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ContactThis chapter describes each menu item in the navigation box on the home page of the Education Data Model website. The Data Model and its accompanying documentation can be accessed at the Data Model website.
The first link on the home page navigator bar provides information that explains how to make use of the content contained in the Data Model. Links to other pages in the website are provided along with a reference to this guide. One of these links brings users to the How to Browse Data Model page, where they can find printable step-by-step explanations for using all the features of the Data Model browser.
The second link navigates to the web-based Data Model browser tool. The browser enables users to view the Data Model and perform searches without having to install additional software. The browser enables the user to view and browse the Data Model taxonomy. Each class in the taxonomy has a screen that lists all of its sub-classes, which are the entities contained in the class. Each entity in the taxonomy has a screen that lists its attributes and relationships to other entities.
The third link brings users to a Search tool, which enables searching the Data Model for
The fourth link describes core concepts associated with the Data Model and the ten top-level classes of the Data Model taxonomy. The list on the left of the Data Model Browser screen enables the user to "drill down" into the sub-classes that are below each top-level class. The ten top-level classes are described below.
Association: Functional associations among individuals, organizations, events, and programs. Examples of associations include student enrollment in a school, a contact person for an organization, and a sponsor for an event.
Education Leadership Artifact: Artifacts related to the leadership of teaching and learning processes. Examples of education leadership artifacts include school improvement plans, performance criteria, and lesson plans.
Event: Any event within the education organization. Examples of events include billing transactions, calendar events, and school terms or meetings.
Information Exchange: Information being communicated. Examples include an email, a press release, and data collection from surveys and reports.
Instruction Artifact: Any piece of information related to a student's learning or the general learning process. Examples include entities related to teaching and learning, such as learning resources, assessment scores, learning standards, and observations.
Operations Artifact: Information related to the administrative or operational side of the organization. Examples include compensation for employees, capital assets, expenditures, and teaching credentials.
Organization: Groups of resources and people that exist to fulfill a particular role or achieve a particular goal. Examples include education institutions, LEAs, SEAs, and school organizations such as a parent organization.
Person: Individuals within the education setting. Examples include a student, a teacher, and a parent volunteer.
Place: The locality or area within the education environment. Examples include the school district boundaries, a bus position, and an attendance zone.
Program: A plan of activities and procedures to accomplish a set of objectives. Examples include a federal program, a staff development program, and a course sequence.
x_Extensions: This class is not a regular part of the Data Model. It is a category that contains extensions to the Data Model. For example, the category could hold Education Data Exchange Network (EDEN) input file definitions or fact table definitions for a data warehouse. This category allows concepts that are not allowed in the Data Model, such as aggregate statistics or report definitions, to be linked to entities and relationships in the Data Model.
The fifth link enables users to download the Data Model in an OWL zip file. The downloaded file can then be used with various data model tools, including two suggested open source tools (see the Suggested Open Source Tools section in Chapter 4), to manipulate and localize the Data Model.
OWL stands for Web Ontology Language (first two letters reversed). OWL is an XML language for expressing relationships and is a standard published by the W3C web standards group. The OWL language represents both a taxonomy of entities, as well as multiple types of simultaneous relationships among the entities. It is also designed to be compatible with the World Wide Web (OWL).
The sixth link provides information outlined in this Forum publication concerning the rationale, methodologies, and contributors in the development of the Education Data Model: Version 1 (PK-12).
