The Ed-Fi Alliance coordinates and publishes community-led standards for education and the exchange of education data. This article collects links to resources and key publications.

Ed-Fi Data Standards

The Ed-Fi Data Standard is the widely adopted, CEDS-aligned, open-source data standard developed by the educational community for the betterment of the community. The Ed-Fi Data Standard serves as the foundation for enabling interoperability among secure data systems and contains a Unifying Data Model designed to capture the meaning and inherent structure in the most important information in the K–12 education enterprise.

Ed-Fi Data Standard v5 (latest) | All Versions

Ed-Fi API Standards

An Ed-Fi compatible API application creates a REST-based interface for data exchange, where the messages conform to the Ed-Fi Data Standard. The Ed-Fi ODS/API is the Ed-Fi Alliance's core API product, used by nearly all "Ed-Fi deployments." Any interested party can build an alternate, compatible, application, by adhering to the Open API specifications and guidance provided in Ed-Fi API Standards.

Ed-Fi ODS / API for Suite 3 v7.1 | All Versions

For guidance on building an Ed-Fi compatible API application, please see Ed-Fi API Standards.

Primary Resources

As of April, 2024, the Data Exchange Standards, RFC Home, and Working Draft Home links mentioned below are protected for internal staff use only. The Ed-Fi Alliance is actively working to revise this content. Please see Ed-Fi API Standards for work in progress.

Standard Information & Publications

What do we mean by "standards?" The Ed-Fi is a Data Standard article on our website has an overview.
The Ed-Fi Data Exchange Standards site contains documentation and technical specifications for our published standards.
Ed-Fi data exchange standards are aligned with the reference standards published on the Ed-Fi Data Standard site. In particular, the Ed-Fi Unifying Data Model is a helpful reference to understand the contents and structure of the data exchanges we support.

Draft & Working Standards

The Ed-Fi RFC Home contains work-in-progress specifications. Although the material is still in draft form, the technical specifications are typically implementable. For example, the Ed-Fi community uses this site to publish data exchange specifications for Ed-Fi-related technologies.
The Ed-Fi Working Draft Home contains very early drafts of our standards. The standards here are proposed, and the technical specifications may be fragmentary — the purpose with this site is to foster early community discussion about technical and logistical details. Often, Working Draft specifications will be refined into an RFC and eventually published by the Alliance as a standard.

Other Resources

Looking to get involved in the discussion and definition of standards? See the Community & Governance article on this site for details, including how to get involved.

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