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| Category | Definition | Recommendation | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | There is reason to value standardization highly, because the community is highly standardized (but not perfectly standardized!). There is reason to believe that with sufficient governance a "good enough for most use cases" set of values is possible. | The recommended practice is to stay within the Ed-Fi set if at all possible. It is very likely that the Ed-Fi value set is mandated by a standard or certification. | GradeLevel |
| Orthodox | The community is mostly standardized, but exceptions and localization are not infrequent. For these descriptors, Ed-Fi will define list that mirrors the standardization seen in the community. | The recommended practice is to map to / use all Ed-Fi values within this set when possible, but add local values when and where there is high value to doing so. However, realize that in so doing there may be sacrifices to interoperability. | AcademicSubject |
| Flexible | The community is somewhat standardized, or there is one or more common, broadly-adopted vernacular classifications around the concept. Local usage may be completely at odds with the vernacular, and that is to be expected in some cases. For this set, Ed-Fi will generally define a "starter" set of values that mirror the most common vernacular. | The recommended practice is to map to / use Ed-Fi values when applicable, but to also feel free to remove or avoid unnecessary Ed-Fi values. | |
| Local | The option set values are highly localized in nearly all cases. For this set, Ed-Fi will generally define a "sample" set of values that illustrate a possible values, or not provide any Ed-Fi defined values at all. | The recommended practice here is to add your own values. There should be no hard or reason to preserve any "default" Ed-Fi-defined values here. | GradingPeriod |
How do I create my own descriptors?
All code sets depend on a context; said another way, there is no such thing as a code set that will work for all contexts. While we may think of some categorizations as being universal – such as grade levels - there are always and will always be variations, somewhere. This is part of the natural variation of the education ecosystem.
However, because there are always possible variation does not mean that there is not value to encouraging (perhaps strongly in some cases) usage and community governance of some sets of values. if we all agree to use the same set of values for grade level, that can hep us a great deal to share resources. There may be loss in converting our values to those values, but the benefits may be worth it.Note that these categories are somewhat arbitrary and may not apply to all use cases - there may be use cases where GradeLevel should be localized! So just to repeat: these are not "official" categories but are based on observations of usage within the Ed-Fi community. Specific Ed-Fi standards and certifications will mandate certain value sets for compliance reasons (so if a product wants to conform, those value will be "standard"!).