When I first met the team at Next World, their immersive VR safety training environments were already changing how organisations approached safety, compliance, and workforce development.
All the rich performance data lived inside their powerful analytics platform. Some of this data needed to be passed to clients to indicate when a user had experienced and completed the training, autonomously and in a standard format.
Our shared goal was simple but ambitious: unlock the learning data. We wanted to give Next World and their clients a way to see, share, and connect the evidence of learning from within VR, across LMSs, analytics tools, and HR systems — all without losing context or meaning.
The key was xAPI. A carefully designed xAPI Data Dictionary needed to be developed that mapped every action and event in VR into a standardised, portable format.
This stage is more important than it first appears. Before any data can move between systems, everyone needs a clear understanding of what will be captured and how it should be described. The Data Dictionary becomes that agreement. It sets out the names, meanings, and structure of each piece of information so that the data remains consistent, reliable, and easy to use, no matter where it ends up.
For Next World, this is especially pertinent. The Data Dictionary keeps things focused. It ensures that the right moments are captured, labelled in a standard structured way, and provide a set of profiles and definitions.
From Events to Evidence: Defining the Data Dictionary
We began with a discovery workshop to identify the application’s structure and how it could be mapped to xAPI.
The challenge was to translate Next World’s VR events, every learner movement, decision, and task outcome, into meaningful xAPI statements that told the story of performance.
Together, we developed the Next World xAPI Data Dictionary, a detailed framework and set of rules that mapped:
- Actors — identifying the learner or avatar.
- Verbs — describing what they did (“identified”, “completed”, “answered”).
- Objects — defining the target of the action (tools, hazards, instructions).
- Results and Extensions — adding context like score, accuracy, and response time.
- Context — recording scene, device, and session details (including headset and environment data).
This dictionary became the source of truth for all future data capture, ensuring consistency, interoperability, and alignment with the IEEE 9274.1.1-2023 standard and following the Total Learning Architecture (TLA).
Integrating xAPI into the VR Application
Once the Data Dictionary was complete, I worked alongside Next World’s Unity developer to assist in implementing and embedding xAPI into the application logic.
Each significant learner action, such as picking up a tool, completing a task, or responding to a question, was translated into a structured xAPI statement according to the Data Dictionary.
I guided the instrumentation process, reviewing mappings and validating statement quality. Every statement was verified against the dictionary and tested to ensure it met both the minimum xAPI standard of 1.0.3 (with 2.0 future proofing) and TLA conformance.
The xAPI is then passed into Next World’s Learning Record Store, in this case it is the YetAnaytics SQL LRS.
The Power of LRSPipe: Filtering and Forwarding Data
To make this ecosystem work in the real world, we needed a way to manage data flow between multiple Learning Record Stores.
We implemented Yet Analytics’ LRSPipe, a powerful middleware tool that filters and forwards xAPI statements in real time.
Here’s how it worked:
- Statements generated in Next World were sent to the LRS.
- LRSPipe applied rules to filter statements, selecting only those relevant to client reporting or analytics needs, based on the xAPI Data Dictionary profiles
- Filtered statements were forwarded into the client LRS, enabling seamless integration without duplicating data or exposing unnecessary information.
This architecture allowed each organisation using Next World to receive only the learning data relevant to them, maintaining privacy, reducing data noise, and supporting scalable, decentralised learning infrastructure.
Testing, Validation, and Governance
During testing, we verified every stage of the data journey, from the VR headset to the central platform, through xAPI, into the LRS, and finally into the client LRS.
We used dashboards and validation tools to ensure that the structure, timestamps, and identifiers were consistent and compliant.
Finally, we documented everything, from the Data Dictionary to integration steps, giving Next World’s internal team the foundation to maintain and extend their xAPI capability well into the future.
Outcomes: From Data Silos to Connected Systems
The results speak for themselves:
- Standardised learning data that can move across systems.
- Automated data flow through LRSPipe to client Learning Record Stores.
- Improved analytics and reporting, without any manual exports.
- Future-proof interoperability, ready for any LRS or data lake integration.
Next World’s immersive training was already producing valuable performance insights. xAPI now extends that capability, making the data portable, standardised, and ready for use across an organisation’s wider learning ecosystem.
Reflections on Collaboration
What made this project so successful was the partnership itself.
Next World brought deep domain expertise in VR learning, and I brought the xAPI and data architecture framework to make it interoperable. It’s a model for how learning engineering and product development can work hand in hand to create scalable, decentralised learning ecosystems.
Conclusion
By combining immersive learning with open standards like xAPI and infrastructure tools like LRSPipe, we’ve shown what’s possible when data becomes the connector, not the constraint.
Next World now stands as a real-world example of Total Learning Architecture in action:
decentralised, interoperable, and truly learner-centred.
This isn’t just an integration project; it’s a blueprint for the future of learning technology in a decentralised environment and one of the first to adopt xAPI as a core part of their offerings.