xAPI Learning Experience Tracking Standard Training Course

Course overview

Learning teams often have evidence of course completion but little reliable data about what employees practised, applied, discussed, or retained after training. SCORM-based reporting can show launches, scores, and completions, yet it struggles to connect simulations, coaching, performance support, virtual classrooms, and workplace activities. This course equips L&D professionals to use Experience API (xAPI) to define meaningful learning data, route it to a Learning Record Store (LRS), and turn records of learning experiences into decisions about content, capability, and programme performance.

Participants learn the xAPI statement model—actor, verb, object, result, context and attachments—and apply it to realistic learning scenarios. They design governed activity identifiers, select or create verbs, work with xAPI Profiles, and map business questions to a practical tracking specification. The course covers LRS architecture, statement validation, authentication, privacy controls, data quality checks, querying records, and interpreting xAPI data alongside LMS reporting. Participants also examine where xAPI, SCORM, cmi5, and LMS analytics each fit in an enterprise learning ecosystem.

Delivery combines instructor-led demonstrations with hands-on work in Postman and an LRS environment. Teams analyse a learning measurement problem, design statements for multiple touchpoints, test them against the xAPI specification, and investigate the resulting records. Each participant leaves with an xAPI tracking design pack: a measurement use case, event-to-statement map, verb and activity-ID conventions, sample JSON statements, validation results, and an implementation roadmap suitable for review by L&D, IT, data governance, and content suppliers.

The course is designed for experienced learning professionals who need to specify, procure, implement, or govern learning-experience data rather than merely consume dashboard reports.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Define xAPI statements using actor, verb, object, result, context, timestamp, and authority fields
• Translate learning measurement questions into an event-to-statement tracking specification
• Design stable activity IDs, verb conventions, and context rules for a learning ecosystem
• Create and validate xAPI JSON statements using Postman and LRS validation responses
• Apply xAPI Profiles to document reusable statement patterns and controlled vocabularies
• Configure appropriate LRS authentication, data-retention, privacy, and access-control requirements
• Query LRS records to investigate learner journeys, completion evidence, and learning interactions
• Produce an xAPI implementation roadmap with stakeholder responsibilities, testing gates, and governance controls

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Learning Experience Designers — who need to specify trackable interactions across digital and blended learning journeys
• Learning Technology Managers — who select LRS, LMS, authoring, and integration approaches for enterprise learning platforms
• L&D Data and Analytics Specialists — who need reliable learning-event data for analysis beyond completion reports
• Digital Learning Producers — who must brief developers and suppliers on xAPI tracking requirements
• Learning Platform Administrators — who manage LMS and LRS connections, permissions, and reporting data flows
• HR Technology Product Owners — who need to govern learning-data requirements across HR and workforce systems

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should understand how an LMS records enrolments, completions, scores, and learner accounts, and should have practical experience designing, administering, producing, or analysing digital learning. Familiarity with JSON notation, REST APIs, or browser developer tools is helpful but not essential; the course introduces the JSON structures and API requests used in the exercises. Bring a laptop with a modern browser and permission to use Postman or its web version. Software development experience, database administration, and prior xAPI implementation experience are not required.

Training methodology

The instructor uses short technical briefings, annotated statement walkthroughs, live LRS demonstrations, and guided build sessions. Participants work from realistic scenarios such as onboarding journeys, compliance practice, simulations, and manager-led coaching. In pairs, they convert business questions into event maps and xAPI statements, then send, validate, query, and diagnose records using Postman and an LRS. Group reviews compare competing tracking designs against interoperability, privacy, and reporting requirements. The final session is an implementation-planning workshop using each participant’s own learning-data use case.

Course outline

Day 1: xAPI Foundations and Learning Data Use Cases

• xAPI purpose, scope, and relationship to the IEEE Experience API specification
• Comparison of xAPI, SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004, cmi5, and LMS completion reporting
• Learning Record Store architecture and statement data flows
• The actor, verb, object, result, context, and timestamp statement components
• Learning measurement questions and evidence requirements
• Identifying trackable events across formal, social, and workplace learning
• Reading annotated xAPI JSON statements

Workshop: Participants analyse a blended onboarding scenario and produce a learning-event inventory linked to three priority measurement questions.

Day 2: Statement Design, Verbs, and Activity Identity

• Writing atomic and meaningful xAPI statements
• Selecting verbs from controlled vocabularies and verb registries
• Designing activity IDs with IRIs and durable naming conventions
• Using activity definitions, names, descriptions, and interaction types
• Capturing result data including score, success, completion, duration, and response
• Applying context activities, registration IDs, instructors, teams, and extensions
• Modelling scenarios for simulations, assessments, videos, and virtual classroom activities

Workshop: Participants create an event-to-statement map and sample statements for a simulation-based learning module.

Day 3: Profiles, Governance, and Privacy by Design

• xAPI Profiles and the role of concepts, templates, and patterns
• Defining organisation-specific verbs and extensions
• Building reusable statement patterns and implementation rules
• LRS authentication approaches including Basic authentication, OAuth, and API keys
• Personal data minimisation, pseudonymisation, retention, and deletion requirements
• Data ownership, consent, access permissions, and cross-border transfer considerations
• Tracking specification governance and supplier acceptance criteria

Workshop: Participants draft a profile-oriented governance sheet containing verb definitions, activity conventions, extensions, and privacy rules.

Day 4: Sending, Validating, and Querying Learning Records

• Constructing xAPI HTTP requests with Postman
• Sending single and batched statements to a Learning Record Store
• Interpreting LRS response codes and validation errors
• Testing statement IDs, timestamps, registrations, and idempotency
• Querying statements by agent, verb, activity, registration, and time range
• Investigating duplicate, incomplete, and inconsistent learning records
• Using Learning Locker and Yet Analytics LRS interfaces for record inspection

Workshop: Participants send and validate a test statement set, then query the LRS to diagnose deliberately seeded data-quality defects.

Day 5: Analytics, Implementation, and Operational Adoption

• Converting xAPI records into learner-journey and programme-performance measures
• Combining LRS data with LMS, HRIS, assessment, and operational data sources
• Defining data-quality metrics and monitoring controls
• Designing pilot scope, test cases, and production acceptance criteria
• Assigning responsibilities across L&D, IT, data governance, and external suppliers
• Estimating implementation effort, platform dependencies, and change impacts
• Presenting an xAPI business case and implementation roadmap

Workshop: Participants complete and present an xAPI tracking design pack and 90-day pilot roadmap for a workplace learning use case.

Tools & standards covered

Experience API (xAPI) 1.0.3, Postman, Learning Locker, Yet Analytics LRS

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions