The version 10 standards include new data definitions and updated data models to support additional use cases across early learning, K-12, postsecondary, and workforce domains.

This major version of CEDS includes:

• 60 new elements including:
  • 15 new adult education elements
  • 1 new credentials element – Credential Definition Terminal Degree Indicator
  • 4 new early learning elements
  • 12 new implementation variables
  • 24 new K12 elements
    • including new Spatially Interpolated Demographic Estimates (SIDE) elements
  • 4 new postsecondary elements
  • 1 new workforce element – Cohort Median Earnings
• 107 updated elements including:
  • 235 context updates in the CEDS Domain Entity Schema to support new use cases involving 129 elements (new and updated)
    • 234 context additions
    • 1 context removal
  • 256 cross-reference ("See also:") updates to the Domain Entity Schema  to make it easier to find related elements on ceds.ed.gov:
    • 251 context additions
    • 5 context removals
  • 304 option changes involving 53 elements  (new and updated)
    • includes
    1. 269 new options
    2. 21 changed options
    3. 14 end dated options

Get involved in the CEDS Open Source Community at: https://ceds.communities.ed.gov/

The At-Large Technical Board is elected for a one-year term.  There are four (4) seats open for the At-Large Technical Board members.  At-Large Technical Board members must be A4L Community Voting Participants or employed by or represent an A4L Community Voting Participant and duly authorized to represent that A4L Community Voting Participant.  You can download the policies and procedures for the Annual Elections as outlined by the Elections Committee on the A4L Community Site here.
 
For the 2022 A4L Community North American Annual Election process, the following dates apply:

March 1, 2022      Announcement to membership that elections will occur

March 8, 2022      Nominations open

March 29, 2022    Nominations close

March 31, 2022    Elections Committee convenes to confirm ballot

April 5, 2022         Ballot released

April 19, 2022       Voting closes at 5:00 pm Eastern

April 20, 2022       Elections Committee convenes to confirm results

April 25, 2022       Elections results announced during the Interoperability & Privacy Symposium

We will use a virtual election tool and all nominations must be submitted electronically.  The Primary Business Contact will be the official vote for each A4L Community Voting Participant, unless a designee is provided.  Please contact Penny Murray, pmurray@A4L.org, to confirm your Primary Business Contact, or organization ‘designee’ for the 2022 NA Elections.
 
We will send out information to submit your nomination beginning on March 8, 2022.  Please consider nominating yourself, asking someone to nominate you or nominate someone else to run for one of these leadership positions within the A4L Community!

As highlighted in the recent A4L-SDPC Quarterly Newsletter (December 2021), throughout the past few months the A4L Community has proactively sought input on how to best serve members and better leverage our resources.

Based on results from a survey sent to all members earlier this year, as well as a deeper dive conducted by our contracted marketing firm through one-to-one interviews, we are pleased to announce a number of changes will be implemented during first quarter 2022 and beyond.

“Nearly 100% of our resources are supported solely by membership dues,” Larry Fruth, Executive Director/CEO, notes. “That we’ve been able to sustain A4L for more than 25 years validates the strength of what we have to offer, yet we knew improvements were needed.  With limited resources, however, in certain areas we were falling short with meeting member needs and reflecting innovation in our brand, therefore, it’s time for change and embracing a new approach.”

As a result, the Board recently approved the following:

• Combining both interoperability (A4L) and privacy work (SDPC) vs. splitting our energy and resources. As part of refocusing our efforts and offering one, collective Community, members will have the flexibility of choosing a membership level that best meets their needs.
• Reducing the amount of complimentary support we offer non-members; by providing free accessibility, we actively dissuade more vendors and end-users from becoming members.

The first of several changes being made is set to occur January 1: implementing a new membership structure.

For some members, dues will decrease – such as if they hold dual memberships for both A4L and SDPC. For others, dues may increase – for instance, if they choose value-added subscription services for a premium membership.  New membership levels and associated benefits for each are noted below.

While the new structure goes into effect January 1, 2022, membership dues will not increase until a member’s next renewal date. In continuing our renewal notifications 60 days in advance of membership expiration, those members who already have received their notice will remain on the current  (2021) pricing structure.

Additional changes set to occur during first quarter 2022 include refreshing our brand, which will change the look of our materials, as well as updating our website so it’s more engaging and content easier to access.

“Moving forward, we are rededicating our commitment to our stakeholders and appreciate all of the honest feedback we received,” Larry emphasizes. “I’m confident these changes—supported by our leaders and the Board—will help to not only sustain our initiative for many more years, but also renew our position as the premier Community for learners.”

Please watch for many more details in the coming weeks.

COMMUNITY MEMBERSHIP LEVELS (2022 onwards)

If you have any questions regarding the membership changes, please contact Penny Murray, Community Director, A4L Community.

UPDATE: JANUARY 2022

Our new membership structure is now live! More details, including pricing can be found here.

2022 Community Predictions!
Foreword by Larry Fruth II PhD., CEO/Exec Director, A4L Community

While I do not EVER contend to be able to predict the future, I can confidently present some of the following “bets” for the Community in 2022.  These are for entertainment purposes only – no betting is encouraged!

• The new A4L Membership structure will not only clarify and align our two “sides”, specifications and privacy, it will drive additional members to the Community
• The new “Data Hub” pilot will be a HUGE hit and begin replication across the country streamlining how applications enter into the school ecosystem in a safe and secure manner – no matter what standard is used!
• A version 2 of the National Data Privacy Agreement will be delivered and adopted by the majority of the Alliances
• We will get a chance to once again meet face to face and share our successes, challenges and priorities for the work of the Community
• There will be a new “Quality Control” program for the Community that add additional clarity on marketplace product claims replacing our current Certification Program
• Some new and very interesting partnership will emerge that expands the impact of the community globally including additional support and sharing for all 4 international communities.
• The SDPC Resource Registry will continue its exponential growth while improving speed and functionality for users.
• Much like during election season with those always enjoyable ads for your vote, you will be inundated with the marketing pitch and associated changes for “Connecting and Securing Effective Learning Ecosystems”®

And this is just the start………….

