---
title: Learning Commons
description: How VIABLE uses Learning Commons' Knowledge Graph for standards, skills and math misconceptions, what it keeps, and how to credit it.
updated: 2026-10-29
---

> All VIABLE docs, for people and their agents: https://developers.viablelab.org/llms.txt

# Learning Commons

VIABLE reads academic standards and durable skills from [Learning Commons](https://learningcommons.org)' Knowledge Graph, an open dataset of standards, skills and what they break into. This page explains what VIABLE takes from it, when, and what you owe it when you share your work.

## What VIABLE uses

The Knowledge Graph connects standards and skills to smaller pieces of learning. VIABLE uses five parts of it, all in an activity's **How the AI helps**:

| In the Knowledge Graph | In VIABLE |
| --- | --- |
| Academic standards | **K-12 standard**: every state, Washington, D.C. and Common Core, pre-K to grade 12 |
| Learning components | **It breaks into**: the skills inside a standard |
| Prerequisite relations | **Standards before it**: what the AI can go back to |
| Carnegie Skills Progressions | **Durable skill**: collaboration, communication and critical thinking, at four levels |
| Eedi Misconceptions Graph | **Misconceptions to listen for**: math misconceptions and the skills they hinder |

## When VIABLE asks, and what it keeps

::: steps
1. **You choose a standard or a skill.** While you search for a standard, VIABLE asks Learning Commons, and keeps each answer for a day. Durable skills and misconceptions come from VIABLE's own copy.
2. **VIABLE keeps a copy.** What you pick, with the pieces you leave ticked, is saved in the activity's version, with its source and license.
3. **Learners never wait on it.** When a learner sends a message, the agent reads that saved copy. Learning Commons isn't asked again.
:::

So a change at Learning Commons never changes what an activity's AI was already given, and your research export says exactly what each version used.

> [!NOTE]
> Learning Commons' API is in early access. If it doesn't answer, searching for a new standard waits; activities that already have one keep working.

## Looked up, or copied

Learning Commons publishes the graph two ways: an API, and release files of about a gigabyte. VIABLE uses each where it works best.

- **Standards are looked up.** The API finds a standard from a teacher's own words, and stays current without VIABLE storing it. The saved copy means learners' runs never depend on it.
- **Durable skills are copied.** The API doesn't search them yet, so VIABLE carries the Carnegie Skills Progressions from the release files: 31 indicators, each at four levels.
- **Misconceptions are copied, and matched by words.** The release files carry Eedi's 8,117 math misconceptions and the 2,258 skills they hinder. Their links to standards aren't in the open release, so VIABLE suggests the skills that share the most words with a standard and what it breaks into (or with your goal or search), showing which words matched. You tick the misconceptions; nothing is chosen for you.

The release files are also the better choice for your own offline analysis.

## Crediting it

The Knowledge Graph is licensed [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), and Carnegie and Eedi share their parts under the same license. VIABLE shows the attribution beside every standard, skill and misconception, and keeps it in the saved copy. When you publish materials or data that include their text, credit them, for example: "Standards from the Learning Commons Knowledge Graph, CC BY 4.0." or "Misconceptions from the Eedi Misconceptions Graph v1.0, (c) 2026 Eedi Ltd., via Learning Commons, CC BY 4.0."

## Not teaching K-12?

A durable skill fits learners of any age, and a goal in your own words fits anyone: a university seminar, an adult literacy class, a library workshop. See [How the AI helps](/docs/teach/ai-helps).

::: cards
- [Standards, skills and misconceptions](/docs/teach/standards-and-skills): choose them for an activity.
- [The research export](/docs/research/export): what each activity version used, in one download.
:::