Recently I’ve been doing some comparisons between Articulate Presenter 13 and Adobe Captivate 8 based the ability to record learning analytics using the xAPI (also known as Tin Can API).
We’ve been using Articulate Presenter for our online learning content for a while now. As we move into the phase of pushing learning analytics to an Learning Record Store (LRS), we’ve made a discovery that not all is what it seems when it comes to Articulate.
We are using Learning Locker as our LRS. When an Articulate Presenter resource is created, we use the standard output to LRS and select Tin-Can API. We add it to Moodle (2.7) using the xAPI Launch Link plugin. Below is what is passed to the LRS when using Articulate:
As you can see from the screen dump taken from Learning Locker, this information is not very helpful. Looking at the complete statement we can see that there is a bit of information missing, especially in the Object when trying to know WHAT it was that the student accessed.
If we compare this to Adobe Captivate, straight away you can see that more meaning full data is sent:
And if we expand to view the statement you can see that more details are passed in the Object type.
Understanding that this is not delving into any code and using the standard outputs that each product provide, it’s clear that Adobe Captivate has a better supporting model Tin Can API than Articulate Presenter.
If anyone has any experience with using Tin Can API with either Articulate Presenter or Captivate, please share in the comments below I’d love to here about your experiences.
