MSP SIG - Meeting 5 - 2023-05-09

Participants

Agenda

• Assessment vendor integrations – what the current state is and what we can do to increase and drive these forward

Materials

Notes

A broad vision emerged in the meeting for action. It had these parts:

1. Use scale projects (states/LEA collaboratives) to coordinate demand for specific assessments 

   1. Do the work to identify common or at least similar use cases - it is not sufficient to say "we need data from provider X" as that could mean very different things (provider X could have several different lines of business/assessments)

2. The Alliance approaches those providers and shows that demand to the assessment provider, along with the general use case

3. Once we have interest from the providers, we coordinate a mapping with those who need the data and the provider

   1. This mapping coordinates use cases / precise data more exactly

   2. It provides an opportunity for the provider to engage at a product level, share their priorities, and develop confidence in the data exchange

4. A pilot or similar effort integrates the data identified across more than 1 implementation site (to demonstrate / test scalability of use case/mapping) 

Other points made:

• Support for idea that push vs pull is a real issue for assessment providers (i.e., there are product issues to explore), and that pull will be lower effort for providers to maintain

• There was a notion that the market structure is different/simpler than suggested in the meeting deck:

  • Summative market - very small number of players (3 was cited)

  • Interim market (very small number of players (3 was cited)

  • Formative market - many players

  • College-readiness assessments (not covered)

• Assessment providers have very different lines of business within one company: the unit which does statewide assessments is likely very different from (almost a separate company from) a unit that might do college readiness

• There was also shared that assessment provider leadership don't know Ed-Fi, and that the community should ramp up the presence at their events and in executive education

• key assessments mentioned included MAP, STAAR, iReady, HMH inventories, Growth Measure (aligned with NWEA now), DIBELS/Acadience, PALS, and iStation.