{"id":73,"date":"2015-12-06T18:42:53","date_gmt":"2015-12-06T23:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/willchinda.com\/blog\/?p=73"},"modified":"2015-12-06T18:53:26","modified_gmt":"2015-12-06T23:53:26","slug":"xapi-captivate-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willchinda.com\/blog\/2015\/12\/06\/xapi-captivate-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"xAPI + Captivate (part 2) – Results and Leaderboards"},"content":{"rendered":"

So in my first post<\/a> on the topic of integrating the Experience API and Captivate, I showed you how to take a couple user inputs and translate that into a simple statement that would be sent to an LRS when the user clicks a button.<\/p>\n

Sending a statement from a Captivate project is cool, but it’s only half the usefulness that xAPI enables. The ability to retrieve statements and report on it\u00a0without an LMS is where you really get in touch with the power of what this standard can do. In this tutorial, I’ll be\u00a0creating a slightly more complex set of statements,\u00a0searching for those\u00a0statements, manipulating them, and displaying them within Captivate.<\/p>\n

For this exercise, I want\u00a0the user to input a number that will serve as their\u00a0“score.” I want the statement to say\u00a0they completed the activity and I want that statement to include the score. Then I want the Captivate project to grab all other statements generated from that and display\u00a0the top 10 scores.<\/p>\n

And just for funsies, I’ll be publishing it as an HTML5 project instead of the SWF output we had last time. This will actually give us a handy advantage when it comes to creating the leaderboard, but\u00a0in all other respects it’s pretty similar.<\/p>\n

So just like in Part 1<\/a>, I’m going to start with a Captivate file that takes in the user’s name and email address. Just like before, I’m going to change the assigned variables (using the Properties<\/strong> pane) to the more descriptive names user_name<\/em> and user_email<\/em>. On success, the action is set to Go to next slide<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"userinput\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"textentryvariable\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For the second slide, I’m going to add another text entry box so the user can enter a number. Just like before, I’ll change the assigned variable to the more descriptive name user_score<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"enteranumber\"<\/a><\/p>\n

[I realize this is kind of a weird activity, but it’s just designed to simulate playing a game or doing some scored activity in Captivate and passing along to the LRS as a score. In your own design, you’ll just save that score to a variable and pass it along without this user input aspect.]<\/em><\/p>\n

For the associated action, select the text entry box and change the On Success<\/strong> action to Execute JavaScript<\/strong>. Click the Script_Window<\/strong> button and add the following code to the popup window.<\/p>\n

var userName = window.cpAPIInterface.getVariableValue(\"user_name\");\r\nvar userEmail = 'mailto:' + window.cpAPIInterface.getVariableValue(\"user_email\");\r\n\r\nstmt.actor = new ADL.XAPIStatement.Agent(userEmail, userName);\r\n\r\nvar userScore = window.cpAPIInterface.getVariableValue(\"user_score\");\r\n\r\nstmt.result = { \r\n 'score': {\r\n   'raw': userScore\r\n },\r\n 'completion': true\r\n};\r\n\r\nvar resp_obj = ADL.XAPIWrapper.sendStatement(stmt);<\/pre>\n
So let’s unpack this a little. You can read the explanation for the first half of this\u00a0in Part 1<\/a>\u00a0– I’m just saving the userName and userEmail from Captivate’s interface and adding them to the actor<\/em> portion of our stmt<\/em> (which is defined in our external js file).\u00a0I’m doing the same thing with the score entered in the second slide, adding it to userScore<\/em>.<\/p>\n
var userScore = window.cpAPIInterface.getVariableValue(\"user_score\");<\/pre>\n
The new bit here is result<\/em>. This changes up the design of our xAPI statement a bit, which in Part 1 was just limited to the basics – actor<\/em>, verb<\/em>, object<\/em>. Result is a new property\u00a0that we can add to our statement to give it more meaning.\u00a0There’s a bit more complexity to it, though, since the result property has several sub-properties like score<\/em>, completion<\/em>, and duration<\/em>. Adding even more complexity, score has additional sub-properties like scaled<\/em>, raw<\/em>, min<\/em>, and max.<\/em><\/p>\n
Just like layers of an onion, an xAPI statement can be as superficial or as deep as you want it to go. As long as you’ve got actor, verb, and object, all of the rest is optional (for the most part), so I pick and choose based on what kind of performance or experience I’m describing in the statement.<\/p>\n
Confused? It may help to visualize all the available properties in this diagram Jason Haag shared on Twitter.<\/p>\n
\n
Diagram of #xAPI<\/a> Statement Objects & Properties. Send feedback. Is it helpful? What’s missing? https:\/\/t.co\/k5H1eO8PCd<\/a> #learninganalytics<\/a><\/p>\n
\u2014 Jason Haag (@mobilejson) October 21, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n