LRS Overview

What is a Learning Record Store - xAPI LRS

What is an LRS?

An xAPI Learning Record Store (LRS) is a specialized type of software application responsible for receiving, storing, and providing access to learning records, represented as Experience API (xAPI) data. Read the xAPI Overview for the background and objectives of xAPI. Although traditional Learning Management Systems (LMS), Learning Content Management Systems (LCMS) and Human Resource (HR) systems include records of learning activity, an Experience API (xAPI)-conformant LRS adds the ability to record human performance and other capabilities not afforded by traditional learning systems. An LRS is critical to any modernized learning ecosystem, where xAPI data plays a key role in helping organizations make data-informed decisions.

Capabilities

Not all LRSes are created equal. Some LRSes offer more capabilities than others. The core functionality provided by an LRS is typically centered around storing and retrieving xAPI data. However, more advanced enterprise LRS offerings offer these four common capabilities for supporting xAPI Data:

  1. Database for Data Storage - At the most basic level, an LRS is a database for storing xAPI data.
  2. API for Storing and Retrieving Data - An LRS also provides an API for storing and retrieving xAPI data.
  3. Interface for Managing Data & Users - An LRS also provides a user interface for managing xAPI data and managing user access and permissions to the data in the LRS.
  4. Interface for Analysis - An LRS can optionally provide an analytics platform for working with the data, such as creating queries, filters, and aggregating it so that you can gain insights and generate robust reports & meaningful dashboards on learning and performance outcomes.

Sharing Data & Thinking Outside the LMS Course

Historically, Learning Management Systems (LMSes) have been used to manage learners, content, curriculum, courses, and assets related to learning. But LMSs lack the ability to share or expose learning & performance data with other applications. Adding an LRS to an existing LMS or other part of your ecosystem allows xAPI data to be shared with other applications. And LMSs usually only support receiving data from courses made available in the LMS. An LRS can receive data from several different types of content concurrently and the content does not need to come from an LMS. It can come from mobile applications, performance support, simulations, games, virtual/augmented/mixed reality experiences, real world activities monitored by sensors, and many other modern content modalities.

Conformance

An LRS is especially critical for data interoperability because not just any system or application can store, process, and provide access to xAPI data. The xAPI standard requires that only an LRS can implement the API and the requirements of the standard and provide true evidence of conformance. A non-conformant LRS is a risky investment as it will cause interoperability problems when you integrate xAPI with other applications or attempt to migrate the data later on. Data is sent to and accessed from an LRS via a standard format, the xAPI. This creates an interoperable environment where LRSs can be upgraded over time, even allowing a switch to a new vendor (avoiding vendor lock-in) without the complexity of rebuilding integrations.

An LRS must support over 1,400 requirements and pass the ADL LRS Conformance Test Suite in order to provide evidence of conformance with the xAPI standard. Those requirements include things such as: formatting, accepting and validating xAPI Statements, returning specific error codes for API requests or when statements are rejected, immutability, voiding and retrieving statements, signing statements, IRI behaviors, metadata, extensions, and many more. We won’t go into any more details about the conformance requirements, but what’s important to point out here is that an LRS is a specialized piece of software that implements all the requirements defined in the xAPI standard.

What is it Used for?


Learning & Performance Analytics

Once data is stored in an LRS, it can be used for learning analytics and visualizations. Many LRSs include dashboard platforms or integrate with business intelligence (BI) systems. By integrating an LRS, organizations can benefit from more resolution into learning activities, how they are being used, and if they are effective.

For example, instructors can see a class’s progress through a course, determine learners that may be falling behind and intervene early, pick peer to peer tutoring matches by comparing performance, and get a betting understanding of learning activities and their impact. Curriculum designers can perform test item analyses to improve assessments, evaluate what resources are being used most, least, and not at all, explore correlations between course performance and performance on the job, and use content usage data to make future content iterations better and cheaper. Learners can see what they’ve completed at a detail never provided to them before, get motivated by comparing their performance to the aggregate of their class, earn certifications, badges, and awards as they move through learning experiences, and receive pushed content based on data that shows that it meets a specific need at a specific time.

When an LRS is brought into a learning ecosystem, it provides learning data for many users in a learning environment. This data can be shown to users so they make their own behavioral modifications, it can be used by instructors and curriculum designers to make more informed decisions, and it can be used by other applications and content to tailor and adapt learning experiences and associated recommendations to an individual.

Evaluation, the Business Impact of Learning, and Training Effectiveness

In order to prove the effectiveness of your learning or training solution and behavior change, you need data analytics. And you need a way to get that data from other places than just an LMS or a SCORM course. This is one key reasons why xAPI was created and why the data in an LMS and a course is not sufficient enough. Identifying Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), measures, and reporting requirements up front should be the starting point when implementing xAPI and an LRS as part of your learning (or training) evaluation strategy. An LRS should definitely be used to provide the data analytics for your learning evaluation model / framework of choice (i.e., Kirkpatrick, LTEM,ISO/TS 30437 / L&D Metrics). You can leverage the LRS and the learning analytics you generate with it to ultimately prove business impact and that your content is effectively doing what it was designed to do.


LRS Resources

• List of Conformant LRS Products, https://adopters.adlnet.gov/products/all/0
• LRS Conformance Test Suite, https://lrstest.adlnet.gov
• The IEEE xAPI 2.0 Standard, https://standards.ieee.org/ieee/9274.1.1/7321
• LRS Conformance Requirements, https://adl.gitbooks.io/xapi-lrs-conformance-requirements/content/
• Veracity’s xAPI and LRS Tips (YouTube Channel), https://www.youtube.com/@VeracityLRS/playlists
• Getting Started with Veracity's LRS, https://veracity.golaunch.it/portal/ui/content/public