LDS SIF Pilot Update

1. LDS SIF Pilot Update STATS-DC 2012 Data Conference July 13, 2012

2. Your Presenters • Dennis Wallace (CPSI, Ltd) • Craig Rhombs (State of Minnesota)

3. About Minnesota

4. Pilot Overview • One project out of seven that are associated with the MN SLDS grant • Purpose of the pilot is to: • Allow MDE and districts to get some initial experience with SIF data exchanges in limited situations • Determine if MDE will recommend using SIF as a protocol for data exchanges between districts and MDE • Use this experience to inform a long -erm strategy recommendation for SIF • Also develop experience in inter-state exchange of student existence data (StudentLocator)

5. District Pilot Grant Selection Process • Selection Criteria • Small and large districts • RMIC organizations considered • Variety of Student Information Systems used in state • SIF-certified agents for district applications • Specify project need, benefit, timeline and budget • Number of Participant Districts • Round 1: 8; Round 2: 8

6. Intra-state Grant Response • Three periods of testing 1- Initial testing with Anoka-Hennepin 2- First grant award with Regional Data Centers • cmERDC – four districts (two types of SIF agent) • TIES – three districts (one type of SIF agent) 3- Second grant award • Eight total applicants (6 accepted, representing nine districts and three types of SIF agents) • Some involving multiple districts • Summary • 16 school districts • Participating SIS Vendors: Edupoint, Pearson, TIES, JMC, Spedforms

7. Pilot Highlights… • Intra-state • Limited to a few districts and vendors • Data exchanges limited in scope • Focus is on student identify • Ad hoc testing may include student enrollment • Information is not transferred to MDE production environments • Inter-state details being worked out with other states in the upper midwest

8. Intra-state Pilot Details • Testing involves a pseudo school • Limited information is exchanged (mainly “StudentPersonal”) • Exchange is with a “test school” of 40 students • Focus is on testing the process with validation of student identify information and selected SIF fields • Districts can specify a series of ad-hoc tests for a duration of 4 hours to pilot additional information exchange if desired

9. Pilot details continued… • Zone integration server located at the state • MDE has an agent that will speak to any districts that have grant applications • Districts have agents that are configured to publish information to MDE • Avoiding the issue of “horizontal” integration • Horizontal SIF integration may already be in place, but the project did not address local integration of data • A local zone integration server was not a requirement for the grant • ZIS was hosted by the state

10. Security • Normal SIF security • Data housed in a test environment • Relational data base where SIF objects are stored • Separate student repository (but the same student ID validation “engine”)

11. Pilot SIF Interoperability for the State Student Identifier Automation with Two Districts and the MDE

12. Pilot Intra-State Interoperability (Proposed)

13. CPSI Toolset Used at the MDE xDStudio State

14. Why Use the SIF Specification?

15. Why Real Time Collection?

16. SIF Certification and Profiles

17. MN Profile Mapping Document (Interface Control )

18. Data Entry Work Flow

19. Intra-state Costs • Cost was very minimal for districts • District costs are averaging about $12k per district for hardware, software, and personnel • Infrastructure and personal experience can be used to support eventual state or district strategy

20. Lessons Learned • Well positioned to make strategy recommendations • If we decided to recommend SIF as a solution, we would look at a phased approach for adopting any new data submission processes • Could have implications for inter-state data exchange • Exchanges seem viable from MDE perspective • Regional service centers would be significant players since districts mostly lack the required technical expertise • Vendor and district input needed