Migration 0: Making Unity the Obvious Choice

For the North American market, the Unity Specification seeks to meet the SIF devotee where they are, and add value on top. 

As we listened to various stake holders we heard:

• We must have backwards compatibility with the SIF 2 Data Model that we have built up and built on for the last two decades.
• We want the more efficient and more easily built to REST based infrastructure underneath.
• We demand a better mechanism to support option sets: as they evolve: as they are localized, and in particular tying them to CEDS.
• We require those who adopted SIF 3 to be included, particularly those leveraging xPress Roster.
• We aspire to be the first standard moving Individualized Education Plans (IEPs).

Unity has all of the above features, making a migration path both reasonable and fruitful... yet the path is still unclear. 

We need some trailblazers, willing to help us put together a guidebook.  We hope to have chapters on how to: start fresh, leverage compatibility, and exchange data more robustly.  So, if you already consider yourself a guide or are willing to be one of our great trailblazers, make sure your membership is up to date, then join the Migration team!

For further information, please contact John Lovell, Technology Director (jlovell@A4L.org).

If you have not seen the State Student Privacy Report Card, the grades are not good...

You may have seen the recent release of the State Student Privacy Report Card which analyzes the thoroughness and quality of student-data privacy laws passed in the U.S. in the past five years.  If you have not seen it, the grades are not good.  On the one hand it shows that there is a lot of work to be done on the legislative front regarding student privacy, it also does not address or advocate for supporting the “on the ground” realities schools and districts face every day in their roles as data stewards.

This “you should…” versus “you can by…” is the reason that the Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC) was initiated.  All the legislation, pledges, promises, suggested guidelines and signatories have elevated the conversation around student data privacy but not the “how” to act to ensure it.  The three key activities being addressed by this non-profit, membership driven community of thousands of schools, dozens of states, numerous countries AND marketplace providers are tactical with possible immediate how to impact:

1. Privacy Contract Vetting: The Common Contract Framework is a set of tools allowing schools to manage their numerous applications, streamline contracting for them, and workflow from the identification of an application to its implementation in a school/district – and everyone informed throughout!  There are now 7 State Alliances using the same contract clauses for all vendors.  That is critical mass!
2. Privacy Effective Practice Development and Sharing: The Digital Tools Governance project provides a “how to” develop any privacy policy, procedure, process in addressing issues in each digital ecosystem.  You can craft teacher PD, FERPA 101 for vendors, data breech policies, vendor engagement, etc. – you pick the topic!  You can then share your product with the rest of the Community.
3. Technical Privacy Expectations: The Global Education Privacy Standard (GEPS) will allow the legalese in contracts to be converted into technical requirements so suppliers can get the relevant information they need from their customers and allow them to prove the adherence to those contract terms.  This is a collaborative effort between the SDPC and the technical wizards of the Access 4 Learning Community and their SIF Technical Specifications.

To see if your state has an SDPC Alliance (there are 22 now with more coming in each week) you can be a part of, or are interested in learning more about the tools, community and support in your tactical student privacy issues drop us a line.  Don’t wait on legislation to fix this!

Data Access and Data Privacy – It is NOT an “either/or” Conversation

I have been ask a lot lately about the work of the Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community in the development of technical blueprints for interoperability that allows data to flow seamless between applications and the growing work of the Special Interest Group the Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC) working to protect student data access.  Are they not in competition with each other?

Not at all. Actually they compliment each other.   Even if you envision them at opposite ends of a kids teeter totter, we all should be looking at the center pivot point for the perfect location for allowing for the management, movement and safe keeping of data for our youngest citizens.  I agree, and have used the scenario that interoperability can allow for the violation of all US FERPA and EU GDPR laws and privacy can “lock down” with un-intentional consequences for those who need access including teaching practitioners and even parents,  the goal is about control over the data for the right person at the right time.  The more you look at how openly developed technical standards, like the SIF Specifications, can allow for privacy control the more you learn about the empowerment that data stewards can have in their digital ecosystems.

I will be writing much more talking about this balance and some “effective practice” stories from our global community in the near future but thought I would invite you to a edWebinar, hosted by the Leadership and Innovation community:

Wednesday, Jan. 16 at 3 p.m. Eastern Time

Data Access Is Easier Than Ever: Is That a Good Thing?

Sponsored by the Education Networks of America (ENA) and CatchOn

Besides this webinar, there are multiple opportunities to get linked to your peers in addressing empowerment via both interoperability and data privacy.  Come listen in to this free session and ideally you will walk away wanting more information on how the A4L and SDPC Community can support your balancing act!

Call for volunteers: North American 2019 Elections Committee

The A4L Community are seeking members to serve on the North American (NA) Elections Committee. As a Committee member you will be helping the A4L Community by overseeing the election process, assisting in conducting the election process and reviewing the policies and procedures on behalf of the Association members.

For the 2019 SIF Association NA Annual Election process, there will be three (3) Committee meetings scheduled.  If you are interested in serving on the NA Elections Committee, please contact Penny Murray by Tuesday 27 November 2018.

Why Put Students in Harm’s Way – Twice?!?

One of my most memorable professional moments occurred years ago in DC education meetings when a large room of teachers and policy makers were discussing the concept of “at risk” learners and the various educational strategies that can be employed to address this “subset” of kids.  One educator stood up in front of the room and stated, “I just want you to know that ours school recently found out that all kids are “at risk” – I teach at Columbine High School”.  Yes this was 1999.

We all know very clearly now that our definitions of “at risk” has changed to not only mean academic oriented activities but now must include physical and emotional well being.  Some of these are under their control and some aren’t.  Take for an example last year’s hurricane Category 5 hurricane Irma, the most powerful ever to hit the Atlantic, which devastated most of the Caribbean including plunging more than 1 million citizens of Puerto Rico into darkness.  This put all Puerto Rican leaners “at risk” and many families fled the islands for the US mainland.

One of the major landing point, due to many familial cultural and established networks were the states of Texas, Florida…. and Massachusetts!   These learners entered into established local and state educational institutions – many of which were not ready to address this influx in numbers and needs for these new learners.   An example of one state who utilized K12 community built open standards for data management was the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and their use of the Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) Specifications built by the Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community.

“This year, our statewide usage of the SIF standard has been so valuable in our ability to track and budget for Puerto Rican migration as a result of Hurricane Irma”, states Rob Curtin, Associate Commissioner Data & Accountability, MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. “We have had over 3000 students arrive in our state and we have used our real-time SIF reporting capabilities to provide weekly updates to the Governor’s office.  This was critical information for policymakers in how best to support the schools receiving and educating these new students.”

So add “environmental incidents” to the list creating “at risk” learners for all of our schools!

About the SIF Specification
The SIF Specification is not a product, but a technical blueprint for enabling diverse applications to interact and share data related to educational entities in instructional and administrative environment.  To find out more about either the SIF (global) Infrastructure or any of the locale-specific SIF Data Models, please go to: https://www.a4l.org/page/SIFSpecifications