GAT Meeting - 2018-07-11

Owned by Chris Moffatt (Deactivated)
Last updated: Nov 09, 2018
6 min read

The meeting was held via WebEx from 3 to 4:30 pm CT.

Agenda

  1. Follow up from last meeting
  2. Community work group reports
    1. Finance Work Group (Maureen)
    2. Assessment Work Group (Dean)
  3. Follow-on discussion: Proposal to decompose of Ed-Fi SIS certification
  4. Discussion topic: Dashboard destiny
  5. Discussion topic: Next set of work groups to launch
  6. Next steps and key dates

GAT_Meeting_2018-07_11.pptx

Participation

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Meeting Minutes

Follow up from last meeting

No comments on minutes

Community work group reports

Finance Work Group (Maureen)

Planning one more virtual meeting prior to summit – still finalizing what the domain looks like.

Assessment Work Group (Dean)

Expect to have have a path forward after first set of subgroup meetings next week.

Ted Dwyer leads the use case subgroup, Dean leads the API adoption subgroup, with Sean Casey’s assistance, and Eric leads the technical subgroup.

Follow-on discussion: Proposal to decompose of Ed-Fi SIS certification

The GAT continued discussion on the proposal to decompose Ed-FI SIS certification.

There is a concern that decomposition is a slippery slope, that risks diluting the overall process.

Would need to be intentional about what the decomposed certifications mean and communicate this to vendors and the community of users. Otherwise states are left on their on to decide to carve up certification on their own – and the clear preference is to leave certification to the Alliance

Vendors prefer working with the Alliance for certification rather that individual states – this is more effective in driving consistency. 

Other options to decomposing are to offer a foundational certification with modules or break the domains out into separate certifications and keep core SIS certification whole.

In general, SEA's prefer the options of foundational or separate domains – and like the base idea and state anomalies can go on top of base (foundational) certification - and are interested in the Alliance being the trainer in a cross-state, cross-agency context – especially since the Alliance is trying to manage use cases.

Need to keep certification separate from capacity building – capacity building comes before certification – perhaps an API “badge” concept. 

Two-way capacity issue – states and vendors both need capacity building.

Nebraska wants to achieve goal of state reporting, but broader goal is to get interoperability across a broader range of vendors – for example an e-transcript company should not have to be certified across all SIS domains. If only option for certification is everything this could be a barrier.; But concern is whether they can carve out meaningful data boxes. 

LEAs seeing more movement away from SIS as the key source of all (most) data and more toward specialized vendors (ELL, SEL, school finance) and Ed-Fi is needed in the architecture to help integrate these systems. Modular certifications could become more important with this movement. Timing of this modular certification is important also – not quite there with decentralized SIS components. 

To bring discussion towards actionable recommendations, Chris suggested consideration of (a) breaking out Special Ed and Discipline domain certification from SIS certification (rather than decomposing the SIS certification) (i.e. have other domains be additive once main domain is stable) and (b) offer training/badging to build capacity for vendors and states (which seems to be the bigger need for states and vendors and should come first – “Ed-Fi Ready Badge”).

It was noted that if Special Ed or Discipline domains are considered for separate certification, there would be a need to flesh out the domains in more detail (beyond current state reporting focus).

The GAT response to the Ed-FI SIS certification de-composition proposal – focused on capacity building as an alternative to decomposition – to be drafted by Chris and Eric and circulated amongst the GAT for comment, and then sent to the TAG.

Discussion topic: Dashboard destiny

Context

A report on study of status and options for Ed-Fi Dashboards was presented at the 2017 Summit. The report presented feedback around the dashboard to help inform investments for the dashboard.

TCO, flexibility of metrics were biggest concerns for the dashboard. Plus, the rise of alternative analytics presents other opportunities. 

Four options were presented in the report:

  • Continue Existing Ed-Fi Product Management Strategy

  • Transition Product to Ed-Fi Community

  • Sunset the product

  • Focus on generating metrics only in future dashboards

The Alliance communicated their intent that the forthcoming Governance process was the venue to make a decision.