Lots to do so get rested over the holidays and let’s hit the ground running in 2022!  Happy Holidays!

Global Community News:  SIF Infrastructure Specification (global) 3.4 release —what it REALLY shows; User Profile changes coming in 2022; Welcome new members!; System Maintenance Notice; Holiday Office closures; You spoke. We Listened—new membership structure, improvements forthcoming;  Infrastructure looking for expertise…; SAVE THE DATES: Privacy & Interoperability Symposium 2022; and Project Team updates

AU Community News:  AU Community Day Overview; and 2021 Election results

NZ Community News:  Community update

NA Community News:  What’s next for Unity?; SIF Certification News; and Understanding the Data Hub Ecosystem

Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC) News: 2021 Election results; NRDPA released; Coming soon… NDPA v2; Curious about Linking Privacy to Security Common Frameworks?; Project Team updates

Download the A4L-SDPC Quarterly Newsletter, December 2021 >>

The following supplier members will join representatives from State and Territory Departments of Education and non-government school bodies on the A4L AU Management Board during 2021-2022:

• Dr Kiki Tanousis, Semaphore Consulting Group
• Antony Mawer, Sentral Education

The AU Community also elected supplier representatives for the AU Technical Board (known as the Data Standards Working Group (DSWG)), who provide technical oversight for the SIF Implementation Specification (Australia). The 2021-2022 supplier representatives are:

• James Hamilton, Sentral Education
• Joerg Huber, Systemic Pty Ltd
• David Jones, Semaphore Consulting Pty Ltd
• James Overell, Education Horizons Group
• Mark Vanderkley, SIMON Schools

“We are delighted to have such a highly regarded and experienced group of educational leaders elected onto the Australian Management Board and Technical Board for the coming term.” stated Larry Fruth II, Ph.D., CEO/Executive Director, A4L Community.  “With continued emphasis on data interoperability, data privacy and now usage, these education leaders are ideally placed to drive the needs identification and solutions development through community developed data standards and effective practice sharing.”

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About the Access 4 Learning Community

The Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community, and its special interest group the Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC), is a unique, non-profit collaboration composed of schools, districts, local authorities, states, US and International Ministries of Education, software vendors and consultants.  The Community is “Powered by SIF” as its major technical tool to help manage learning data simply, securely and in a scalable, standard way regardless of platform. The SDPC is designed to address the day-to-day, real-world multi- faceted issues faced when protecting learner information by setting common expectations between market providers and end users.  The A4L Community has united these education technology end users and providers in an unprecedented effort “connect and secure effective learning ecosystems” to give teachers more time to do what they do best: teach. For further information, visit https://www.A4L.org and https://privacy.A4L.org

Washington, DC, 18 November 2021--- The Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC), a Special Interest Group of the non-profit Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community, is proud to announce the release of another great resource to support schools in their student data privacy stewardship roles.

The National Research Data Privacy Agreement (NRDPA) has been Community developed with extensive review and comment from schools, districts, state and government organizations, marketplace providers, researchers, universities, and their legal representatives. The NRDPA is designed to address the federal, state, and local student data sharing requirements and best practices between schools and research organizations.  Currently these agreements have been ‘one-offs’ between these organizations requiring substantial work in establishing – if addressed at all.

“Building off the successful development and usage of the National Data Privacy Agreement (NDPA), the A4L Community continues its work in streamlining data sharing agreements between districts/divisions and states with foundations, universities and research organizations”, touts Larry Fruth II, PhD, CEO and Executive Director of A4L.  “This NRDPA release, created over the past year with input from all constituents, is a standardized way for educational research to progress by helping researchers get the data they require while supporting educational institutions in their role as student data stewards.”

The NRDPA is formatted to follow the format of the successful SDPC National Data Privacy Agreement (NDPA) currently being used by thousands of schools and marketplace providers addressing common student data privacy concerns.  The NRDPA format allows for easier review and adoption by schools who have been using the NDPA for sharing data with application vendors under FERPA’s ‘school official’ exception.  

Unlike the NDPA, the NRDPA has been designed for schools and researchers to use to share student data under FERPA’s “Studies” exception. This exception allows approved researchers to conduct studies for, or on behalf of, schools or districts to improve instruction as well as administer student aid for developing, validating, or administering predictive tests. SDPC Community Members have developed this resource to continue towards its overarching goal of streamlining student data sharing, protecting privacy, and to set common expectations between schools/districts, marketplace providers and now, researchers.

The draft NRDPA can be found on the SDPC website (https://privacy.A4L.org/national-research-dpa/)  with permissible usage rights for SDPC Members.  The draft includes a companion document that covers NRDPA usage and guidance on FERPA’s Studies exception.

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About the Access 4 Learning Community

The Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community, and its special interest group the Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC), is a unique, non-profit collaboration composed of schools, districts, local authorities, states, US and International Ministries of Education, software vendors and consultants.  The Community is “Powered by SIF” as its major technical tool to help manage learning data simply, securely and in a scalable, standard way regardless of platform. The SDPC is designed to address the day-to-day, real-world multi- faceted issues faced when protecting learner information by setting common expectations between market providers and end users.  The A4L Community has united these education technology end users and providers in an unprecedented effort “connect and secure effective learning ecosystems” to give teachers more time to do what they do best: teach. For further information, visit https://www.A4L.org and https://privacy.A4L.org

On November 17, 2021, the Association Board of Directors approved the SIF Infrastructure Implementation Specification (global) 3.4 for A4L Community review.

This release of the SIF Infrastructure Implementation Specification is in a different form than we have ever published before. Part of what makes this possible is the one piece that will remain the same… although it wasn’t reintroduced to the Global SIF Infrastructure until our last release, the format used for our data models (globally) will be submitted. From this we will produce API documentation and OpenAPI files similar to that which is being included with our most recent data model releases. This will both make things much clearer to developers and further align all our documentation into a consistent style.

