Caliper Analytics enables the collection of high-rate real-time event data via software sensors (or the Sensor API™) and information models (known as metric profiles). By establishing a set of common labels for learning-activity data, the metric profiles enable the exchange of the data across multiple platforms, which will allow institutions to derive better insights from interaction with digital content, learning tools, and platforms.

In addition to defined metric profiles, Caliper also supports versatile "freeform payloads" in order to support existing products, information-model innovation, and the diverse needs of analytics researchers. Caliper is a significant milestone as the first analytics data standard created by the education community for the education community.

Several IMS Global Contributing Member organizations have demonstrated leadership and support for Caliper by being among the first to implement Caliper into their products and complete conformance certification.  These organizations include Blackboard, D2L, Elsevier, Intellify Learning, Kaltura, Learning Objects, McGraw-Hill Education, the University of Michigan, and VitalSource Technologies.

"The goal of Caliper Analytics is to reduce the cost of obtaining quality analytics data from digital educational products by orders of magnitude," said Rob Abel, CEO of IMS Global. "Just as the adoption of Learning Tools Interoperability® (LTI®) made it radically easier for institutions and faculty to innovate with learning tools and apps, Caliper will revolutionize how institutions holistically assess what is working to move the needle on improving outcomes. We applaud the leadership of the organizations that are the first to adopt and complete conformance certification for Caliper v1.0. We anticipate that many more organizations will soon follow suit as more and more institutions ask for Caliper conformance to enable consistent access to learner data."

Caliper Analytics provides more than a specification. Caliper also provides open-source code and APIs (the Sensor API™) to enable rapid implementation of the standard. Caliper Conformance Certification is available to IMS Global members. 

"The University of Michigan is proud to have played a leading role in the development of Caliper 1.0 and to be the first institution of higher education to have a service certified as compliant with the specification," said Laura Patterson, Associate Vice President and Chief Information Officer at the University of Michigan. "Open standards are critical to our vision of an interoperable and loosely coupled digital learning ecosystem."

Chris Vento, CEO of Intellify Learning, added, "Given that our core business and solution enables learning-data management and analytics capabilities across a wide spectrum of learning platforms and apps in HED and K-12, we see the benefits of Caliper to expedite and enhance data-driven services and integrations first hand in all of our implementations. Other institutions’ and our continued adoption and real-world implementations of Caliper will result in optimal continuous improvement and advances in Caliper's capabilities over time."

"Caliper provides a critical foundation to advance learning analytics by creating common naming conventions and transport protocols, enabling educational institutions and technology providers to provide deeper insights only possible through combining data from multiple platforms," said Dr. John Whitmer, Platform Analytics and Educational Research Director, Blackboard, Inc.

According to Jon Mott, Chief Learning Officer for Learning Objects, "Consistent access to student learning data across multiple learning tools and environments is critical to personalized, adaptive, and competency-based learning. That is why Learning Objects, Inc. is so committed to Caliper Analytics. We are honored to be among the first vendors to certify under the new specification."

"VitalSource has been at the vanguard of support for IMS and the Caliper standard, and we share a common goal of moving the industry forward with innovative educational analytics," said Rick Johnson, Vice President of Product and Sales Engineering, VitalSource Technologies Inc. "We are pleased to announce our Caliper certification, and we will continue our collaboration with IMS to accelerate the industry’s efforts to measure the efficacy and improve the design of instructional materials."

"The Caliper Analytics specification is foundational to learning analytics and the mission to improve outcomes for students and educators. Elsevier is excited to be a member of the open-data-standards community," said Aaron Zeckoski, Vice President Software Engineering, Elsevier Health Solutions.

Stephen Laster, chief digital officer of McGraw-Hill Education, added, "Targeted learning analytics can provide institutions and instructors with an incredible set of tools to help improve student outcomes. By removing the interoperability barriers to these insights, Caliper Analytics makes it easier for educators to use data to make teaching and learning more personalized and effective. We’re also proud to announce that the latest version of our Reading Wonders program for the K-5 market has achieved Caliper certification."

"Kaltura is an enthusiastic supporter of IMS, as open sharing of data and content is part of our mission. We’re therefore very pleased to be an early adopter of the IMS Caliper standard", said Jeff Rubenstein, Vice President Product, Kaltura. "As we all look to understand more from student learning data —  to better judge the effectiveness of various kinds of content and to personalize student learning — the importance of interoperability and data sharing is greater than ever.  By providing a standard to integrate Kaltura-provided data with the information from other learning systems, Caliper enables us to help partner institutions get even more value from their growing body of video-based content."

"D2L is a longtime supporter of IMS, and we are delighted to be certified for emitting Caliper events." said Nick Oddson, Sr. VP Product Development, D2L. "The Caliper standard is significant as it enables teachers to gather intelligence about student activities from across the entire ecosystem of educational tools and then leverage that information to improve their students’ success. As the first LMS platform with the ability to both send and receive rich student data via Caliper, we are thrilled to be working with IMS on the emerging standard."

Caliper is sponsored in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, ACE Learning Company, D2L, eLumen, Gutenberg Technology, Unicon and VitalSource Technologies.