Tin Can API

The Experience API (xAPI), is an e-learning software specification that allows learning content and learning systems to speak to each other in a manner that records and tracks all types of learning experiences. Learning experiences are recorded in a Learning Record Store (LRS). LRSs can exist within traditional learning management systems (LMSs) or on their own.

The Experience API (Tin Can API) is commonly considered the successor to SCORM. SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) has been the de facto e-learning standard for packaging e-learning content to be delivered to LMSs, but there are several drawbacks to SCORM. The new Experience API allows trainers to deploy several new capabilities that were not supported with SCORM, such as:

The Experience API (Tin Can API) is an open source API. It is a Representational state transfer web service that uses JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) for its data format. The web service allows software clients to read and write experiential data in the form of “statement” objects. In their simplest form, statements are in the form of “I did this”, or more generally “actor verb object”. More complex statement forms can be used. There is also a built in query API to help filter recorded statements, and a state API that allows for a sort of “scratch space” for consuming applications.

In 2011 Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL), the United States Department of Defense-sponsored stewards of SCORM, recognized the need for a newer and more capable software specification than the original SCORM specification, which was then more than ten years old. To address the need, ADL issued a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) asking for assistance in improving SCORM, and the BAA was awarded to Rustici Software, a Nashville-based software company experienced with SCORM.

...
Wikipedia