What continues to be unique about the Infrastructure is the documentation on how to combine SIF Services into solutions. With this release we will start the transition from narrative volumes shared as PDFs to topical articles shared on a Confluence website.

Additional functionality included in this release is a new concept for our ecosystem, Admin Directives, empowers endpoint Providers to ‘inform’ or ’direct’ endpoint Consumers what needs to happen. This opens the possibility to prompt the resending of data, expose what objects have been updated, and initiate functional services etc. This inversion of control is joined by the ability to simply acknowledge a message from a queue without getting the next message. Empowering proper shutdown when retrieving messages while still allowing the incredible scalability is what our Infrastructure is known for.

Community Review period will be open from Thursday, November 18, 2021 until Thursday, December 9, 2021 (inclusive).

As this is a Community Review, you will be required to login to the A4L website to submit your feedback.

CAST YOUR VOTE TODAY!

*Only one vote per organization will be accepted. Should multiple votes be received, only the first received will be included in the final survey poll.*

Washington, DC, 2 November 2021--- The Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC), a Special Interest Group of the non-profit Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community, is proud to announce the Management Board for 2021-2022. The SDPC Management Board will oversee day-to-day management of the SDPC, leading this Community of end users and marketplace provider stakeholders, approving projects and tools that have “on the ground and real-world” impact as well as contributing to the development of strategies for the global Community.

Community members elected to serve on the SDPC Management Board for a two-year term are:

“I am thrilled to welcome these prominent leaders actively involved in supporting student privacy practices to the SDPC Management Board for this coming term”, states Larry L Fruth II, Ph.D., Executive Director/CEO, A4L Community. “Their leadership, guidance and overall dedication to the Community will prove critical to our collective successes as they lead the education marketplace’s maturation into real world solutions for data privacy for schools and state data stewards as well as marketplace providers globally.”

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About the Access 4 Learning Community

The Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community, and its special interest group the Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC), is a unique, non-profit collaboration composed of schools, districts, local authorities, states, US and International Ministries of Education, software vendors and consultants.  The Community is “Powered by SIF” as its major technical tool to help manage learning data simply, securely and in a scalable, standard way regardless of platform. The SDPC is designed to address the day-to-day, real-world multi- faceted issues faced when protecting learner information by setting common expectations between market providers and end users.  The A4L Community has united these education technology end users and providers in an unprecedented effort “connect and secure effective learning ecosystems” to give teachers more time to do what they do best: teach. For further information, visit https://www.A4L.org and https://privacy.A4L.org

Two can become one...
Foreword by Larry Fruth II PhD., CEO/Exec Director, A4L Community

“Connecting and Securing Effective Learning Ecosystems®”.  You will be seeing that mantra for the Community a LOT in the coming months.  

MUCH more to come.

Global Community News:  Updated Infrastructure Specification documentation coming soon; Welcome new Members!; Update: Marketing & Communications Plan; Project Team updates

AU Community News:  EduTECH 2021 overview; Save the Date for the AU Community Day; Project Team updates

NA Community News:  North American Data Model development back to normal?; Project Team updates; All about Unity...

Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC) News:  SDPC 2021 Elections; Update: National pK20 Student Data Privacy Symposium; SDPC Resource Registry enhancements; National Research Data Sharing Agreement (NRDPA) update; Project Teams Updates

Download the A4L-SDPC Quarterly Newsletter, September 2021 >>

We hope you can take a minute and take a breath – follow local guidance, if that’s through a mask or not!

As our Northern Communities move toward warmer weather and our Southern data brethren slip into winter, we ideally all have one thing in common – a light at the end of this pandemic tunnel.  “Back to normal” is an often-used term each day but we all know we will have to adjust to a “new normal”.

While the media has seemed to move back to spending time informing us about the lives of sports heroes, Hollywood stars and even government movers and shakers, I have to say I miss the “old normal” of seeing stories about pandemic heroes – indulge me here…

My recently graduated daughter (go Buckeyes!) worked throughout as a neonatal nurse practitioner front line worker while her fiancé is a surgical nurse at a large university hospital.  My wife taught 7-12 French and was weekly switching between virtual, face to face and hybrid learning.  The last week of school was the first time she saw her student’s faces without masks!  I mention these two because I live with them each day and see what it has done to them physically and emotionally.  Imagine a first-year teacher starting in 2020!?!?

These deserving media stories are great to hear but often not heard, are all the support structures and people surrounding them.  State and school IT departments, marketplace partners, family members, and numerous others are also part of the “deserving”.  While the pandemic impacts will be measured for years to come – we made it through!

As a continuously growing Community we have a lot to tell the world about as well.  We hope that we have captured some of it in this newsletter edition. 

YOU have been part of that support structure for getting us through and you too are deserving... and we appreciate you!

Global Community News:  A4L announce SIF Fellow Award; Community Survey: coming soon!; Welcome new Members!; Introducing Data Standards United

AU Community News:  SIF Data Model Specification (Australia) 3.4.8 published; Safer Technologies 4 Schools

NA Community News:  North American 2021 Leadership announced; A4L Community (NA) Town Hall Meeting: Overview; The latest Unity release strengthens Personal Privacy; What A Review!; Leadership Board Alignment

Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC) News:  SDPC Vendor Showcase Webinar: BSD Education (June 17); Advance Notice: SDPC Elections coming soon!; Project Teams Updates; Out and About; Come join us at the National pK20 Student Data Privacy Symposium!

Download the A4L-SDPC Quarterly Newsletter, June 2021 >>

Washington, DC, 9 June, 2021 --- A new collaborative Data Standards United (DSU) has recently formed, led by some of the most prominent open data standards communities. With a vision of “collaboration and alignment of standards to support the global education and workforce digital ecosystem”.  DSU is not a new organization, but a voluntary collaborative of some of the world’s most widely used data standards from education to workplace,  engineering to health professions, all for lifelong learning.

