Meeting 4 - 2020-02-04

Owned by Eric Jansson
Last updated: Feb 07, 2020
3 min read

Participants

  • Gabrielle Garonzik
  • Amit
  • Kenny Burnham
  • Tom Christenson
  • Lalitha WI DPI
  • Eric Jansson

Materials

Proposed models as UML

On issue 1, note that the SIG also rejected the "credit award" design explored in this ticket:  DATASTD-1390 - Getting issue details... STATUS  I've attached a version of that model here:

Notes

GPA Solution

  • No comment. So we'll move forward with this approach.

Course Reference on CourseTranscript Solution

Q: Instead of the IdentificationCode, could we use just a generic Id like we do for Section?
A: Ed-Fi in general does not like to use these internal codes because it's not helpful without the system.

  • Here's the use case we get stuck on - StudentAcademicRecord holds the Term descriptor. So when you have a transfer student and they get two posted grades. The school they came from posted grades on a semester basis. It's forcing the person entering the record to identify the Term in order to send to Ed-Fi. So it forces them to enter more data to meeting the natural key requirements. And these Terms don't always align. If you make it a generic unique identifier, it takes that problem away.
  • But the student is being granted credit somewhere. So isn't that information actually necessary? We get that Ed-Fi makes this a SIS problem. But shouldn't we require that?
  • The community it's often that people don't really care about term. They really just care about the School Year. We're asking for more detail than what is necessary.
  • Technically a different, though related problem.
  • Yes. It does roll down to the identifier. So if we have IdentificationCode as part of they key, then they still have the natural key problem with SAR Term.
  • One way out is to put whatever the system wants in the IdentificationCode and just have the SIS be the CourseIdentificationSystem. But that is stretching the semantics of the model.
  • Seems like there is another issue of the StudentAcademicRecord natural key of Term.


Credit Area Tagging Solution

  • No comment. So we'll move forward with this approach.

Distinction Solution

  • Believe Recognition will satisfy this need.

Deployment Timeline Issue

  • There are quite a few breaking changes here. So there is an open question about how do we roll this out?
  • Would prefer an annual release. Easier for the states but much harder for the smaller LEA clients.
  •  Not confident of systems to go to the microversion updates.
  • Just focus on major releases with clients.
  • Option 1 is major release (every 3 to 4 years)
  • Option 2 is annual release
  • Option 3 is to release a new domain as a set of standardized extensions. So all this becomes a whole new CourseTranscript domain. So this would have it's own namespace and stand on its own. Not a part of core and implementers need to work with vendor to support and use this. So trial or testing period.
  • Would work well for states. But for core solution, would only support latest major release and wouldn't code for optional level. Option 3 is not really viable except perhaps in very early adopter projects and puts a burden on SIS systems
  • Agree. If we do go down the path, need a path to stop supporting the previous version.Eric: Agreed. Would need to plan for this. And it makes sense to plan for core and wait for major release for breaking changes like this. This will go to the technical advisory group that meets next week.
  • New Issue: CourseTranscript identity with regards to the StudentAcademicRecord.
    Will not be addressed by this group but will be kept under discussion.
  • Will not plan to meet again. This will go forward to the larger review.
  • Q: Is there a status update for the Student Transcript API? DATASTD-1411.
    A: yes will work on this behind the scenes. Will take a shot at this and send it out to SIG