Adopting the Experience API to work with the Virtual Patient Standard - how, what and why?

Matt Cownie, Jonathan Wright

University of the West of England, Bristol

AbstractThe eXperience Application Programming Interface (xAPI) is a new specification that allows learning content to link with learning systems to track and share all types of learning experiences. Learning activities can be tracked using combinations of a limited vocabulary of activities, verbs and subjects. While the specification provides a default profile of activities and verbs it allows for communities of practice to develop custom profiles of their own agreed activities and verbs. This presentation will have main 3 parts.

XAPI

Actor, Verb, Object

Leaner , Completed, Virtual Patient

Caveat Emptor• Tincan OR experienceAPI OR xAPI• Versions 0.90-0.95-1.0-1.01• Many examples are ‘slightly wrong’• Libraries for Java, JS and PHP• New .NET Library for the Tin Can API is Now Available!• Refer to the final spec 1.0.1• Assumes you are VP Standard aware

Part 1 - HowFirstly it will demonstrate how to use the experience API to capture the stream of activities a learner generates while playing a Virtual Patient (VP). It will show technical examples that map VP concepts onto XAPI calls that can be used to populate a Learning Record System (LRS) with VP related learner data.

Simplest example (C#)

statement = actor + verb + activity

Actor

Verb

Activity

Statement

LRS

ActivityType

We made a statementhttp://tincanapi.com/public-lrs/

Statement in the LRS

JSON payload

URL

URI

URL

Simplest example (JavaScript)

More detail? “verb” : { “display” : {“en-US” :”visited”}, “id” : ”http://medbiq/exapi/verbs/visited },

“type” : http://medbiq/exapi/activites/virtualPatient/ } } }

COP Verb ?

COP Activity ?

Looks like, but

More detail with context (simple)

Tie everything together

sessionId

XAPI - ContextActivitiesXAPI provides four possibilities - ‘parent’, ‘grouping’, ‘category’, and ‘other’

Parent - model the Virtual Patient as parent activity and set that as the context for all subsequent related activities. Further granularity would be a video and MCQ with a node as parent activity.

Grouping - might want to group an activity within the VP with related activities in same VP or other VPs

Category - “Category SHOULD be used to indicate a "profile" of xAPI behaviors” - e.g. PhysicalExam, Medication?

Other - none of the above, perhaps supporting learning material or making a branching decision?

Some Concerns

• Media Resources, Counters, CounterRules, DataItems,NodeRules, NodeAccessRules

• Extensions• Exposing internal workings and Id’s• Name spacing• Versioning• Who’s the audience?

Part 2 - whatSecondly it will review what this data looks like in an LRS and examples of querying it for meaning. It will outline what verbs and activities might be contained in a Virtual Patient specific profile and what use cases these could meet.

Simplest – manual get (c#)

query

results

Dashboard

A Report Builder

Statement Forwarding

Painting by Eugene Delacroix, available under a Creative Commons Public Domain license.

Verbs and Activities and URL’s

VP Activities + typesPage : page

MCQ : question

Video : video

audio : audioDocument : file

Short answer : note

Image : media

Flash activity : interaction

Unity activity : interaction

Html5 activity : interaction

YouTubeVid : media

DataItems : file?

Blood Test : media

Media Resources : media CounterRules : event

DataItemRequest : interaction

NodeRules : event

NodeAccessRule : event

CounterRules : event

VP Verbs

Started : started

Visited : was at

Requested : requested

Watched : watchedListened : listened

Triggered: ?????

Altered: updated?

Exited : exited

Answered : answered

Completed : completed

Read : read

Commented : commented

Played : playedrestarted : terminated?

Extensions and Profile

feedback : extensioncounter : extension

Part 3 – why (for VP’s)Lastly it will outline why the virtual patient community might want to adopt the experience API and ask whether a specific community profile is necessary. Influences for consideration include the “Internet of Things”, mobile learning, data-mining, combining virtual patients with other simulation activities, capturing the complete educational context of a learners VP experience and reporting into competency frameworks.

What were my use cases?

1. Reporting2. Big Data 3. Learning Management System(s)4. LTI 1.1 & outcomes5. Simulation

Other VP use cases?

1. 3D & Games 2. Multi-modal simulation3. Team based 4. Platform transition (state API) 5. Learner Profiles

Wider reasons to adopt XAPI1. Transversal2. Transparency3. System silos4. Simulation (non-linear)5. Mobile6. Innovation 7. Future proof

Answer the Question…

Is a specific VP community profile necessary?

A friend in need

http://www.adlnet.gov/tla/experience-apihttps://github.com/adlnet/xAPIWrapperhttp://nodejs.org/https://www.npmjs.org/package/adl-xapiwrapperhttps://github.com/LearningLocker/learninglockerhttp://thedesignspace.net/misc/xapihttps://github.com/RusticiSoftware/TinCan.NEThttps://github.com/RusticiSoftware/TinCanJShttps://registry.tincanapi.com/http://tincanapi.com/public-lrs/http://scorm.com/scorm-solved/scorm-cloud-developers/