“With data standards in use across many sectors and markets, coordinating and aligning them has been needed especially with the explosion of them in the past 20 years”, states Larry Fruth II, PhD, A4L’s Executive Director/CEO and DSU Chair. “DSU is focused on sharing success and promoting partnerships between these groups to support seamless, lifelong learning, provide a forum for emerging technologies, promote existing standards-based solutions and ideally foster an understanding of each community’s role across education, employment and training sectors.”

Early DSU “Signatory Members”, those communities openly developing consensus standards, include:

Together, DSU establishes common ground mechanisms to coordinate and align disparate global data standards while respecting each organization’s independence across systems, platforms, networks, sectors, and industries.

“The current paradigm of many data standards being developed and supported independently from one another is an ongoing challenge for marketplace providers and end users.  With a learner-centric focus and attention to user communities, the DSU collaborative looks to improve and simplify digital interoperability for all stakeholders across lifelong learning and employment.” states Michael D. Sessa, PESC President & CEO.  “As an example of the benefits of DSU, all communities would benefit with a more coordinated, informed tactical approach to JSON and JSON-LD.”

To access the Data Standards United Charter and Signatory Member information visit: https://datastandardsunited.org

SLIDE DECK:  Data Standards United for Lifelong Learning and Employment 

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About the Data Standards United Collaborative

Data Standards United (DSU) is a voluntary collaborative of standards communities and organizations directly vested in the development of standards who abide by the core values of 1) Free access to data standards, 2) Transparent, voluntary, consensus-based standards development, approval, and maintenance, and 3) Public support of the Data Standards United collaborative, lifelong learning and employment, for more information, please visit https://datastandardsunited.org

Community members elected to serve on the 2021-2022 North American (NA) Management Board are:

• Jennifer Downey, Infinite Campus
• Jessica Kallin, Utah State Board of Education
• Jim McGlynn, Public Consulting Group
• Jay Pennington, Iowa Department of Education

These join fellow A4L Community members who will serve the second of their 2-year term on the NA Management Board:

• Michelle Elia, CPSI Ltd
• Allen Miedema, Northshore School District
• Ben Silberglitt, CedarLabs

In addition, the Community is delighted to welcome back Ross Santy, NCES as the US Department of Education Liaison, and Steve Smith, CIO Cambridge Public Schools MA as a representative of the Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC) Management Board.

Also held were elections for the North American Technical Board, who provide the technical oversight for the SIF Specifications (North America). The elected 2021 North American Technical Board At-Large seats were:

• Alex Jackl, Bardic Systems
• Eric Levy, Cambridge Public Schools
• Roger Petersen, Iowa Department of Education

“I am delighted to formally acknowledge this influential group of educational marketplace leaders who are actively involved in supporting education data management, movement and utilization, to the North American Management Board for this coming term”, states Larry L Fruth II, PhD., Executive Director/CEO, A4L Community. “These Board members are prominent in developing our collective vision in ‘Connecting and Securing an Effective Learning Ecosystems’ ^TM across the country and the entire Community.”

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About the Access 4 Learning Community

Washington, DC, 4 May 2021 --- The Access 4 Learning^® (A4L) Community is proud to announce the latest release of the new Unity Specification which provides standardization of learning data, ranging from everything from classroom rostering to federal data reporting, while addressing privacy issues throughout the education data continuum.

“Once again, the Community needs to be commended on their industrious work in producing this Unity Specification release in such a hectic and unprecedented time”, states Larry L Fruth II, PhD A4L’s Executive Director/CEO.  “The Community has worked tirelessly to meet the increasing needs of the marketplace, incorporating and strengthening essential requirements such as privacy, remote online learning, instructional delivery mode and more, so that educational institutions can ensure they are all “connecting and securing effective learning ecosystems ^TM”.

The release updates and provides resources support for: Online Learning Profile; Instructional Delivery Mode; Positive Attendance & Expectations Met; OpenAPI, JSON Schema, and API Documentation; JSON Examples & Conversion Tools; and a final key area, giving the release its name, is the inclusion of Personal Privacy Obligations Document (P-POD).  The P-POD provides new objects to support the transfer of data regarding vendors, their products/services, assessments, and results of assessments.  These assessment types could be security, privacy or interoperability related and the approach will help provide an on the wire capability to support emerging vendor catalogues, assessments of products and vendor onboarding processes.  The P-POD seeks to create a place to communicate personal requirements around an individual learner. 

The Unity Specification was built by our volunteer members developed using open, non-proprietary and transparent processes. It contains the most comprehensive K12 data model and modern, internationally used transport technologies to securely move the data to provide it to the right person at the right time in the right way under local data privacy control per Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC) guidance. The ‘Unity’ infrastructure has increased performance and security on the wire, ease of usage, and scales for the widest educational focused interoperability by any technical standard - with or without the need for middleware!

To find out more about the ‘Unity’ Specification, please go to: https://www.A4L.org/page/Unity    

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About the Access 4 Learning Community

The Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community, and its special interest group the Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC), is a unique, non-profit collaboration composed of schools, districts, local authorities, states, US and International Ministries of Education, software vendors and consultants.  The Community is “Powered by SIF” as its major technical tool to help manage learning data simply, securely and in a scalable, standard way regardless of platform. The SDPC is designed to address the day-to-day, real-world multi- faceted issues faced when protecting learner information by setting common expectations between market providers and end users.  The A4L Community has united these education technology end users and providers in an unprecedented effort “connect and secure effective learning ecosystems” to give teachers more time to do what they do best: teach. For further information, visit https://www.A4L.org and https://privacy.A4L.org

• A preliminary investigation identifying 237 core data elements mapped to the US SIF Data Model, supporting the feasibility of SIF as an approach to systems interoperability for AU schools.
• The principal role in drafting a preliminary SIF Data Model Specification (Australia) that enabled the delivery of pilot projects used to build a business case for the national adoption of SIF.
• Managing the release of the SIF Specification (AU) 1.0. Following this, Ministers of Education established the National Schools Interoperability Program (NSIP) promoting SIF as the preferred data exchange model across the Australian School Education Sector.
• Leadership in the release of 14 updates to SIF Data Model Specification (Australia) in response to evolving needs of Australian school education sector.
• Contributing to the advancement of the SIF Specification internationally through co-Chairing the A4L International Technical Board and influential involvement over many years in the Data Modelling, Mapping & Migration (D3M), Data Privacy, Infrastructure and the Open Source & SpecGen Project Teams.
• Supporting international work around a Global Data Dictionary and maturation of SIF Global Infrastructure.

