When I first wrote about my XP based grading system back in December 2014 I got overwhelmingly good feedback from all over the world and it started a chain of TV & newspaper interviews and people who wanted to write their thesis on this subject.

Back then my system wasn't quite ready but a few weeks later I released the platform Socialcube Lite (which by now has been merged to the full site of https://socialcube.net ) where teachers could register their schools and grade their students with my XP system.

Socialcube example

Today over 300 schools and universities from Sweden, Germany, to the US (we even have part of the ivy league on the site) have registered and many thousand users are on the site every week.

I was very happy with the success of this open platform but I still thought there was something missing. Receiving XP and having a XP bar where they can see how many XP they need to level up their grade seems to be extremley motivating for students but I wanted to go even further.

Anouncing: The GradeLink API

How does it work?

The GradeLink API works similar to the Facebook (graph) API. It allows developers to let Socialcube users connect with their app or game.

The developer can get a list of the courses the user is attending and how they perform. This allows them to give ingame items or features for every XP the user gets.

Developers get a token that allows them to query the amount of XP a student has and track it asynchronously via the API (the user doesn't have to be logged in, the developer can track the amount of XP

What can be done with it?

Minecraft mods where users can trade XP for items or ore

Browser games can reward players for XP they get

Free gametime in MMOs with monthly fees

Bonus levels in candy crush?

Everything developers can come up with

Privacy

Since grades are obviously a very personal thing, privacy is very important for us. GradeLink was designed to ensure maximum privacy and anonymity for the students while still giving the developers enough information to reward them when the students earn XP.

The GradeLink API is read only (it can't modify anything on behalf of the user)

Developers can only access data of people who actively logged in and allowed the app to read their data

The amount of XP a student has earned can be read by the developer but not what the XP were for (the reasons like "homework", "participation", etc are not disclosed)

The only thing the API will disclose about the user is the email address (not the name)

I'm a developer, how can I start?

If you are interested in the GradeLink API you can sign up for the closed beta via this form: http://goo.gl/forms/3P7vNHa3OpE28pQl1

We will contact you as soon as the API hits the beta stage.

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