National Curriculum DemandsAs school data becomes pivotal to instructional decisions, storing and retrieving data becomes a processes of vital importance because data driven decision making is the way schools in the future will be forced to provide evidence of effectiveness, not only academically but economically as well. School Districts across the nation are now faced more than ever with the task of investing in resources to build and safeguard data repositories that will meet the overwhelming demands of the multiple measures real time reporting required by local, state and federal agencies.
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Interoperability FrameworkThe Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) Specification is a "set of common definitions for school data and a set of rules for how the data can be shared". Data is broken up into zones that are managed by a central Zone Integration Server (ZIS).The ZIS then sends out and receives data from all of the different SIF-enabled applications Application Agents (See Reference).
Traditionally, the standalone software applications being used by public school districts have the limitation of data isolation; that is, it is difficult to access, share and integrate a cumulative data reporting system. This often results in redundant data entry, meaning that data entry are not standardized through multiple software applications which influences data integrity, and inefficient or incomplete reporting. |
Interoperability FrameworkIn such cases, all department information can appear in multiple places but may not be identical, or decision makers may be working with incomplete or inaccurate information entered by multiple users. When multiple key entry platforms, end users, lack of central backup systems are a Katrina nightmare waiting to happen in multiple district across this nation as well as a technology coordinators increase in technical support and problems associated with maintaining numerous proprietary systems. To resolve these problems SIF (Schools Interoperability Framework) products began to appear on the market as early as 1999. SIF was initiated to create "a blueprint for educational software interoperability and data access that threaded individual software applications through a central server where seamless data could be converged, stored, backed-up and used in real time reporting.
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Through the development of ZIS architecture, school districts should be committed to a number of data analysis tools for tracking school improvement while allowing the flexibility of adding future applications to the data sharing zone. Such data analysis will include monitoring district constructed benchmark assessments; measuring student performances through content analysis; tracking at-risk student performance; and providing real-time student assessment information to each Department of Education Zone Integrated Server (ZIS) through an Extensible Markup Language (XML), an industry Open-Standard data format which allows state and federal agencies the readability of pertinent student-tracking information.
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Although the Five Tenet model for the STAR implementation can be applied separately through SIF/Zone compliance, the STAR model will disseminate
information on how to blend individual assessment tools into the big picture of the school improvement process. The STAR tenet discussed in the second section of the application will include the development of assessment tools within the SIF/Zone Framework to data-driven decisions in the following areas: |
Tenet Three, ‘Measuring and Analyzing Real-Time Cumulative Growth,’ involves frequency decisions on retrieval and dissemination of information. The frequency for data retrieval should be designed in such a way that assimilation of data is reported within relative short periods of time. The frequency for data retrieval from individual instructors should be instantaneous and district reporting to curriculum consultants will not extend beyond a one-week period of time. The information obtained from individual teacher assessments can be transferred to a district-level, data collection server to map curriculum progression. Data gained from this type of mapping program would give teachers real-time benchmarks regarding the skills needing further reinforcement prior to year-end state assessment.
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