GAT Meeting - 2020-11-19

Owned by Ann Su
Nov 20, 2020
6 min read

Agenda

  1. Ed-Fi Exchange Live – Debrief and Feedback

  2. Update on Student Modality and Attendance Study Group

  3. Tier 1 Workgroups

    1. High level summary of work in 2020

    2. Changes to work groups in 2021

  4. Show & Tell – Ed-Fi Starter Kits & Ed-Fi platform running in Docker
    Setting Priorities for 2021

Refer to the meeting PPT for additional details on the meeting minutes and discussions.

When available, meeting minutes should be read, and any corrections sent to Chris.

Participation

Members:

Support:

Meeting Minutes

Welcomed Rosh with INSite as the newest member.  This is the last GAT session of the year and 4 folks roll off: Eric Miller, Billy, Satish and Mark Racine.  Thanks to these folks for their support of GAT.

Agenda Item #1: Ed-Fi Exchange Debrief

The event was well-organized and successful with ~500 attendees registered and 88% engagement (typical base mark is 65%). There were a lot of new participants and positive remarks. GAT members are asked to complete the survey to help inform upcoming decisions about in-person vs. virtual for 2021.

GAT member comments included:

  1. +1 on more networking opportunities – game night event was already zoomed out.
  2. Was good for SIS product analysts to attend
  3. Keynotes were good – had some technical difficulties with breakouts – appreciate the recordings and ability to go back and view.
  4. Travel for April 2021 still seems to be iffy to the group
  5. Safari browser was not supported for the sessions.

Agenda Item #2: Update on Student Modality and Attendance Study Group

Maureen summarized the study and launch of the study group. Key recs from the study included:

  1. States need to lead
  2. Build a team with the SIS at the center

Report makes clear the degree of fragmentation around these areas and the potential for future data challenges both at LEA and SEA level.  More study to do – research done in fall is already potentially out of date with most recent learnings re: operations in time of COVID-19.  CCSSO is involved in the study group to bring a broader perspective.  Data standard is not the real issue – problem is the underlying source systems and lack of consistency.  Consistency of implementation within a district is also an issue.   

Agenda Item #3: Tier 1 Work Groups

a. High level summary of work in 2020

The current status of Tier 1 Work Groups was shared by Work Group Chairs and the updates are included in the meeting PPT with some additional comments below.:

Assessment Work Group (Dean Folkers)

  • Vendor adoption has been the key focus for the AWG in the past months.
  • Gathered survey data on planned use among AWG SEAs/LEAs for call with Star Renaissance. Conducted call with SEA/LEA customers and Star Renaissance key execs to encourage certification.
  • For 2021 there will be a focus on additional certifications.
  • A concern was raised about local assessment vendors – iReady in particular – the vendor implemented its API at the LEA level and did not have features to support SEA level implementation (WI is multi-tenant) – they are missing things like ed_org in the assessment endpoint. Need to monitor this issue with certifications.  Rick to follow with John Raub about this.
  • Action item: Rick will follow-up re how best to document such issues to help other LEAs and SEAs in the future.

Finance Work Group (John Raub)

  • Released Finance RFC in June 2019 and started WISEdata Finance Project
  • John reviewed progress on the project – 6 Wisconsin LEAs worked with their vendors – expect to be fully operational in 2020-22.  With the progress being made on this project and the coming blog and community webinar they will close out FWG in 2021.
  • Action item: Maureen to work on the blog and potential webinar for 2021.

Reporting & Visualization Work Group (Rosh Dhanawade)

  • Welcome to Rosh as the new chair of the RVWG.
  • The WG updated their charter, which now focuses on these priorities:
    • Create a visualization framework which supports community members in choosing and deploying a set of visualizations appropriate for their use cases and particular organizational constraints.
    • Support that framework with particular use cases from mature or maturing implementations.
  • The group spent time focused on 2 projects focused on dashboard replacement strategies, that will wrap up early in 2021
    • INSITE: Project to replace Ed-Fi “Classic” Dashboards with a lightweight replacement – modular development to promote pulling out specific components
    • ESP w/ Ed-Fi: Dashboard replacement POC à investigating modern UI & replacing ETL pipeline for metrics computation

Community involvement on the future of the dashboard is important - will impact the 2021 dashboard plan.

