Udemy Business Learning Management System Integration: xAPI

xAPI (Experience API) is an e-learning data and specification interface standard to collect and share data about a learner’s experience, within the context of a wide range of learning activities including online and offline.

Please note: the xAPI integration is available with the Enterprise Plan only.

Table of contents

• Statements

• Integration configuration
• Configuration - special cases
• Benefits of xAPI

Statements

Through the xAPI integration with a third-party system like an LMS/LXP/LRS, Udemy Business sends activities corresponding to a learner’s progress and completion of a course. Learn more about the xAPI statements Udemy Business sends.

Integration configuration

Configuring Udemy Business to post xAPI statements to a supported LMS/LXP can be done from the administration user interface in Udemy Business once the related configuration is done on the LMS/LXP first. Below are the steps to be followed*

*Please note that step 1 and 2 need to be done on the LMS/LXP side.

Step 1: Register Udemy Business as an API application in your LMS/LXP and generate client credentials

This step is done within your LMS/LXP. Check the administration module in your LMS/LXP to configure an xAPI integration. You should have an option to register a client application and generate a client id and client secret for the API application.

When generating the client credentials, ensure that the scope of access is set to xapi:write. (Note: Without this scope, the xAPI statements sent from Udemy Business to the LMS/LXP will fail.)

Discuss with your LMS/LXP administrator to perform this step.

Step 2: Procure the OAuth token endpoint and xAPI statement endpoint from your LMS/LXP

This step is done within your LMS/LXP. Your LMS/LXP instance should have a URL for the OAuth token endpoint and the xAPI statement endpoint.

The OAuth token endpoint is what Udemy Business will call to generate auth tokens by providing the client id and client secret generated in step 1. Using the generated token, Udemy Business will then POST the xAPI statements to the statement endpoint.

Example:

Token endpoint URL: https://udemy.lms.com/v3/oauth2/access-token

xAPI statement endpoint URL: https://udemy.lms.com/v3/xapi/statements

Please note: make sure that the endpoint URLs are accurate. Check with your LMS/LXP to get the correct endpoint URLs for your instance.

Step 3: Configure xAPI integration in Udemy Business

1. Navigate to Manage → Settings → LMS/LXP integrations

2. For LMS/LXP partners not included, please select “Other”, provide the LMS/LXP integration with a name and select “Save.”

Note: The below setup page is common for enabling API keys to access the Udemy Business REST APIs (course and reporting APIs), and also to setup xAPI. Even if your LMS/LXP is listed in the drop-down, there may not be support to configure xAPI Integration for it yet.

3. Once you select your LMS and select Save, proceed to the screen below. The first section provides you the API keys to access the standard Udemy Business REST APIs (course and reporting API).

4. Select Edit integration in the top right-hand corner & toggle xAPI configuration to On. The section highlighted below corresponds to the xAPI configurations. Provide the OAuth token URL, client id, client secret and the xAPI statement URL.

5. Once the details have been provided, click Test Credentials to check that the Udemy Business instance is able to reach the token URL. Click Save to store your configurations successfully. Note: This test only verifies that Udemy Business is able to successfully access the token endpoint.

6. Now your xAPI integration with your LMS/LXP is set up and ready for use.

7. Learner progress and completions should now flow to the LMS/LXP automatically in near real-time.

Configuration - special cases

The steps described above should be followed ONLY when your LMS/LXP 

• supports both progressed and completed events and 
• accepts the mbox (email) as the actor’s identifier. 

If the xAPI configuration is displayed on the Udemy Business admin page against your selected LMS, then any custom changes (example: your LMS/LXP supporting only completion events or requiring an actor identifier that is different from mbox - email)  would already be taken care of by the Udemy Business implementation. However, if your LMS shows on the list but has no xAPI configuration section, or if you have a custom LMS that is NOT on this list and has special requirements around the actor identifier and/or the verbs, please contact Udemy Business Support to provide those requirements.

Benefits of xAPI

Udemy Business already supports REST APIs for reporting purposes (user activity, user course activity and user progress APIs). These APIs include both granular transaction data (at a lecture level) and aggregated summary data (at a course level). Because of these differing levels of aggregation, these APIs have lag times that can range from 8 to 14 hours for new data to be made available. However,  xAPI statements are near real-time with minimal lag, but they provide less information. 

Below is a table that summarizes the key differences between the standard reporting REST API and the xAPI event stream.