Potential options for the next steps within Ed-Fi governance structures are:

  1. Start up a Community Work Group that is specifically focused on the future of Ed-Fi Dashboards, and ask the work group to consider and make a concrete proposal to the GAT and Leadership Council
  2. Fold consideration of the future of Ed-Fi Dashboards into a broader work group, centered around analytics and visualization

Discussion

A dashboard component is needed for Ed-Fi adoption at the LEA level to get district board and superintendent approval - the bright, shiny object opportunity.

Are analytics starter kits enough to fill the dashboard side? Too much focus is put toward customizing the dashboards when districts or states adopt them. 

Fitbit is an example of a dashboard and reminder app that drives adoption. Such things are desired by districts, but not what was designed/envisioned for the dashboard originally.

Nebraska used the dashboard as the selling point, but this was pushed aside as other priority needs for Ed-Fi potential emerged. The average district/state leader doesn’t get the infrastructure value proposition. Plus, most districts still need a dashboard/analytics option. This becomes an equity issue to help the districts without the capacity to buy dashboards on their own.  For example, in Nebraska, about 90% of their districts don’t have a consolidating tool to organize, analyze, visualize data. School improvement teams are also a driver for a dashboard – the needs are still out there for something from the Alliance. If decommission, then look at a 3 to 5-year window and a replacement strategy – let work group consider this and engage/inform the broader community.

Another perspective is that the dashboards provided valuable use cases around which to build the data standards.

Tulsa would like to share their dashboards. They did not adopt the Ed-Fi dashboards and did not select a vendor to provide dashboards. The motivation was to fill a gap of setting goals and comparison lines as the year progresses to make them more valuable for continuous improvement. 70% of teachers (800 logins per week with 2400 teachers) used the Tulsa dashboards this past year.

Go with option 1 – focus on how to evolve the dashboards rather than consider them going away. There is still a need for the bright, shiny object.  Also, there is a lot of money being spent on ESSA report cards – which is another visualization use case beyond the current dashboards that needs to be addressed.   

Need to decide the issue quickly – states and districts are making decisions about dashboards.

MSDF does not put a priority on further investment in the current Ed-Fi dashboards. They are too expensive to maintain and don’t get broad adoption to the classroom.  Work group will need to provide a fiscal note or funding strategy if recommend additional work in this area.

Next Steps

The GAT is recommending that a community work group be established to inform the future of Ed-Fi Dashboards

Discussion topic: Next set of work groups to launch

Candidates:

  • Dashboard Destiny or Visualization & Analytics
  • Teacher Prep Data Model - Currently operating as a Sponsored Standard
  • Data Standard Governance - Currently operating as a Special Interest Group

Dashboard destiny, Ed-Fi analytics opportunity seems to be the priority.

Nebraska teacher prep is an area they need to delve into more – but 2018 spin up may not be possible –could let it continue to grow as a sponsored standard, so not urgent to move this to a work group in 2018. There is a CCSSO group working with this.

Data standard governance will also continue in 2018 without work group.

Social/emotional learning is an area of growth potential for the Ed-Fi data standards. School safety is also emerging. Would be good to surface these future use cases and potential work groups to discuss these at the Summit.

A proposal was made for a survey or poll at the summit – to gather current and future pain points. 

Additionally, the work around Generate – should the work here for the Alliance be more intentional?

The project Unicorn conceivers (Data Whiz group) have come up with Project Mothra, which tracks adoption of Edtech tools, and is something the Alliance should track.

Next steps and key dates

  • Maureen Wentworth to schedule Finance Work Group meeting
  • Assessment Subgroup meetings to be held week of July 16
  • Chris Moffatt (Deactivated) and Eric Jansson to draft response to de-composition proposal - related to capacity building - and circulate to the GAT for comment
  • rrozzelle and nwilson to provide update on new Project Unicorn work
  • A volunteer is needed to drive creation of the survey/poll for surfacing future use cases and potential work groups - for the Ed-Fi Summit in October.