Special Education Work Group (Monica Hogan)

  • Aaron is the new co-chair from Volusia for the SPED WG.
  • COVID has paused their work. Have discussed COVID challenges.
  • Will regroup to plan goals going forward and how to engage beyond monthly calls.

Teacher Prep Work Group (Mark Olofson)

  • Lindsey Judd new Alliance liaison
  • Updating approach to credentials and teacher candidates in the model. Will revisit goals for 2021.

Internationalization Work Group (Chris Moffat)

  • "Next Gen" data model working draft to be published in December – improves international capabilities – do not intend to operationalize the data model
    • Improves internationalization capability 
    • Simplifies overly complex areas
    • Addresses some major known model deficiencies 
    • Considers alignment with major standards with which Ed-Fi overlaps
  • Will close work group in 2020/early 2021
    • Internationalization has not remained a priority
    • Ongoing next-gen data model work better located in TAG

Technical Advisory Group (Doug Quinton)

- been robust year for TAG – represents a maturing community discussion – topics included:

b. Changes to work groups in 2021 - This was the result of interviews with tier 1 work group chairs and liaisons.  Recommendations included:

  • Leave the upper half of the governance structure as is.
  • Recognize that market share is the strategic path chosen for Ed-Fi to being the K-12 standard for interoperability and WG’s should support this strategy more actively, with guidance provided more directly from the Alliance.
  • WG’s are more about community engagement than setting standards and can be less procedural and less goal oriented - more engaging.
  • More organic and inclusive structure for work groups
    • If any “open” Ed-Fi group is meeting on a regular or semi-regular basis, include it as a work group -- expansion
    • No “proxy” staff ownership – topics and actions should flow naturally from Alliance staff goals
    • Dial back more bureaucratic expectations a bit (e.g. charters, sourcing priorities from chairs, etc.)
    • Connect work groups with a layer of common and helpful services
    • Retire work groups if inactive for extended periods
  • Retain roles of governance in data standards approval, but de-emphasize
  • Chris will send the link to the full document prepared by Rick and Nancy.

GAT member comments included:

  • Mashup of SEA group and collaborative – is this an idea to pursue - John
  • Happy - For my district, the networking aspect has been the largest benefit of joining the Ed-Fi Community. We have learned a lot from other districts and, in turn, are now sharing some of what we have learned with other districts.
  • Project focused efforts like FWG are good and don’t want to lose the options to work that way.

Agenda #4: Show-and-tell – Starter Kits and Docker

  • Ed-Fi running in DOCKER – moved to .Net core with funding from Google and Innive – Docker in cloud running on Linux unfolds Ed-Fi platform quickly and easily
  • Starter kits – for new districts – aligns Ed-Fi to problems they need to solve – takes them to starter kit that is relevant to their use case. In 2021 will extend to take them to tech partners that have implemented the use case and have an Ed-Fi badge.

Community Awards

GAT members (and the Ed-Fi Community) will receive a link later today to submit their nominations for the Community Awards for the categories of Ambassador, Contributor, Partner and Rookie. The GAT will help in the final selection process with this effort moving quickly as the results are to be announced Dec. 7th.

Action Items

  • GAT members were asked to complete the survey for Ed-Fi Exchange Live.
  • Rick will follow-up re how best to document the concerns raised in the AWG discussion so that such issues will help other LEAs and SEAs in the future.
  • Related to FWG, Maureen will work on the blog and potential webinar for 2021.
  • Chris will send the link to the full recommendations for 2021 Ed-Fi Governance.
  • GAT members are to submit their nominations for the Community Awards.


Next meeting: in January 2021