Caliper Analytics, the first educational data analytics interoperability standard — created by and for the educational community — was initially released in 2015 to enable the collection of valuable learning and tool usage data from digital resources. This information can be used for predictive analytics and to deliver powerful insights about learning activity, instructional resource efficacy, and student engagement.
 
Since its first release, Caliper has been adopted by leading LMS and learning-tool providers to generate and deliver learning event data. Major LMS companies such as Blackboard, D2L, and Instructure, as well as tool suppliers like Elsevier Inc., Intellify Learning, Kaltura Inc., Learning Objects Inc., McGraw-Hill Education, NetLearning Holdings Inc., and Studies Weekly have certified products for Caliper and are providing the leadership and investment to make an open ecosystem for educational data and analytics possible.
Institutions such as Penn State University, Purdue University, University of California Berkeley, University of Kentucky, University of Maryland Baltimore County, University of Michigan, and the Unizin Consortium are using Caliper formatted data from one or more learning tools to analyze and measure the effectiveness of learning activities to support their student-success initiatives.
 
Caliper Analytics v1.1 makes it easier to deliver learning event data by providing guided language for describing, collecting, and exchanging learning data across learning technologies and promotes better data interoperability through a shared vocabulary for describing learning interactions. The semantically rich, semi-structured data streams enabled by Caliper produce a complete record of learning activity, not just outcomes, from all digital resources to support teaching and learning at scale, while informing new learning models, student success programs, and institutional strategic planning.
 
"Caliper enables high-volume, real-time streams of activity data that can be tracked and analyzed to help inform academic planning, program and course design, and student-intervention measures," said Dr. Rob Abel, chief executive officer, IMS Global Learning Consortium. "The continued growth in adoption of Caliper Analytics in edtech will result in a more productive and personalized environment that meets the evolving needs of students and educators."
Canvas by Instructure and Ingram/VitalSource are among the first edtech suppliers to achieve IMS conformance certification for Caliper Analytics v1.1.
 
"We are excited that Canvas is certified in Caliper Analytics v1.1, as it enables education organizations to leverage analytics in deeper, more meaningful ways in order to improve instruction and ultimately student outcomes," said Melissa Loble, vice president of platform and partnerships at Canvas by Instructure.
"Five years ago, VitalSource brought home a platinum Learning Impact Award for our foundational work on analytics. Our delivery of the Caliper Analytics 1.1 standard is the next in a long series of customer-driven improvements to that product suite," said Rick Johnson, vice president of product strategy at VitalSource. "Our commitment to addressing three of the largest challenges in higher education: increasing student retention, controlling costs, and improving learning outcomes, is strengthened by our support of the industry-standard Caliper standard and its interoperability with others."