The next time you say, “I am making the best decision based on the information I have available to me”, you want to know your decision was made with a clear perspective and informed by the bigger picture. Today more than ever, students are presented with an increasing number of tools and study aids, each producing valuable learning data.  As educators look to improve student success through the analysis of this data, the difficulty of gathering and consistently interpreting the data is compounded by the number of tools in play.

As the world’s leading eTextbook platform, we understand the value of analyzing how students interact with their course materials.  We also know the complexity and difficulty involved when analyzing this data in context with data produced from other learning platforms.  For this reason, we are pleased to announce the immediate availability of near real-time data feeds that leverage the IMS Caliper standard.

Now you will have the most up-to-date learning data produced by your learners on the VitalSource platform.  As students interact with their course materials, VitalSource will push the data from each interaction to you, in near real-time.  Using this information, you will be able to customize your student portal, deliver interventions based on recent behavior, power research projects or simply see if students have completed a reading assignment before class.

The IMS Caliper standard helps educators improve student success by simplifying the analysis of learning data from multiple platforms.  By prescribing both a consistent format and vocabulary for describing learning events, Caliper allows educators to build a single, reusable solution for capturing and analyzing learning activities from multiple sources.

VitalSource, a leader in supporting educational interoperability, has been certified to deliver Caliper since October 2015 and has been actively involved in defining the new Caliper 1.1 specification.  As a leader in this space, we look forward to working with others who adopt the IMS Caliper standard so that educators will be equipped with all the data they need to improve student success.