good bit of cross-posting across them, but these groups are good places to catch links to posts, webinars and events of broad interest to the community around the API.

One group is simply called xAPI (Tin Can). Another is called Conform 2 eXperience API and it requires moderator approval to join. The most active of the three is moderated by Rustici Software: the Tin Can API User Group and there are some actual discussions on there.

IEEE has a Google+ community that is focusing on identifying broader implementation requirements as we prepare to take Experience API into standardization.

Deeper Dives

I expect that as soon as I post this list, I’ll find out about a lot more mailing lists and I will add on. 🙂

Learning Locker has a mailing list that is fairly active with implementation-focused discussion around connecting to it and other learning record stores (LRSs). One active thread currently is around how to approach mashing up xAPI and Mozilla Open Badges in a way that the community will generally adopt. This project also has a Google+ community.

I’m sure there are more tool-specific or implementation-specific discussion groups and forums. Please spread the word and I’ll keep adding on here.