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Temple University Center for Research
in Human Development and Education |
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The School
Interoperability Framework:
Efficient Information Infrastructures in K-12 Education
132
by
Johann W. Sarmiento
Temple University
As schools and districts attempt to scale up their
technology-based systems to support diverse educational and
administrative processes that comprise their "information
infrastructure," new implementation challenges arise.
Sustainability, reliability, and interoperability become
increasingly decisive for effective technology integration.
Among these challenges, software and data
interoperability-the ability of different information
systems to interchange electronic records and perform
coordinated data processes seamlessly, effectively, and
independent of their technical particularities-is a critical
step toward advancing the productivity of information
systems in K-12. Currently, productivity is lost when school
district employees retype information in different software
systems; the accuracy of such data is compromised and,
often, incompatible systems or data formats make it
unmanageable to integrate data to guide decision making, a
function critical for successful administration of
educational organizations.
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Data
interoperability is not a challenge unique to information
systems in education. For instance, the economic cost
resulting from non-interoperability of information systems
in the U.S. automotive industry's supply chain has been
estimated to be at least $1 billion per year (Brunnermeier &
Martin, 1999). Standardization on a single, all-encompassing
system is one possible solution, as is the implementation of
exchange mechanisms for dissimilar systems to send and
receive data from each other. Standardization is commonly
believed to provide the most positive effects including
reduction of data incompatibilities, data redundancy, errors
associated with data reentry, and a potential lowering of
the total cost of ownership (TCO). However, this option is
not always viable or preferable. In scenarios where no
single quality system exists that covers all needed
functionality or where there is a strong need to support
current and future local control of the systems used,
standardization might result in single solutions failing to
raise the productivity of information systems. Some
integrated school management systems currently exist, which
cover most of the critical educational and administrative
functions in schools and districts. However, K-12
institutions now have a vendor-neutral alternative to a
single provider for their student, food services, human
resources, transportation, library, and financial
information systems as well as any other current or future
electronic information system. The School Interoperability
Framework (SIF) defines a method for distinct information
systems to cooperate, for instance, by propagating the
registration of a student from the central office to the
transportation, food services, and library management
systems. An integrated learning system will even be able to
tailor specific diagnostic assessments and instructional
lessons for the student without manual reentry or the need
for a single comprehensive system to handle all data
transactions.
Interoperability frameworks such as SIF represent a solution
that combines data standardization with the definition of
mechanisms for data to flow automatically between disparate
information systems. The Data Interchanges Standards
Association, Inc. (DISA) has developed standards for the use
of electronic data interchange (EDI) for a wide variety of
industries including transportation, finance, government,
insurance, health, and others that currently serve as
foundations for the development of multiple interoperability
frameworks. In the education field, SIF extends seminal work
of several federal and state government agencies,
elementary/secondary institutions, postsecondary
institutions such as the Postsecondary Electronic Standards
Council, and the U.S. Department of Education's National
Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The Standardization
of Postsecondary Education Electronic Data Exchange (SPEEDE)
and the Exchange of Permanent Records Electronically for
Students and Schools (ExPRESS) currently define methods for
elementary/secondary and postsecondary education to
efficiently transmit student academic records from one
institution to another. Further advancing these initial
steps and building on the widespread use in K-12 of
computers and computer networks, SIF aims at enabling any
K-12 software system to interact with others and share any
relevant school data effectively.
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