For more than a decade, Linda has worked assiduously with education agencies and product suppliers in Australia as well as technical and governance bodies of the international Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community (previously the SIF Association), to ensure that the Specification is a well maintained, responsive and progressive interoperability standard that serves the ballooning demand from educators, parents and policy makers for access to high quality education data.

Dave Burns, Chair of the A4L AU Management Board stated “We will miss Linda as she takes a well-earned break and look forward to her future contributions to the A4L Community where she is highly valued and respected.”

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About the Access 4 Learning Community

The Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community, and its special interest group the Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC), is a unique, non-profit collaboration composed of schools, districts, local authorities, states, US and International Ministries of Education, software vendors and consultants.  The Community is “Powered by SIF” as its major technical tool to help manage learning data simply, securely and in a scalable, standard way regardless of platform. The SDPC is designed to address the day-to-day, real-world multi- faceted issues faced when protecting learner information by setting common expectations between market providers and end users.  The A4L Community has united these education technology end users and providers in an unprecedented effort “connect and secure effective learning ecosystems” to give teachers more time to do what they do best: teach. For further information, visit https://www.A4L.org and https://privacy.A4L.org

“The ultimate measure of a [person] is not where [he/she] stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where [he/she] stands at times of challenge and controversy.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

That quote should make us think: It is now officially a year into this crisis and how would/could we be ‘measured’?  As we come out of our holes in the ground (like the American furry rodent we tell the coming of spring by), we begin to think what have we learned during this pandemic and what can we do differently for learners and practitioners NEXT year?

I, for one, am passionate about delivering REAL examples of sustainable personalized, individualized, differentiated learning – define those how you want!  I think the explosion of virtual learning and maturation of new tools could make those often used, but not truly implemented, concepts a reality.  But that is discussion for another LONGER day…..

The A4L-SDPC Community continues to plug away at the regular deliverables that never go away from our technical development around interoperability to addressing the needs around student data privacy stewardship.  But to not ‘waste’ this crisis, which has really changed our collective view on what is needed for all schools, so much more is occurring.

First is our new mantra... “Connecting and Securing Effective Learning Ecosystems^TM”

No interoperability.  No Privacy.  Those terms have become overused and tough to define today.  Then there is the global work of the Community, the work around the next North American Unity Specification supporting CCSSO’s COVID Task Force elements, the continued growth of the SDPC and effective use of the National Data Privacy Agreement (NDPA) with all this virtual learning occurring, and the multitude of webinars held during our year in exile that you can access on ANY topic!

So how can you and your organization be ‘measured’ during this pandemic?  More exercise?  Learn a language? Enjoy family time?  Strategize on how to become a virtual organization?  No matter what – we still seemed to keep busy! 

Now read on...

Global Community News:  OpenAPI:  Unifying Developers; Quality Assurance: A vision is forming…; Welcome new Members!; Personal Privacy Obligations Document (P-POD) Under Consideration

AU Community News:  SIF Data Model Specification (Australia) 3.4.8 in review

NZ Community News:  SIF Data Model Specification (New Zealand) 3.2 in Community Review

NA Community News: North American 2021 Elections: nominations now open!; A4L Community (NA) Town Hall Meeting announced; Bolstering Online Learning with Unity; Unity Specification: Community Review coming soon!; Connecting & Securing Effective Learning Ecosystem Webinars (Feb 2021)

Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC) News:  SDPC Vendor Showcase Webinar: LearnPlatform (Mar 18); National Data Privacy Agreement (NDPA) Development & Usage Guide published; New Project Teams; Privacy By The Numbers

Download the A4L Quarterly Newsletter, March 2021 >>

We have all heard and used this phrase – probably repeatedly – in our numerous holiday season conversations.  I think you would agree that, in reality, this year is NOT our typical holiday “season”!

We are all trying to address how this year our “season” is impacting our work and family gatherings.  Take a deep breath and look back at all you and your organization has achieved in the past 9 months.  As a school leader, you dealt with being thrown into the fire last spring and then shifted to address getting kids learning either online or safely in person this fall.  As a marketplace provider, you quickly addressed the new needs of your customers.  As a parent, you found out how vital teachers are for not only the learning but the emotional and social support of your kids, and the list goes on. 

So, in reality, even if it feels like we all have been somewhat frozen in place – a ton of work has been done!

We hope you take a few minutes and review the work done over the past 6 months in your A4L/SDPC Community!  There is some market moving work being done in the from international technical standards development and adoption, a standardized and now nationally used data privacy agreement, partnerships developing tactical support for schools, and identification of what might be “next” for all of us while we connect and secure effective learning ecosystems.  This edition just really only gives you a snapshot!

As we juggle our family and work schedules due to the pandemic, I pass along an often used line that I say to A4L Team, friends and family (you can ask them): “Take care of the important stuff!”  Not “Tis the season” …but it works for me!

Global Community News: Cyber Security Special Interest Group; Personal Privacy Obligations Document (P-POD) Update; Welcome new members; Come Join Us for ‘tactical’ Interoperability & Privacy conversations!

