MappingEDU - Service EOL and Open Source Notice

Owned by Eric Jansson
Last updated: Mar 28, 2022
2 min read

The Alliance will discontinue the MappingEDU service on July 31st, 2022 and publish the code behind the MappingEDU under the standard Ed-Fi Open Source license (Apache license, version 2.0).

Frequently Asked Questions

What is MappingEDU?

MappingEDU is an optional online mapping tool published for use by the Ed-Fi community. It is used by community members to produce mappings from one data standard to another, a common process in planning data exchange. The service has always been an optional component of the Ed-Fi product portfolio.

What is changing specifically?

There are two changes.

  1. The MappingEDU service will be taken offline on the end-of-life (EOL) date and no further community access to the service will be possible.
  2. The MappingEDU code will be made available under the standard Ed-Fi open source license, Apache2. This is intended to allow any users who would like to continue to use the service to install and run it locally. The code will be published on the Ed-Fi Exchange on or prior to February 15, 2022 to allow organizations wishing to continue use of the service time to set it up locally before the service EOL date.

If I use the MappingEDU service, what do I need to do before the service EOL date?

We advise any users who will need access to mapping data after the service EOL date to export it. MappingEDU data exports into an easy-to-understand Excel format files.

MappingEDU allows both data standards and mapping projects to be exported.

Why is this change being made?

The time and resources spent on MappingEDU can be better used to support growth and evolution of other Ed-Fi products and programs. Specifically:

  • Usage of MappingEDU as a tool to perform mappings remains very low. 
  • There are existing alternatives to the service that are widely available. As such, there is no clear strategic benefit to the community from this service.
  • The tool is older and technical debt due to use of older libraries and code is increasing the expense of code and service maintenance.

What are other alternatives?

Many organizations simply use spreadsheets, generally either Excel or Google Sheets.

There are also a lot of specialized tools. Any online research will quickly turn up many alternatives. Community members are invited to use the Slack for the Ed-Fi Community "General" channel to ask for recommendations from community colleagues.

Where can I find information on running a local instance of the service using the open source code?

The code will be published on the Ed-Fi Exchange: Ed-Fi Exchange

Follow the README file in the repository for information on installation.

Note that the product has some aging libraries. The Alliance has been managing and updating the code to address important security notices for components included in the solution. That work will no longer be performed following the discontinuation of the service.

I have a question that is not answered above.

Please contact the Alliance; see How To: Get Technical Help or Provide Feedback