Yet Analytics creates ‘mission control’ for learning data

Yet Analytics is rolling out upgrades to its platform at this week’s DevLearn conference in Las Vegas.
The Baltimore startup offers a software-as-a-service platform for learning analytics called the xAPI Learning Record Store, which is used by clients in corporate learning and development, defense and education, according to COO Brit Keller. The platform provides a place to track data on learning activities from across different kinds of sources, and provides data interoperability so those different kinds of sources can “speak” to each other.
The company also offers visualizations to help present the data. With the upgrade, Yet Analytics is offering a customizable learning analytics dashboard, which includes data cards.  It also has a user interface that’s designed to be more intuitive. Keller describes the new features as “mission control” for the data.
“Yet is always committed to providing an exceptional user experience via data dashboards that surface meaningful and actionable insights to our users,” Keller told Technical.ly via email. “The new dashboards provide enhanced configurability and customization which allow our users to share their unique data story with stakeholders.”

NEW from Yet Analytics: check out our new LRS dashboards! Our new dashboards are fully configurable with customizable data cards. Watch the Getting Started video to learn more https://t.co/DxAJhGUr2G and check out the demo at https://t.co/nEgxCpDx9l pic.twitter.com/tuQDBvAPsP

— Yet Analytics (@YetAnalytics) October 23, 2018

Project DAVE
In a separate effort, the startup is also applying its capabilities to push forward the effort to create technology that allows for sharing of learning data.
The startup’s technology is built using xAPI, a web specification to create interoperability for collecting data on training activities that was initially developed by the U.S. Department of Defense. It’s one of the open source web specifications being developed to share the data that’s called the Total Learning Architecture.
With Project DAVE (short for Data Analytics and Visualization Efficiency Framework), Yet is setting out to create a group of analytics algorithms and data visualization templates, as well as open source prototypes for dashboards and code that is aligned to the standards, said CEO Shelly Blake-Plock.
“It’s a very domain-specific way of using these mission control and dashboard technologies,” he said.
Funded by DoD’s Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative, Blake-Plock said DAVE is essentially a “guidebook that other people are going to use and build from.”
Being an open source effort, the community has a big role to play. Blake-Plock said the project presents a chance for those working outside the DoD to continue developing the technology.
“They did a great service to the entire field by opening this up,” Blake-Plock said. “What we’ve seen on the industry side is the adoption of the technology by major companies at scale, which makes it really exciting for all the players in that open source community.”
Yet Analytics is looking to engage that community, gathering stakeholders including leaders working in data, as well as executives and others in industry who use the data to share knowledge that will inform the effort and could help lead to new frameworks.
For Yet Analytics, it’s also a chance to continue to learn and develop as the startup develops its own products, thinking about considerations such as usability, security and privacy.
“This is an opportunity to provide leadership in the development of analytics across the learning space,” Blake-Plock said. “I think there’s a lot of responsibility there, and I think that it actually makes us better as a company, and helps us to build better products and think about what that means for end users.”
Graduates of ETC, Yet Analytics is now based out of offices in downtown Baltimore. It’s the center of business in the city, but Blake-Plock said the addition of tech and creative businesses helps add to the “mix of all the different kinds of people that you work with in a city.”