Demonstration Descriptions
Claraview's K–12 Reporting Solutions
Kendra Williams, Tarun Jain, and Glenn Facey, Claraview
Claraview was excited to showcase two potential K–12 education reporting solutions to meet the needs of state education agencies. These solutions utilize business intelligence (BI) software from Cognos and/or Microsoft to provide robust analytical reporting on statewide educational data. Our demos allowed attendees to see the capabilities of each tool to assess which solution best meets its reporting needs. Claraview is a strategy and technology consultancy that helps government agencies use technology to manage organizational performance. Claraview currently supports the U.S. Department of Education on the Education Data Exchange Network and EDFacts project.
CORE-ECS
Tiffany Tooley, Dennis Wallace, Dave Peeples, and Margie Malone,
Enterprises Computing Services
CORE-ECS™ specializes in innovative, web-based Schools Interoperability Framework compliant applications, ad hoc reporting toolsets, and data warehousing solutions for state departments of education and regional school districts, each designed to dynamically increase efficiency and alleviate accountability and compliancy issues, while empowering administrators as they make the critical decisions affecting teachers and students. These include applications to manage financial data collection and education budgets, student assessment test results, special education Part B & C processing and compliancy, student identification, logistics management, and reporting requirements for Adequate Yearly Progress and No Child Left Behind.
Data Quality Campaign: Creating the Will and Understanding to Use a Statewide Longitudinal Data System
Nancy Smith and Elizabeth Laird,
Data Quality Campaign - National Center for Educational Accountability
The Data Quality Campaign is a national campaign of 14 managing partners that aims to change the culture surrounding data use in education and encourage all states to have longitudinal data systems in place by 2009. The Campaign generates opportunities for states to learn from one another, advocates for continued investments in state data systems, and creates toolkits and resource briefs for education stakeholders that demonstrate the power of longitudinal data. This booth provided copies of recently published materials, including an analysis of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, issue briefs on interoperability and teacher identifiers, and policy implications of longitudinal data systems.
eScholar: Expand Knowledge—Improve the Future
Shawn Bay, Wolf Boehme, and Ron Streeter, eScholar
eScholar provides the leading data warehouse for K-12 education used by 5 states and the leading statewide student identification system used by 10 states and by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Migrant Education. Our product managers were available to speak with attendees about eScholar's comprehensive suite of products: eScholar Complete Data Warehouse™, eScholar Uniq-ID™ System, eScholar VISTA Reporting™, eScholar Data Manager™, eScholar RADAR™ (Review, Audit, Detect and Report System), and eScholar PICS™ (Personnel Information Collection System).
ESP Solutions Group
Anne-Marie Hart and Joshua Goodman, ESP Solutions Group
ESP is solely dedicated to improving data management in PK-12 education. We provide products and services for state education agencies in mission-critical areas such as data management, data collection and exchange, data analysis, and data reporting. ESP personnel have advised all 52 education agencies as well as the U.S. Department of Education on the practice of PK-12 school data management for state and federal reporting. We are regarded as leading experts in understanding the data and technology implications of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), Education Data Exchange Network (EDEN/EDFacts), and the Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF).
How to Automate State Data Collection, Unique Student Identification, and Data Warehouse Integration
Sandra Richards and Greg Hill, Edustructures
Increasingly, states and districts thinking about state reporting, unique student identification, and data warehouse integration are relying on the Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF). The SIF vertical reporting, student locator, and application integration frameworks are reliable and cost-effective. Several state departments of education such as South Carolina, Virginia, Utah, and Wyoming are successfully employing SIF solutions from Edustructures. The Edustructures presentation demonstrated the methodologies and solutions used by states to enhance the education process.
Hupp Information Technologies
Dean Hupp, Hupp Information Technologies
Hupp Information Technologies is a consulting company specializing in teacher certification, highly qualifying teachers, and associated reporting. We demonstrated multiple systems designed to automate and simplify the certification and highly qualified teacher processes.
Is Your Data Integration Vertical or Horizontal?
Gay Sherman, Aziz Elia, and Michelle Elia, Computer Power Solutions of Illinois
This demonstration defined the differences in horizontal and vertical data integration using the Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) specification. As states begin using SIF as a standard for reporting, school districts are facing a new set of decisions to make regarding data integration. What's the difference between horizontal and vertical integration? When do you need a zone integration server? Where do you put the SIF agents? Examples of horizontal and vertical implementations were discussed, as well as what you need to do to start your SIF data integration project.
