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

Open

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