The digital learning content management business solution provider, eXact learning solutions, and its learning content management system (LCMS) have been named on the official list of Tin Can adopters.

The list appears on the Tin Can API adopters’ website, owned by Rustici Software, the company that wrote the Tin Can specification.  ‘Tin Can’ – which is also known as the Experience API or xAPI – is a learning technology specification that captures data, in a consistent format, from a range of online and offline learning experiences.

It’s called ‘Tin Can’ because, in the way of two tin cans connected by string, Tin Can API aims to be a two-way conversation between the specification’s developers and the e-learning industry. When learning has occurred and requires recording, Tin Can API –  a web service that allows software clients to read and write experiential data in the form of ‘statement’ objects – sends secure statements in the form of ‘noun, verb, object’ (or ‘I did this’) to a Learning Record Store (LRS).

An LRS is a repository which can share these statements with other LRSs. It can exist on its own, or inside an LCMS or learning management system (LMS).

“The eXact learning LCMS’s single source, template-based approach means that our clients can produce Tin Can complaint content – so tracking learning events can start wherever the learners are and on whatever device they use,” explained Federico Dondero, eXact learning solutions’ international sales manager. ”Any enabled device – including mobile phones, tablets, laptops and so on – can send Tin Can API statements whenever it’s connected to the appropriate network.

“This could be in real time but, equally, it might be after the learning’s taken place. What matters is that the Tin Can API statements reach the LMS/LCMS.

“Moreover, allowing LRSs to share data and transcripts with one another enables learners’ records to follow them as they move organizations and provide people with ‘personal data lockers’.”

The key points about Tin Can API are that it allows:

•           More learning activities – informal and formal – to be tracked, rather than just the SCORM-captured formal activities relating to LMS-hosted courses.

•           Tracking even when the learning takes place offline – since the results can be uploaded to the LRS when the learning delivery device is next online.

•           Developers to build content however they wish because they don’t have to rely on browser and associated browser-based technologies, such as JavaScript. They can select the appropriate technology for their training content and allow L&D professionals to record the training events including learners’ scores and other achievements.

The principal component of a suite of products and services from eXact learning solutions, part of the Lattanzio Group, the eXact learning LCMS allows for rapid content development through collaboration between subject matter experts (SMEs) and courseware designers, regardless of their location or specialization.

Furthermore, being based on XML technology, the eXact learning LCMS enables and facilitates the reusability of ‘chunks’ of learning content. The LCMS supports not only xAPI (TinCan) but also SCORM 1.2 and 2004, AICC and IMS standards, as well as export in ePub, PDF and Word formats – allowing for single source, multiple output publishing