The Learning Standards screen allows Ed-Fi licensees to take advantage of Certica Solutions' AB Connect service which contains over 4 million learning standards and identifiers for common, state and local (where available) K–12 academic standards. The Learning Standards feature within Admin App connects to this service using an ID and key. The connection will pull learning standards applicable for your locality to enable analytics, assessment integration, and other use cases. 

Additional overview information about AB Connect and learning standard support is available at the links below:

• Frequently Asked Questions: Academic Benchmarks, Ed-Fi Alliance and Certica Solutions
• Technical Demo: Learning Standards in Action

This section covers:

Details follow.

Learning Standards Basics

This section covers important points about synchronizing learning standards to your Ed-Fi ODS / API instance with the AB Connect service using the Admin App.

Certica AB Connect

Learning standards in the ODS / API Admin App are enabled and managed via synchronization to AB Connect, an online API repository of academic benchmarks. Although the AB Connect service is a commercial offering, Ed-Fi licensees are provided with a no-cost license that provides access to learning standards. See https://www.ed-fi.org/blog/2018/10/ed-fi-alliance-certica-solutions-team-learning-standards-initiative-provide-meaningful-information-educators/ for details on the partnership between the Ed-Fi Alliance and Certica.

Optional Command-Line Management

Learning Standards can be managed entirely via the Admin App user interface. However, the Ed-Fi Alliance also provides a command-line tool called the Ed-Fi Learning Standards Sync Utility for implementers that wish to use a command-line to automate synchronization, or who need to manage Learning Standards without an instance of the Admin App.

The Sync Utility has the same feature set as the Admin App interface and internally uses the same code base.

Obtaining a License

To synchronize data with Certica AB Connect, you'll need a license, plus an ID and key for the service. This ID and key will allow the utility to synchronize standards particular for your state and/or district. As noted, this license comes with no cost. Please fill out this form on Certica Solutions' website and request a license for AB Connect as an Ed-Fi licensee.

Managing Learning Standards

This section covers how to manage learning standards in the Admin App UI. Before you start, make sure you've obtained a license.

Entering License Information

To get started synchronizing learning standards using AB Connect, visit ODS Instance > Learning Standards. You'll be presented with a screen containing an overview of learning standards, contact information for a license, and a form in which you can enter your organization's licensing information.

Once you've entered and verified that your licensing information is correct, click Enable Learning Standards.

Initial Synchronization

After entering your licensing information and clicking Enable Learning Standards, the system will attempt to synchronize learning standards. A progress bar will keep you informed of the current status.

Synchronization may take 5–15 minutes to complete.

Once the process is complete, use the Swagger console or SQL Server Management Studio to verify learning standards are present under the "uri://academicbenchmarks.com" for Ed-Fi ODS / API 3.x and "http://academicbenchmarks.com" for Ed-Fi ODS / API 2.x. The API endpoint to check is "/ed-fi/learningStandards" API resource endpoint or the "edfi.LearningStandards" table in SQL directly.

Updates

As part of the AB Connect setup process, your contact e-mail should have been subscribed to updates from Certica as new standards are released. Also, from time to time, you may wish to run updates to ensure working with a recent learning standard data from AB Connect. To update learning standards, click on "Update Now" which will run a process similar to shown above for the initial synchronization.

Resetting or Changing Credentials

If you believe there is an issue with your AB Connect ID or key — or if you'd like to change to a new set of credentials — use the "Reset Credentials" button as shown below. 

Important: resetting credentials will not delete learning standards in EdFi.LearningStandards. You can do that manually by filtering on the "academicbenchmarks.com" namespace in the EdFi.LearningStandard table to remove previous learning standards.

Troubleshooting the Sync Process

The first step of troubleshooting the learning standards synchronization process is simply manually re-running the synchronization or resetting the credentials as shown above. 

If you believe there are issues with the AB Connect service, please contact ABSupport@CerticaSolutions.com. If you believe there are issues with Admin App or other Ed-Fi technology components, please create a ticket in the Ed-Fi Tracker (in the EDFI project).

Learning Standards Sync Utility

It's worth noting that you don't need the Admin App to manage learning standards, or to take advantage of the AB Connect license and resource.

The Ed-Fi Learning Standards Sync Utility allows platform hosts to synchronize Learning Standards without using the Admin App user interface. The Sync Utility has the same features as the user interface, so you'll only need to use the CLI if you don't have access to the Admin App for your ODS / API, or if you wish to automate the synchronization process (e.g., to schedule updates) using Scheduled Tasks.