AU Community News:  AU announces 2020-2021 Leadership: AU Community Day Overview

NZ Community News:  SIF Data Model Specification (New Zealand) 3.1 now available 

NA Community News:  COVID-19 Response: Experts needed; North American Contingent to aid in global privacy work; Greater State Support Expected in 2021; Partner Update

Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC) News:  SDPC announce 2020-2021 Leadership; NDPA Now In Use by State Alliances; NDPA Policy, Procedures & Usage Project Team; Research Data Sharing Agreement Project Team; and Vendor Value

Download the A4L Quarterly Newsletter, December 2020 >>

Washington, DC, 1 December 2020

The following supplier members will join representatives from State and Territory Departments of Education and non-government school bodies on the A4L AU Management Board during 2020-2021:

• Liam Pearce, Timetabling Solutions
• Rick Sharp, Education Horizons Group

The AU Community also elected supplier representatives for the AU Technical Board (known as the Data Standards Working Group (DSWG)), who provide technical oversight for the SIF Implementation Specification (Australia). The 2020-2021 supplier representatives are:

• Joerg Huber, Systemic Pty Ltd
• James Hamilton, Sentral
• David Jones, Semaphore Consulting Pty Ltd
• Mark Vanderkley, SIMON Schools
• James Overell, Education Horizons Group

Dave Burns, Chair of the A4L Community AU Management Board and Executive Director, Digital Solutions, at the Department of Education in Queensland commented that “We are very pleased to have strong industry leadership in the A4L AU Community as we accelerate the development of an effective and safe digital learning ecosystem for Australian schools. Collaboration between school systems and industry has never been more important as we meet the demand for data driven personalised learning within a digital classroom, and future schooling in a post-COVID world”.

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About the Access 4 Learning Community

The Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community, and its special interest group the Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC), is a unique, non-profit collaboration composed of schools, districts, local authorities, states, US and International Ministries of Education, software vendors and consultants.  The Community is “Powered by SIF” as its major technical tool to help manage learning data simply, securely and in a scalable, standard way regardless of platform. The SDPC is designed to address the day-to-day, real-world multi- faceted issues faced when protecting learner information by setting common expectations between market providers and end users.  The A4L Community has united these education technology end users and providers in an unprecedented effort “connect and secure effective learning ecosystems” to give teachers more time to do what they do best: teach. For further information, visit https://www.A4L.org and https://privacy.A4L.org

Washington, DC, 11 November, 2020 -- The Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC), a special interest group of the non-profit Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community, is proud to announce the first multiple state usage of the National Data Privacy Agreement (NDPA) to streamline application contracting and set common expectations between schools/districts and marketplace providers.

Today, the SDPC state Alliances of California, Illinois, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Missouri and Utah are recommending usage of the NDPA in all their contracts with marketplace providers.  The remaining 23 Alliances have processes underway to see how they may leverage this work and use the draft soon.  While the NDPA allows for any state specific legislative requirements, the majority of the privacy expectations are standardized and can be used by any entity.

“After more than two years of collaborative work between schools, states and marketplace providers to release the first NDPA, the next milestone the Community hit today is the usage of the same set of privacy clauses across numerous states” states Dr. Larry L Fruth II, the A4L/SDPC Executive Director and CEO.  “It is a great representation of the goal of the Community to set common expectations between end users and marketplace providers regarding student data privacy”.

The NDPA has been developed with extensive review and comments from schools, districts, state organizations, marketplace providers and their legal representatives. It is designed to address common student data privacy concerns and streamline the educational application contracting processes for schools/districts who do not have the legal or fiscal resources and vendors who previously had to sign “one off” contracts with each of the over 13,000 US school districts.

To access the work of the SDPC, including this marketplace impacting project, visit https://privacy.A4L.org

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About the SDPC and the Access 4 Learning Community

The Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC), a Special Interest Group of the A4L Community, is designed to address the day-to-day, real-world multi-faceted issues that schools, states, territories and vendors face when protecting learner information. SDPC’s vision is to develop common activities, artifacts, templates, tools and effective practices that can be leveraged through a unique collaborative of end users and marketplace providers working together. The Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community, previously the SIF Association, is a unique, non-profit collaboration composed of schools, districts, local authorities, states, US and International Ministries of Education, software vendors and consultants who collectively address all aspects of learning information management and access to support learning. The A4L Community is “Powered by SIF” Specifications as its major technical tool to allow for this management and access simply, securely and in a scalable, standard way regardless of the platform hosting those applications. To learn more: https://www.A4L.org andhttps://privacy.A4L.org

“Moving the Educational Marketplace”

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New Management Board

Connecting & Securing Effective Learning Ecosystems Webinar

Thanks for the GREAT turnout – over 160 school CIOs - for the A4L/SDPC “Connecting and Securing Effective Learning Ecosystems” webinars hosted mostly by your CIO peers.  We are thrilled many of you attended and already have had a number of requests for follow-up.

As promised during the call, and asked for by those of you who could not attend, the recording of the webinar and slides can be found HERE. We are thrilled you are a part of the growing Community – so lean on it to help support your daily data stewardship issues since we are all in the same boat!   Your action items from the call were:

Community:  Lean on YOUR Community to help support your challenges or sharing of great ideas.  Again, your State Alliance and the entire SDPC Community continues its growth, but it is all about supporting your work in getting the right information to the right person in a safe and secure manner – vendors and end users!

Connecting:  Demand openly built technical standards from your vendors in your RFP’s to ensure you are in the driver’s seat in leveraging resources and the ability to switch to new applications.  Some getting started help can be found HERE.

Securing:  Chat with your SDPC State Alliance leads on the progress of your maturation to the National Data Privacy Agreement (NDPA) for you to use with ALL your vendors.  It makes getting apps into your ecosystem much easier and makes expectations clear with your vendors.

