Experience API
The Experience API (xAPI) is the official name of Tin Can API.
Whereas the SCORM standard was all about tracking the status standalone e-learning modules launched from an LMS, xAPI recognises that most learning happens away from the LMS. So the focus of xAPI is on tracking learning activities, be these offline or online, tutor-led or collaborative, real-world or virtual. It doesn’t matter where the activity takes place; what matters is that some remote system with knowledge of that activity can send a simple statement to a central learner record store (LRS) containing some very basic details of what the learner did.
The US Department of Defense is behind xAPI. They run the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) initiative, which aims to “standardize and modernize training and education management and delivery”. ADL are also guardians of the SCORM standard.
Bizarrely, the xAPI project is referred to by two names – Experience API and Tin Can API. xAPI is the official name from ADL, Tin Can API is the unofficial name adopted by the community involved in defining the standard.
http://www.adlnet.gov/tla/experience-api
