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I am in the process of creating my own LMS (Learning Management System). This LMS will be a web application that will have all standard features of an LMS. One of the requirements of the LMS is that it should be able to read and integrate any Tin Can API (Xapi/Experience API) generated content that may have been produced by any other LMS. I have already googled to see if there is any third party DLL (preferably in .NET) that can be used to read the Tin Can API content but I haven't been able to find any.

There is an SO question here which is similar but this is not what I am looking for: Integrating SCORM courses or Tin Can API content into C# Custom LMS

Can anyone suggest where I can start ?

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devanalyst
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  • ?? searching for "Tin Can API c#" returns [TinCan.Net](https://github.com/RusticiSoftware/TinCan.NET) – stuartd Jul 21 '16 at 13:09
  • I found that link too but it does not specify how to read output generated by an LMS that is Tin Can API compliant. It only shows sending and fetching data from SCORM cloud – devanalyst Jul 21 '16 at 13:23

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There are a few parts of your question that I don't fully understand, but generally I think you need to differentiate the concepts of "Tin Can Content" and an "xAPI LRS".

The xAPI specification is an interoperability communications protocol and does not specify what one typically considers "content". It provides a data model for capturing event based data points, and the web service resources used to store and access records in that data model.

Generally when referring to "content" one means a package (or file) that contains deliverable assets that can be imported and launched via an LMS, which is completely outside of the scope of the xAPI specification. Having said that, at the time of release of the 0.9 specification (then called the Tin Can API) there was also release of a set of guidelines for how xAPI could be integrated with an LMS that had a supporting LRS. Those guidelines define a package (a zip file with a tincan.xml "manifest" file), a launch strategy, and various other details necessary to the import and delivery of content. This is generally what people mean by "Tin Can content" and what the major rapid authoring tools have implemented. Those guidelines can be found here:

https://github.com/RusticiSoftware/launch/blob/master/lms_lrs.md

The first part, the xAPI specification communications protocol is well implemented by TinCan.NET. To my knowledge there aren't any open source implementations in C#/.NET of the latter part, the Tin Can LMS guidelines. (There are plugins for Moodle that enable the functionality.)

Having said all of that those guidelines are not on a specification/standardization path, and in general the cmi5 specification is a big improvement (though young) to them for the typical LMS use case.

Given the volume of requirements for xAPI, Tin Can, cmi5 and their older cousins SCORM/AICC you may want to consider buying support rather than trying to build it. Happy to answer additional questions, here or at support@tincanapi.com.

Brian J. Miller
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  • "Generally when referring to "content" one means a package (or file) that contains deliverable assets that can be imported and launched via an LMS" , "Those guidelines define a package (a zip file with a tincan.xml "manifest" file),..." - This is exactly the kind of package that should be able to be imported/read by the LMS I am developing. Can this be done using TinCan.NET ? – devanalyst Jul 22 '16 at 06:03
  • Not the import/read of a `tincan.xml` based package. TinCan.NET is specifically for communicating with the LRS, IOW you could develop a package like that using it, but it doesn't do anything with the package itself. – Brian J. Miller Jul 23 '16 at 13:15
  • Thank you Brian for your response. Does that mean I have to roll out my own library to import a tin can package or is there any library available that can do it? – devanalyst Jul 24 '16 at 07:33
  • I have googled a lot on this (importing tin can package) but couldn't find anything much on it. – devanalyst Jul 25 '16 at 06:09
  • AFAIK you will have to write your own. shameless-plug: our services division might be interested in helping if you want to do it on a bounty. – Brian J. Miller Jul 25 '16 at 13:14
  • I have emailed you at support@tincanapi.com. We could discuss further there – devanalyst Jul 25 '16 at 13:19