TAG Meeting 2021-12-09

Attendees

Agenda

1. Certification discussion continued
   1. Exploration of SEA/LEA data variation issue and how to handle these cases
   2. Alternative ideas for improvement
2. Data out use cases (continued from November meeting)

Materials

Notes

• Certification discussion continued
  • Alternative ideas for improvement
    •  If the vendor is certifying against a data set that includes customer extension, how would they be certified? E.g., TEA
      • time consuming; add variation to allow state specific certification?
      • original certification meant x; certification as a whole is not unique; certification means they met certain claims; not sure what Ed-fi certification claims are.
      •  Ed-Fi Student Information Systems API v3 Certification 
      • from SIS vendor: look from CORE certification or state implementation
        • Need to chunk out different subsets that contain the fields that are needed
      • Some other potential gaps:
        • - Sync Frequency
        • - Ability to do descriptor mapping
        • The use cases for certification would be helpful in this respect
      • who decides what certification is, is it GAT or TAG?
        • Alliance manage in community consensus way
      • what do we want certification to mean
        • This should not be a TAG question
      • need another governing body to manage certification
        • invite vendors already on the certification list to participate in the conversation
        • On sync frequency, certification states "It is permitted for systems to wait to update the resource...but the system MUST demonstrate that the update will occur without further user intervention" I think this is what allows some systems to only sync data nightly to the target API
        • Gets away from the real-time data, ODS whole thing
        • There should be a certificiation working group; one that meets quarterly to assess and adjust; then the WG can raise technical issues which the TAG can give input on
        • If it is supporting LEAs then I think that we need the certification to be specific (in terms of what Andrew was saying) to best advocate for LEAs who might not know what questions to ask
  • Certification Background
  • Exploration of SEA/LEA data variation issue and how to handle these cases
    • Case 1: State Override of Core Elements 
      • SIS is expected to modify for state
      • Sometimes it's additional fields added onto the 'core' data model for a state. e.g. discipline incidents in CT; maybe that fits in with case 2
      • sometimes CORE certified data elements fit under this; e.g. free/reduced lunch; vendor need to include state specific table
      • why allow exceptions?
      • as a vendor, I can send the element if I have done it for some state requirements but not as CORE certified standardized way which would require further development
      • certifying by LEA and discount SEA certification
        • how would lunch data be captured as they are stored in state data?
    • Case 2:Parallel State and Local Data Elements
      • giant governance problem 
    • Case 3: Local Override
      •  This is like when they make a custom field for student email or something?
      •  I don't see how we are not going to get to vendors needing to build 50 SEA and 50 LEA Ed-Fi sync profiles. Wish it were different.
      • or buy a plugin that offers enhanced features
      •  Other Cases 

Action Items

• Send Google Form to survey certification use cases