New CIO Support Groups

National Data Privacy Agreement (NDPA): Hints and Tips

Come Join Us…

National DPA POD

Calling All SDPC Vendors…

How Do I…

WEBSITE: https://privacy.a4l.org/on-boarding-videos-sdpc-resource-registry/

VIDEO: SDPC Resource Registry training for District Admins

VIDEO: SDPC Resource Registry training for Alliance Admins

WEBSITE: https://privacy.a4l.org/national-dpa/

VIDEO: National Data Privacy Agreement Briefing

VIDEO: Student Data Privacy – What are YOUR Obligations?

VIDEO: SDPC Resource Registry

VIDEO: SDPC Resource Registry: Vendor Walk-through

WEBSITE: https://privacy.a4l.org/sdpc-vendor-signatory-badge-program/

DOWNLOAD: SDPC Vendor Benefits
DOWNLOAD: How Are You Showing Your Customers a Commitment to Student Data Privacy?

More resources can be found on the SDPC website here: https://privacy.a4l.org/resources/

Update: 2021 Meeting Schedule

SDPC Consortium Updates – these webinars are held to provide you with a concise 1hour overview of all the latest information from the Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC). Open to all SDPC participants, come find out what your peers have been up to!

• 1^st Wednesday, every 3 months (November, February, May, August) - 2pm Eastern
• Download the meetings to your calendar

Watch November’s Update recording: https://privacy.a4l.org/resources/#webinars

Management Board

• 1^st Wednesday, every 3 months (January, April, July, October) - 2pm Eastern
• Open to elected SDPC Board Members, please go to the group page to download meeting information: https://www.A4L.org/group/SDPCGovernance

Alliance Leadership

• 2^nd Wednesday, every 3 months (November, February, May, August) - 2pm Eastern
• Open to SDPC Alliance Leaders by invitation only.

Legislative Activity Project Team

• *REVISED SCHEDULE*
• 1^st Thursday, every 3 months (November, February, May, August) - 3pm Eastern
• Open to SDPC Members, please go to the group page to download meeting information: https://www.A4L.org/group/SDPC

Vendor Project Team

• *REVISED SCHEDULE*
• 1^st Thursday, every 3 months (October, January, April, July) - 3pm Eastern
• Open to SDPC Members, please go to the group page to download meeting information: https://www.A4L.org/group/SDPC

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Washington, DC, 13 October 2020--- The Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC), a Special Interest Group of the non-profit Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community, is proud to announce the Management Board for 2020-2021. The SDPC Management Board will oversee day-to-day management of the SDPC, leading this Community of end users and marketplace provider stakeholders, approving projects and tools that have “on the ground and real-world” impact as well as contributing to the development of strategies for the global Community.

Community members elected to serve on the 2020-2021 Student Data Privacy Consortium Management Board are:

“I am thrilled to welcome this experienced and instrumental group of thought leaders actively involved in supporting student privacy practices to the SDPC Management Board for this coming term”, states Larry L Fruth II, Ph.D., Executive Director/CEO, A4L Community. “Their leadership, guidance and overall dedication to the Community has proven critical to our collective successes, and they lead the education marketplace’s maturation into real world solutions for data privacy for schools and state data stewards as well as marketplace providers globally.”

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About the Access 4 Learning Community

The Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community, and its special interest group the Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC), is a unique, non-profit collaboration composed of schools, districts, local authorities, states, US and International Ministries of Education, software vendors and consultants.  The Community is “Powered by SIF” as its major technical tool to help manage learning data simply, securely and in a scalable, standard way regardless of platform. The SDPC is designed to address the day-to-day, real-world multi- faceted issues faced when protecting learner information by setting common expectations between market providers and end users.  The A4L Community has united these education technology end users and providers in an unprecedented effort “connect and secure effective learning ecosystems” to give teachers more time to do what they do best: teach. For further information, visit https://www.A4L.org and https://privacy.A4L.org

Being a non-profit organization made up of hundreds of volunteers – both end users and marketplace providers – the “let’s get back to school” focus has provided some interesting informal research data points: We look at educational technology differently,  We look at teachers differently, We look at marketplace providers differently, We look at learning differently.

Global Community News:  OpenAPI & A4L: Global Cooperation Pays Off Big; Welcome new members; Quality Assurance: We Need Your Input; By-Laws 2020; Privacy on the Wire – come join the fun!

AU Community News:  SIF Implementation Specification (Australia) 3.4.7 now available

NA Community News:  Unity Specification Mappings Release published; Unity EDFacts Mapping; CEDS IDS Adaptor – Developers Wanted; xPress Roster Mapping and Beyond

Partner Update

Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC) News:  SDPC National Data Privacy Agreement (DPA) published

WEBINARS: Connecting & Securing Effective Ecosystems - A virtual Annual Meeting that actually works with your schedule!

Download the A4L Quarterly Newsletter, September 2020 >>

Washington, DC, 22 September, 2020 ---The Access 4 Learning ® (A4L) Community, more than 3,000 members strong, is proud to announce the latest release of the new Unity Specification which provides standardization of learning data, ranging from everything from classroom rostering to federal data reporting, while addressing privacy issues throughout the education data continuum.

“The Community needs to be applauded for their great work, both end users and marketplace providers, in the hectic task of getting schools open and operational for the 2020 school year”, states Larry L Fruth II, PhD A4L’s Executive Director/CEO.  “We collectively have timed this comprehensive set of resources to support the futureproofing of school/state data systems after this initial rush was complete.  This release, and the supporting resource package, underscores the Community’s new focus on “connecting and securing effective learning ecosystems”.

The release updates and provides resources support for:

The Unity Specification was built by our volunteer members developed using open, non-proprietary and transparent processes. It contains the most comprehensive K12 data model and modern, internationally used transport technologies to securely move the data to provide it to the right person at the right time in the right way under local data privacy control per Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC) guidance. The ‘Unity’ infrastructure has increased performance and security on the wire, ease of usage, and scales for the widest educational focused interoperability by any technical standard - with or without the need for middleware!

