19 Sept 2017
This post marks the kickoff of the IEEE LTSC TAG xAPI "Minutes Blog". This project is open to the public — anyone may take part — and it's our goal to make the process behind the creation of our IEEE technical report on xAPI 1.0.3 as open and transparent as possible. So, you should expect to see a new post published following each TAG meeting. We'll try to touch on everything discussed on the agenda and our goal is to keep everyone up-to-date on the progress of the report and the work of the TAG. The raw running minutes document is available as well.
Thank you to the nearly 60 participants of our first IEEE LTSC TAG xAPI call. It was great to see and hear voices from around the world. We began with a Roll Call. The list of Meeting Members — including names and affiliations — is published. Over time and once we establish our voting requirements, this list will be broken down into a Voting Members list and a Non-Voting Observing Members list. Any member who needs their information edited should contact the chair.
Next up, we discussed communication. There are three primary ways to keep up to date. First is the TAG xAPI website and this blog. Second is the TAG xAPI Public Mailing List which now has over 100 members. Third is the LTSC ListServe. Sign ups for the ListServe are available in the sidebar to the official TAG xAPI schedule on the IEEE site.
The next point of order was to draft a purpose statement and scope for the TAG xAPI. Based on our discussion, the following has been drafted. We can continue to tweak this, but it is representative of where we are at this time.
What is TAG xAPI?
TAG xAPI is an open forum for participating stakeholders to discuss all issues affecting the successful adoption of xAPI. This work is open to the public. Anyone can participate in these discussions and in the work.
What is TAG xAPI's purpose?
Our purpose is to create an IEEE technical report as a reference and implementation guide for xAPI 1.0.3.
What's the scope of the project?
Our start point is the xAPI 1.0.3 specification. We’ll discuss all aspects of xAPI such as xAPI Profiles and the relation of xAPI to SCORM and cmi5. The end point is open-ended and will include evaluation and recommendations for best practices.
Particularly helpful to our scope may be the upcoming release of results from the ADL survey on xAPI priorities. Jason Haag from ADL said they could leave the survey open a bit longer so that all TAG xAPI members have time to complete it. He also said that ADL would be happy to provide the results of the survey for the TAG.
Lastly, we identified and provided some definition around each of the topics for the report. We’re going to break into subcommittees in order to complete the report. You may sign up to topics of interest to you on the Report Subcommittees spreadsheet.
We’ll be meeting next on Tuesday, the 26th of September at 2:30pm Eastern. The agenda for our next call includes a number of key things, so attendance is particularly important. We’ll be looking to:
- Establish voting requirements
- Formalize subcommittees (each will choose a lead)
- Present style guidelines
- Address the question of audience and publication(s) — see the Public Mailing List for the discussion related to this
- Nail down the first round of deliverables by subcommittee, a schedule for each subcommittee to present to the whole group, and a time frame for the project
I realize getting through that list in an hour is a lofty objective. As our immediate goal is to have a public draft of our working outline available by DevLearn in late October, I do think it's important to let the subcommittees launch into their work as quickly as possible. We may keep an eye on the clock, get as much done as possible in this meeting, and wind up working a bit asynchronously via the public mailing list in the lead up to the next.
Thanks again to all of you who have joined the TAG xAPI. Based on both the interest and the level of activity thus far (remember… this group didn’t even exist two weeks ago) I am sure that we can hit our deadlines and bring a ton of value to the broader xAPI community.
Shelly
Shelly Blake-Plock
IEEE LTSC TAG xAPI, Chair