From SCORM to xAPI: Reimagining the Future of Learning Data
- marleegeiger
- May 30
- 3 min read
Why it's time to move beyond completions—and toward a deeper, more human understanding of learning
If SCORM were at a party, it’d be the person insisting that the flip phone is superior to the smartphone. Sure, it’s familiar… functional even. But it’s also a little out of step.
We’ve leaned on SCORM because we’ve had to. It reliably reports the basics back to us. But as LxD professionals, we’re obsessed with the learning journey, and SCORM gave us crumbs.
This isn’t a eulogy for SCORM, but a reimagination because what xAPI offers isn’t just data. It creates a different relationship we can form with learning. A much deeper one.
SCORM’s Safe (and Shallow) Waters
SCORM is kind pre-packaged comfort food. It works, mos of the time. It helps package content, launch it, and receive the baseline metrics.
But here’s what SCORM doesn’t do:
It doesn’t track what learners do outside the LMS.
It doesn’t capture nuance. Like revisiting a concept three times before it clicks.
It doesn’t reflect informal learning, coaching, or mobile experiences.
Worse, SCORM data is isolated to its learning island. Learning experiences across tools or how one moment leads to another are lost in translation. SCORM is closing the book after reading the table of contents.
Enter xAPI: The Narrative Learners Deserve
xAPI doesn’t just live in the LMS. xAPI can capture learning whenever it happens. Learning happens on the phone, in a conversation, during a client pitch, or while reading an article. Now able to be recorded and diagnosed alongside course data.
Its grammar is simple: Actor. Verb. Object. But the possibilities are infinite.
A few examples:
“Jessie completed Onboarding Module 1.”
“Amina asked a question in the Peer Forum.”
“Dev watched 70% of the leadership video.”
Each statement is a breadcrumb. And together, they form a trail of how real people learn. Across time. Across tools. Across contexts.
Pedagogy, Reimagined
As LxD professionals, this changes everything. We don’t have to think within the module, we can design for an ecosystem of learning.
Think:
Social learning programs where xAPI tracks peer engagement.
Blended learning, where in-person sessions are connected to digital follow-ups.
Personalized learning paths, where previous experiences shape future suggestions.
SCORM taught us to count completions. xAPI invites us to ask deeper questions:
What resources do high performers use most?
Which parts of our simulation trigger retries?
Do learners apply concepts differently across departments?
Cmi5: The Bridge, Not a Band-Aid
The myth is that xAPI is here to kill SCORM. Truly, it’s not, and we can see that by how SCORM is still king. SCORM was built for a different age, and xAPI acknowledges that while moving forward.
For those that still need the consistency of SCORM, there’s cmi5.
Cmi5 brings structure to xAPI’s freedom. It allows for traditional course structures inside an LMS while benefiting from the full power of xAPI. It’s a bridge between SCORM and xAPI.
The Hangover Ends When You Reboot
The SCORM hangover is real, and we’ve been handling it for years. We’ve been trained to design for systems and not for people. Our learning metrics were blunt tools. The cure for the hangover? It isn’t throwing out everything we know, but to reimagine it for a new world.
To reimagine how learning is lived, expressed, tracked, but most importantly,y how it’s understood.
Because data isn’t about control, it’s about clarity. xAPI gives us the clarity to meet learners where they are and where they’re going.
Next in the series: The Metrics that Matter: How xAPI Powers Data-Driven Learning Design
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