"This latest release provides an incredibly powerful way for education agencies to deliver data using modern infrastructure, following a well-established data standard, while maintaining a focus on privacy and security. The ability of this grassroots movement to continue to evolve is exemplary - kudos to the A4L Community for this important leap forward for schools" acknowledged Ben Silberglitt, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, CedarLabs.

To find out more about the ‘Unity’ Specification, please go to: https://www.A4L.org/page/Unity            

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About the Access 4 Learning Community

The Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community, and its special interest group the Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC), is a unique, non-profit collaboration composed of schools, districts, local authorities, states, US and International Ministries of Education, software vendors and consultants.  The Community is “Powered by SIF” as its major technical tool to help manage learning data simply, securely and in a scalable, standard way regardless of platform. The SDPC is designed to address the day-to-day, real-world multi- faceted issues faced when protecting learner information by setting common expectations between market providers and end users.  The A4L Community has united these education technology end users and providers in an unprecedented effort “connect and secure effective learning ecosystems” to give teachers more time to do what they do best: teach. For further information, visit http://www.A4L.org https://privacy.A4L.org

Washington, DC, 27 August, 2020

The Community’s new focus on “connecting and securing effective learning ecosystems” begins with this release and will continue as we ensure interoperability is aligned with privacy effective practices to best support end users and marketplace providers in their distinct data stewardship roles. The Unity Specification was built by our volunteer members developed using open, non-proprietary and transparent processes.  It contains the most comprehensive K12 data model and modern, internationally used transport technologies to securely move the data to provide it to the right person at the right time in the right way under local data privacy control.  The ‘Unity’ infrastructure has increased performance and security on the wire, ease of usage, and scales for the widest educational focused interoperability by any technical standard - with or without the need for middleware! 

“The original goal of the Community was to support school/district level data management issues and then streamline the mandated reporting of that source data.  While the SIF Specifications did serve as a major starting point for the CEDS initiative, this release streamlines the reporting end to end in North America.  Data now can move from local entities to state agencies and then to federal departments”,  states Larry Fruth II, PhD, CEO/Exec Director, A4L Community.  “While many providers and other standards initiatives underplay usage, the SIF Specifications are the most used K12 open standards in the marketplace, used in hundreds of school districts across all 50 states and in multiple countries!  Unity is the next step in supporting greater privacy and security controls including the work of the Student Data Privacy Consortium^® (SDPC) and is designed to support API standardization.  The A4L Community is the only place where connecting and securing are done in the same place!”

To find out more about the ‘Unity’ Specification, please go to: https://www.A4L.org/page/Unity            

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About the Access 4 Learning Community

There is no other global community made up of educational marketplace product and service providers and the customers they serve, collaborating daily to address real word learning information and resource issues.  The Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community, previously the SIF Association, is a unique, non-profit collaboration composed of schools, districts, local authorities, states, US and International Ministries of Education, software vendors and consultants who collectively address all aspects of learning information management and access to support learning.  The A4L Community is “Powered by SIF” Specifications as its major technical tool to allow for this management and access simply, securely and in a scalable, standard way regardless of the platform hosting those applications. The Access 4 Learning Community has united these education technology end users and providers in an unprecedented effort to give teachers more time to do what they do best: teach. For further information, visit http://www.A4L.org

About the Student Data Privacy Consortium

The Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC) is designed to address the day-to-day, real-world multi-faceted issues that schools, states, territories and vendors face when protecting learner information. SDPC’s vision is to develop common activities, artifacts, templates, tools and effective practices that can be leveraged through a unique collaborative of end users and marketplace providers working together.  For further information, visit https://privacy.A4L.org

Washington, DC, 29 July, 2020

“The achievement of the first NDPA marks a huge milestone for the Consortium” states Steve Smith, CIO, Cambridge Public Schools. “From it’s origins the SDPC’s goal has been to build common expectations between LEAs, SEAs, Parents, Students and Marketplace Providers around student data privacy agreements.This first NDPA is the result of six years of community work of building bridges and facilitating collaboration between all in the JK-12 edtech world. Although this feels like a final product, I’m optimistic that this is actually the beginning of a new phase of privacy awareness and best practice adoption across the marketplace.”  

Currently, the freely accessible SDPC Resource Registry hosts over 15,000 signed Data Privacy Agreements (DPAs) between more than 8,000 schools/districts and 4,500 education application providers.  These DPAs have been developed by the 28 state Alliances addressing their specific state needs.  The Alliance leaders determined in 2019 that there was enough commonality between their DPAs that a national DPA Project Team be formed and explore the viability of developing a draft that could be used by any school/district across the US.  Two years later, the Community is proud to release the first version of the NDPA.

The NDPA has been developed with extensive review and comments from schools, districts, state organizations, marketplace providers and their legal representatives.  It is designed to address common student data privacy concerns and streamline the educational application contracting processes for schools/districts who do not have the legal or fiscal resources and vendors who previously had to sign “one off” contracts with each of the over 13,000 US school districts.  While the NDPA allows for any state specific legislative requirements, the majority of the privacy expectations are standardized and can be used by any entity as part of their Terms of Service Agreements.

Allen Miedema, Executive Director, Technology Department at Northshore School District commented “Having a Statewide Data Privacy Agreement for the State of Washington has been an enormous success. It has saved LEAs an incredible amount of time in privacy policy review and negotiations while putting far better agreements in place as software systems are on-boarded. Vendors have realized the same savings in resources since they are able to work out one agreement in WA instead of up to 295 different ones. As we’ve worked with districts and vendors the past few years, the enhancement that has been consistently asked for is one agreement that could work across all states. With the release of the NDPA, the PK12 community should see even greater savings and an even better product.”

To access the work of the SDPC, including this marketplace impacting project, visit https://privacy.A4L.org/national-dpa/

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About the SDPC and the Access 4 Learning Community