Local Level Tools to Examine Statewide Testing Data
Jacqueline Pezzulo and Ted Smith, Questar III
This demonstration showed how New York State schools use data analysis tools to make improvements in curriculum and instruction.
National Transcript Center
Patrick McDonald and Bob Fulton, National Transcript Center
The National Transcript Center was established to improve the efficiency, reliability, cost, and security of academic transcript exchange. Partnering with K–12 schools, state education agencies, colleges and universities, and co-academic organizations, the National Transcript Center network allows member institutions to communicate with the National Transcript Center server using the open standard of its choice. A proprietary data translation engine expands the typical trading partner network to include schools on any major protocol.
NCES Online Handbooks State Customization Tool
Ben Shapiro, Kforce Government Solutions
Nzinga Damali-Cathie, Council of Chief State School Officers
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Data Handbooks provide guidance on consistency in data definitions and maintenance for education data, so that such data can be accurately aggregated and analyzed. The online Handbook database provides the Nonfiscal Handbooks in a searchable web tool. This database includes data elements for students, staff, and education institutions. In an effort to encourage more states to use the handbooks, NCES has developed a state customization tool. States are able to use this tool to build a data dictionary by adding to, deleting from, and editing the NCES data elements and option sets. The tool offers the advantages of a built-in foundation of data elements and option sets, state control of the content update schedule, and a well-defined database hierarchy. The demonstration provided a brief overview of the NCES Handbooks and a presentation of the features and functionality of the customization tool.
Overview and Demonstration of SchoolDude's IT Asset Management Solution
Nick Mirisis, SchoolDude.com
As schools purchase more and more computers each year, they have done this with little or no staff increase. This session focused on how to revolutionize the way you manage your technology assets by streamlining all aspects of IT asset administration, from monitoring and reporting to planning and lifecycle costing.
Because SchoolDude's product suite is delivered over the Internet, the technology is affordable for both small and large districts. SchoolDude's technology management suite is designed specifically for educational institutions and includes solutions for incident management and IT asset management. More than 2,500 educational institutions across the nation are already utilizing SchoolDude's web-native solutions.
Predictive Analytics Applications in K–12
Leo Bohman, SPSS
Many K–12 entities, districts to state departments of education, have made investments in organizing data into longitudinal data marts or data warehouses. Predictive Analytics extends the value of those investments by integrating the power of statistical tools into the data to address common K–12 analytical applications. The demonstration showed examples of Predictive Analytics applied to K–12 data.
School Performance Management Solutions
Niquelle Cotton, Alvin Crawford, and Andy Brenner, SchoolNet
K–12 public school districts nationwide are partnering with SchoolNet for comprehensive, web-based school performance management solutions that transform data into a powerful tool to improve teaching and learning. Since 1998, SchoolNet has been the leader in data-driven decision making solutions that enable school districts to integrate, access, and analyze student demographic and performance data across their district, school, classroom, as well as individual student. We are passionate about helping districts, educators, and students achieve extraordinary results: AYP goals met, achievement gaps narrowed, teacher proficiency enhanced, and learning accelerated.
State and Local Data Quality Assurance Using Certify Software
Richard Paar and James Lair, Certica Solutions
State and local education agencies use Certica Solutions' software to validate and certify the quality of education data collections. Certify™ allows education agencies to automatically detect and view the sources of data quality problems, such as missing data, incomplete data, corrupted data, or misunderstood rules. The software provides data quality metrics and an online, detailed data quality report card, so schools, districts, and state personnel can easily review and correct data errors. Real examples of K–12 data from selected data quality programs were demonstrated.
Statewide Data Systems
Rick Whitehead and Mike Hildreth, Third Day Solutions/CIBER
Third Day Solutions, now CIBER, shows it has developed a data tracking and receiving system that is tailored to the specific state/district educational department's needs and objectives. A common theme is that states and districts are working on warehousing using Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) for vertical reporting.
The Reality of Statewide Data Collection
Joe Fox and Kim Schroeder, Infinite Campus
The reality of collecting data and making it count is the ability to collect data statewide at the source—in the classroom. States need a dependable data collection system to gather current, accurate data. They need to collect data from disparate systems and adapt to whatever changes may arise in the future.
Infinite Campus is the data collection system that four states rely on to collect student data in very unique ways. Stop by this demonstration for an overview and see how it is unlike any other data collection system available on the market today.