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 elated to see all the different groups coordinating with ADL.

The outcome of this work likely achieves similar goals as what Rustici Software demonstrates with “Recipes” — coming up with more common ways of implementing things that would be really challenging to put into the xAPI specification itself, but are the kinds of things we, as an industry, want everyone to be doing similarly.

This work is important as it informs xAPI’s current refinements as a specification. It’s value is multiplied as the different ways in which these Communities of Practice use xAPI become explicit. The overlaps in vocabulary inform what we should maintain or reinforce going forward. The things that distinguish one practice from another will inform the standardization and stewardship, pointing to areas where education around xAPI or evolution of the technology require development.

The organizers of each of these communities of practice are great people who will appreciate use case scenarios, case studies and ideas. Since they’re volunteering their time, I speak from experience in saying they would also appreciate any help one can lend even with meeting minutes, reviewing community documents and staying organized. 🙂

Click here to learn about ADL’s Communities of Practice for xAPI